Kate Holbrook solutions questions as co-editors of “The First Fifty Years of Reduction Society,” launched by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on the Church Historian’s Press, are interviewed on the Reduction Society Constructing in Salt Lake Metropolis, Monday, Feb. 22, 2016. Holbrook died on Aug. 20, 2022, at age 50. Ravell Name, Deseret Information
Historian Kate Holbrook, heart, speaks throughout a worldwide “Face to Face” church historical past broadcast in Nauvoo, Illinois, on Sept. 9, 2018. Collaborating have been Elder Quentin L. Prepare dinner, of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Holbrook and historian Matt Develop. Holbrook died on Aug. 20, 2022. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Kate Holbrook, author, historian and a number one voice for Latter-day Saint ladies’s historical past, died Saturday, Aug. 20, 2022. Church Historical past Division
Kate Holbrook, historian, author and champion of Latter-day Saint ladies’s historical past, died Saturday, Aug. 20, 2022. She was 50.
Her reason behind dying was listed as a “uncommon most cancers of the attention,” in response to her obituary. Her husband, Sam Brown, introduced her passing on social media Saturday.
“Right now I've no poetry, solely a damaged coronary heart and the brutal indisputable fact that broke it,” Brown wrote in a tweet. “Kate died this morning. Funeral anticipated this Saturday in Salt Lake Metropolis.”
Right now I've no poetry, solely a damaged coronary heart and the brutal indisputable fact that broke it. Kate died this morning. Funeral anticipated this Saturday in Salt Lake Metropolis.
— Sam Brown (@SamBrown_LDS) August 20, 2022
“We're completely bereft, and we're additionally full of the enjoyment of her existence,” her household wrote in Holbrook’s obituary.
Key contributions
Holbrook served because the managing historian of ladies’s historical past within the Church Historical past Division of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Born in Santa Barbara, California, in Jan. 13, 1972, Holbrook was raised by her mom and her grandmother, Belle Fillmore Stewart, in Provo, Utah.
She served a Latter-day Saint mission in Russia earlier than graduating from Brigham Younger College. She went on to graduate from Harvard Divinity Faculty with a grasp of divinity, and earned a doctorate in non secular research from Boston College.
She was one in all two historians who joined Elder Quentin L. Prepare dinner, of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, in chatting with younger adults about church historical past matters in a “Face to Face” broadcast in 2018.
When Elder Prepare dinner was deciding on a feminine historian to look with him the Face-to-Face in Nauvoo, he needed somebody with three qualities, he mentioned in a tribute to Holbrook.
First, he was searching for somebody who may specific empathy and attain individuals who have challenges. Second, he wanted somebody who's skilled. Thirdly, he needed somebody with a deep and abiding testimony within the Lord Jesus Christ and his gospel, the apostle mentioned.
“Kate exemplifies all of those qualities,” Elder Prepare dinner mentioned. “4 years later, I’m usually approached by individuals who bear in mind the Face-to-Face in Nauvoo. And lots of, many occasions, they touch upon Kate and what her phrases on the stage — and who she is and what she represents — have influenced them in their very own lives and helped solidify their very own religion. We mourn with Kate’s household and buddies. Her passing is a major loss to your complete church.”
Matt Develop, managing director of the Church Historical past Division, was Holbrook’s supervisor for a few years and so they labored collectively on a number of tasks. He was additionally concerned within the 2018 Face-to-Face occasion.
“Kate has been a pacesetter, each within the Church Historical past Division and within the broader historic career, as she promoted a a lot deeper understanding of Latter-day Saint ladies’s historical past,” Develop mentioned. “A constant and persuasive advocate for a higher inclusion of ladies’s voices and experiences, Kate’s management meant that each one church historical past books and web sites — not simply these on which she immediately labored — did a significantly better job in highlighting devoted ladies who formed historical past. In consequence, Latter-day Saints world wide are a beneficiary of her imaginative and prescient and management.”
Holbrook was a key contributor to “The First Fifty Years of Reduction Society,” “On the Pulpit: 185 Years of Discourses by Latter-day Saint Ladies” and different publications highlighting the religion and dedication of early Latter-day Saint ladies.
Historian Kate Holbrook, heart, speaks throughout a worldwide “Face to Face” church historical past broadcast in Nauvoo, Illinois, on Sept. 9, 2018. Collaborating have been Elder Quentin L. Prepare dinner, of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Holbrook and historian Matt Develop. Holbrook died on Aug. 20, 2022.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Holbrook spoke at BYU Ladies’s Convention and lectured on the Neal A. Maxwell Institute in 2020. She was additionally a featured visitor on The Church Information podcast in 2021.
“Kate beloved Jesus along with her entire coronary heart. There wasn’t part of her that didn’t breathe God and gospel. She was honored to guide groups to inform the story of the Latter-day Saints to outsiders and the tales of ladies to her fellow Saints,” her obituary says.
“As she contemplated her passage from mortality with nice unhappiness, it was not as a result of she lacked confidence within the actuality of an afterlife. As an alternative, she mourned her bodily absence from the mortal lives of her beloveds. She held in her palms and her coronary heart each the knowledge that dying shouldn't be the top of us and the horrible tragedy of mortality reduce quick.”
Preserving ladies’s historical past
Holbrook joined the Church Historical past Division in 2011 as its first historian specializing in ladies’s historical past.
“Historical past must be instructed,” Holbrook mentioned in 2016, “in a means that integrates what males have been doing with what ladies have been doing.”
Holbrook sought historical past tasks that she thought would “matter to individuals right now and may also help us right now,” she mentioned.
“We have to see extra vividly the methods ladies’s contributions have been an integral a part of constructing the church all through church historical past,” Holbrook mentioned in 2016. “It’s one thing we have to see and perceive to know the right way to transfer ahead and to assist Latter-day Saint ladies actually really feel their price and, I feel, to really feel like this can be a place to place their power, to see that it's a place the place ladies have put their power to vital outcomes and achieved vital issues. Ladies actually having the ability to see how Mormon ladies have helped construct the church is a part of why I feel historical past issues.”
Holbook cared about ladies, mentioned Lisa Olsen Tait, managing historian of the Church Historical past Division.
“Kate actually cared about ladies — about ladies’s lives and experiences, their religion and their happiness,” Tait mentioned. “The whole lot she did as a historian, she did with a watch to capturing ladies’s voices from the previous and enriching ladies’s lives within the current. She was vigilant about ensuring that girls’s historical past would stay an space of deliberate focus for the division, recognizing that when it's taken with no consideration it's usually uncared for.”
Kate Holbrook, author, historian and a number one voice for Latter-day Saint ladies’s historical past, died Saturday, Aug. 20, 2022.
Church Historical past Division
The sentiment was echoed by Keith Erekson, the Church Historical past Division’s director of outreach and analysis.
“Kate introduced her excellent tutorial fame and her real kindness to this vital new position,” Erekson mentioned. “She shortly conceived and commenced to hold out a bunch of concepts that can lengthy bear fruit in serving to students of faith and non secular historical past perceive the church’s historical past and its document protecting practices.”
Response to Kate Holbrook’s passing
Holbrook was somebody who acknowledged the complexities of life as an individual of religion, mentioned Matthew S. McBride, director of publications for the Church Historical past Division.
“People who find themselves clear-eyed sufficient to see the complexities of life as an individual of religion, however who stay regular of their dedication to God and who work patiently to make issues higher, to alleviate struggling, to redress wrongs. Kate was such an individual,” McBride mentioned. “She spoke candidly and persuasively to many who have been unsettled of their religion. Her dedication to God was evident, even when addressing essentially the most tough questions. She was trustworthy about her personal struggles however evinced such steadiness. I can’t rely the quantity of people that, realizing I labored along with her, have approached me to say how stabilizing her phrases had been for them.”
She was described as a “bridge-builder” by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, a professor emerita at Harvard in addition to a buddy and mentor.
“Kate Holbrook made many vital contributions to Latter-day Saint historical past, American cultural historical past, non secular research, and Mormon research broadly outlined. She has been a bridge-builder all through her profession, mediating the historic views of professional students and church leaders, senior historians and undergraduates, Latter-day Saints and members of different non secular communities,” Ulrich mentioned. “She has been an articulate and persuasive spokesperson for Latter-day Saint historical past. At the same time as her well being failed, she continued to plan for conferences and tasks that might deliver students, college students and most people collectively round uncared for themes. Surmounting all these achievements have been the grace and knowledge that she radiated in each setting.”
Different buddies and colleagues mourned Holbrook’s passing and supplied tributes on social media over the weekend.
“MHA is heartbroken by the information that Dr. Kate Holbrook has handed away,” the Mormon Historical past Affiliation wrote in a tweet. “We're grateful for her scholarship on Latter-day Saint ladies and her service as managing historian of ladies’s historical past on the Church Historical past Division.”
MHA is heartbroken by the information that Dr. Kate Holbrook has handed away. We're grateful for her scholarship on Latter-day Saint ladies and her service as managing historian of ladies’s historical past on the Church Historical past Division.
— Mormon Historical past Affiliation (@MormonHistAssoc) August 22, 2022
Spencer Fluhman, government director of the Maxwell Institute:
“Kate Holbrook is a really brilliant gentle,” he wrote in a tweet. “All of us love her.”
Fluhman labored with Holbrook in her place on the Maxwell Institute’s board and launched the next assertion:
“Kate Holbrook is a power for good, far and huge, effectively past the bounds of her formal appointment on the Church Historical past Division. She builds bridges. She brings individuals collectively. She creates. She is so very sensible. She is form. All of us worth her voice. Her religion is unmistakable and infectious,” he mentioned.
“I've personally leaned on her perspective, on a variety of issues, for the higher a part of my 20-year profession in church training. She has left a mark on us and we're higher for it. Even by means of the ache and discomfort of her most cancers wrestle, she has been there, smiling, giving greater than she ever receives from us. For these of us privileged sufficient to work carefully along with her, she has been rather more than a colleague. She’s been a trusted buddy. We love her.”
W. Paul Reeve, professor and director of graduate research within the historical past division on the College of Utah:
“Kate was such a light-weight, Sam, and such a compassionate soul I’m so very sorry. My prayers are for God’s grace to carry and encompass you and your daughters as you mourn.”
Kate was such a light-weight, Sam, and such a compassionate soul. I am so very sorry. My prayers are for God's grace to carry and encompass you and your daughters as you mourn.
— Paul Reeve (@WPaulReeve) August 20, 2022
Matthew Bowman, affiliate professor of faith and historical past and Howard W. Hunter Chair of Mormon Research at Claremont Graduate College:
“I organized a convention with Kate Holbrook that become a e-book,” he wrote. “She cared deeply about ladies’s historical past, about opening and organizing communities, in regards to the energy of historical past to heal and make us higher. I realized from and leaned on her. Peace and prayers to her and her household.”
I organized a convention with Kate Holbrook that become a e-book. She cared deeply about ladies's historical past, about opening and organizing communities, in regards to the energy of historical past to heal and make us higher. I realized from and leaned on her. Peace and prayers to her and her household.
— Matthew Bowman (@mbbowman) August 20, 2022
Erika Koth Barrett wrote:
“Kate Holbrook was my inspiration for getting concerned in Mormon ladies historical past and sociology. Her work is invaluable and can positively impression thousands and thousands for years to return. She’s an enormous purpose ladies’s voices in Mormonism are being reclaimed. Previous, future, & current thank God for her.”
Kate Holbrook was my inspiration for getting concerned in Mormon ladies historical past and sociology. Her work is invaluable and can positively impression thousands and thousands for years to return. She's an enormous purpose ladies's voices in Mormonism are being reclaimed. Previous, future,& current thank God for her https://t.co/eEtd9QZ2np
— Erika Koth Barrett (@eleighbarrett) August 20, 2022
Benjamin Park, assistant professor of historical past at Sam Houston State College:
“Kate Holbrook was not solely an excellent scholar, however a phenomenally form individual. It is a heartbreaking loss.”
Kate Holbrook was not solely an excellent scholar, however a phenomenally form individual. It is a heartbreaking loss. https://t.co/9PYPEjIyLD
— Benjamin Park (@BenjaminEPark) August 20, 2022
Holbook is survived by her husband and the couple’s three daughters.
As an alternative of flowers, the household is encouraging well-wishers to donate to the Kate Holbrook Endowed Scholarship Fund at BYU for major caregivers of kids pursuing graduate work in humanities.