Anderson was born in Salt Lake City, Utah Territory in 1889, the same year that Wilford Woodruff became President of the Church.

On 6 April 1970, church president Joseph Fielding Smith released Anderson from his secretarial duties and called him to serve as an Assistant to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

In 1978, Anderson became an emeritus general authority and was relieved of his day-to-day duties as a Seventy.

The others are former Presiding Patriarch, Eldred G. Smith, who in 2009 surpassed Anderson as the longest-lived general authority in LDS Church history,[citation needed] the third is church president Russell M. Nelson, and the fourth is emeritus general authority Robert L. Backman.

This article related to a person involved in the Latter Day Saint movement is a stub.