| Emma Lou Thayne Emma Lou Thayne has written thirteen books of poetry, fiction, essays, and travel stories. She has been widely anthologized and has published internationally on kinship and peace among people and nations. She has been active in encouraging public attention to mental health, spirituality, and the advancement of women. Her words to the hymn “Where Can I Turn for Peace?” have been translated into dozens of languages as has her chatbook of poems about war and the environment, How Much for the Earth? (1983). She has been married to Mel Thayne for fifty-three years, has five daughters and sons-in-law, nineteen grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. Emma Lou taught English and was the women’s tennis coach at the University of Utah, where she was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters in 2000. The Emma Lou Thayne Community Service Center is a source of great joy as it provides students and faculty at Salt Lake Community College with broad opportunities to serve. [from Discoveries: Two Centuries of Poems by Mormon Women, 113] Included in 75 Significant Mormon Poets View Works by this Person |
| Web Site | A Woman of Gentle Strength See this article from Continuum about Emma Lou Thayne http://www.alumni.utah.edu/continuum/winter02/gentlestrength.htm |
| Also Known As | Emma Lou W. Thayne; Emma Lou Thane |
| Religion | Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints |
| Birth Date | October 22, 1924 |
| Birth Place | Salt Lake City, UT |
| Parents | Father: Homer C. Warner (automobile dealer) Mother: Grace Warner (an artist; maiden name Richards) |
| Spouse | Melvin E. Thayne (real estate broker), married December 27, 1949. |
| Children | Five daughters: Becky (Mrs. Paul Markosian), Rinda (Mrs. James Kilgore), Shelley (Mrs. Paul Rich), Diane, Megan. |
| Education | University of Utah, B.A. in English, 1945. University of Utah, M.A. in Creative Writing, 1970. |
| Career | University of Utah, part-time Associate Instructor, Department of English and Division of Continuing Education, 1946-1976. University of Utah, part-time Religion Instructor, Institute of Religion, 1983-1985. Universtiy of Utah, Head Coach for Women's Intercollegiate Tennis Team, 1966-71. Murray High School, Murray, UT, English teacher, 1950-1951. Olympus Jr. High, Salt Lake City, UT, English teacher, 1949-1950. |
| Affiliations | University of Utah Alumni |
| Awards | Association for Mormon Letters award for poetry, 1985 (for How Much for the Earth?). Best Book of Poems award, 1980, and Association for Mormon Letters award for poetry, 1982 (for Once in Israel). University of Utah, Distinguished Alumna Award. Brigham Young University, David O. McKay Humanities Award. |
| Personal Statement | Emma Lou Thayne writes: "Out of a background of mountain living in a comradely athletic-aesthetic family has come the major part of my writing. Philosophically and culturally attached to Mormondom . . . I have inadvertantly become a spokeswoman for the moderate Mormon woman . . . my writing deals with the dichotomies, frustrations, pleasures and harmonies tangled in the dailiness of expecting more than dogma and ritual in being a woman." From the Thayne Community Service Center, Salt Lake Community College: "Emma Lou Thayne is a peacemaker, she cares deeply about people. Whether writing of love or loss, triumph or suffering, Emma Lou sees the extraordinary in the ordinary, she recognizes dignity in daily experience, and she magnifies moments that many would allow to pass without recognition. Emma Lou Thayne is a poet, and her poems celebrate connections." |
| Other Biographical Information | Board of Directors, Deseret News, 1977- Board of Directors, Utah Arts Council. Board of Directors, Utah Endowment for the Humanities. Board of Directors, Young Women's Mutual Improvement Association. Nationally ranked Senior Women's Singles and Doubles tennis player. |
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