He finished eighth grade at a grammar school in Clifton and his parents allowed him to continue his education at Oneida Stake Academy in Preston, Idaho.

After two summers of study in 1916 and 1917, Lee passed the state's fifteen-subject test to receive his second- and third-class certificates.

Fern died in 1962 and on June 17, 1963, Lee married Freda Joan Jensen, a former mission companion's girlfriend who had remained unmarried.

[2] In 1932, at age thirty-three, Lee became a community leader when he was appointed to fill a vacancy in the Salt Lake City Commission.

Although he also pursued a political career, he began full-time church service when he was called to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in 1941.

Historians observe that Brown continued to seek to reverse the ban "administratively", but Lee was among those who noted that it was a matter of God making his will known through revelation.

[6] In December 1969, Lee initiated a release to church leaders, signed by Brown and N. Eldon Tanner, both serving as counselors in the First Presidency.

This release regarded the church's support for equal opportunities and civil rights, but also indicated that priesthood policy would not change until God revealed it through revelation.

He continued to gain practical experience for what was expected to be a long presidency of his own, given the fact that he was twenty-four years younger than Smith.

Later that year, Lee organized the church's Jerusalem Branch and presided over its second Area Conference, held in Mexico; and four months prior to his death, presided over the first Area Conference for Germany, Austria, Holland, Italy, Switzerland, France, Belgium, and Spain, held in Munich on August 24–26, 1973.

Lee's teachings as an apostle were the 2002 course of study in the LDS Church's Sunday Relief Society and Melchizedek priesthood classes.