Ann Madsen: Mormon Scholar
Ann Nicholls Madsen was a scholar, a retired professor of ancient scripture, and a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
She was born in 1932 and raised in Salt Lake City and graduated from the University of Utah with a degree in elementary education. She met her husband, Truman G. Madsen at the U. He had written an anonymous article entitled “To My Dream Girl” for a church magazine, and Ann told him on their first date that if she ever met the author she would marry him. Truman never told her until they became engaged. After they were married, they moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, for his graduate education at Harvard. He was thirty-five when he was called to preside over the New England Mission; they had three children by this time. They later became foster parents to a Navajo son. Ann embraced the variety of cultures she found on the east coast.
When Truman went to teach at Brigham Young University, Ann pursued graduate studies in ancient studies with a minor in Hebrew. After graduating with a master’s degree, she became a part-time instructor in religious education. She had the opportunity twice to live in Israel with her husband and she taught Bible classes at BYU’s Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies. Getting to know both Israeli and Palestinian women led her to write Making Their Own Peace: Twelve Women of Jerusalem. She was also a poet.
Ann was an Isaiah scholar and taught classes in both Old and New Testament and taught at BYU for forty-seven years. She served on the Sunday School general board. She was on the Church writing committee for more than fifteen years. She served as stake Relief Society president in a BYU stake and a Relief Society president in a Jerusalem branch.
She passed away on October 26, 2022.
