Maureen Ursenbach Beecher

Maureen Ursenbach Beecher was a professor of English and an author. She was on the faculty at Brigham Young University for twenty-five years and retired in 1997. She was also a research historian with the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Church History, formerly part of BYU, and an editor and senior research associate in the Church History Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints.

Maureen’s main focus in her writings was Eliza R. Snow and her literary works. She is the author of Eliza and Her Sisters, The Eliza Enigma, and editor of The Personal Writings of Eliza Roxcy Snow. She also penned Joseph Smith: One Step Closer, Women at Winter Quarters, and Her Honor Judge Durham. With Janath R. Cannon, she wrote Women of Covenant: The Story of Relief Society. She wrote many personal essays, reviews, and literary criticisms. She was the founding president of the Association for Mormon Letters (1976).

Maureen was born on March 19, 1935, in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. She served as a missionary in the Swiss-Austrian Mission. She earned her bachelor’s degree from BYU. She earned both her master’s degree in English and her PhD in comparative literature from the University of Utah. She retired to Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.