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Olive Lora Cook Derbidge

Olive Christensen

10 October 1870—31 May 1959

Born 10 Sept./10 Oct. 1870 in Salt Lake City.1 Daughter of Joseph Derbidge and Jane Cook.2 Member of the Salt Lake City Nineteenth Ward.3 Baptized as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by her father, 12 Oct. 1878.4 Attended the University of Utah Normal School, 1892–1894.5 Assistant secretary in the Nineteenth Ward Relief Society, 1895.6 Served as assistant secretary of the Primary general board, 1897–1905, and as secretary, 1905–1911.7 Worked as a stenographer, by 1900.8 Traveling companion of EBW to several conferences, 1903.9 Married Andrew Hyrum Christensen, 2 Dec. 1903, in Salt Lake City; two children.10 Named the children’s magazine of the Church, the Children’s Friend.11 Secretary of the Relief Society general board under EBW, 1911–1913.12 Member of the Author’s Club, 1921–1959.13 Member of the Salt Lake Stake Relief Society board, until 5 Jan. 1924; released due to ill health.14 Died 31 May 1959 in Salt Lake City.15

Footnotes

  1. 1 Record of Members Collection, 1836–1970, Nineteenth Ward, Salt Lake Stake, Early to 1886, p. 11, Olive Derbidge, CR 375 8, box 4709, folder 1, images 160–161/644 (restricted access), CHL. “Endowments of the Living, 1851–1889,” The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake Temple, vol. A, 1893–1900, p. 109, line 3906, Olive Lora Derbidge, 27 Nov. 1895, microfilm 184067, DGS 5271181 (restricted access), FHL. “Family Tree,” database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org, accessed 3 Mar. 2021), Olive Lora Cook Derbidge (KWCP-LRN).

  2. 2 Record of Members Collection, 1836–1970, Nineteenth Ward, Salt Lake Stake, Early to 1886, p. 11, Olive Derbidge, CR 375 8, box 4709, folder 1, images 160–161/644 (restricted access), CHL. “Endowments of the Living, 1851–1889,” The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake Temple, vol. A, 1893–1900, p. 109, line 3906, Olive Lora Derbidge, 27 Nov. 1895, microfilm 184067, DGS 5271181 (restricted access), FHL. 

  3. 3 Olive Derbidge Christensen, “To Present at Old Friends Club 1946,” in “Family Tree,” database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org, accessed 4 Jan. 2021), 1946, Olive Lora Cook Derbidge (KWCP-LRN), Memories.

  4. 4 Record of Members Collection, 1836–1970, Nineteenth Ward, Salt Lake Stake, Early to 1886, p. 11, Olive Derbidge, CR 375 8, box 4709, folder 1, images 160–161/644 (restricted access), CHL. 

  5. 5 Catalogue of the University of Utah Including the Territorial Normal School, 1893–94 and 1894–1895, with List of Students for 1892–93 and 1893–94 (Salt Lake City: University of Utah, 1893, 1894).

  6. 6 “Nineteenth Ward Society,” Salt Lake Herald, 10 July 1895, 5.

  7. 7 The Children’s Friend, Jan. 1902–Dec. 1907.

  8. 8 1900 U.S. Census, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake Co., UT, ED 31, p. 5A, Olive L. Derbidge.

  9. 9  EBW, Diary, 7–8 Aug. 1903. 

  10. 10 Salt Lake Co., UT, County Clerk, Marriage Records, 1887–1965, vol. O, p. 110, cert no. 13811, Andrew H. Christensen and Olive L. Derbidge, microfilm 429059, DGS4705935, image 585/787, FHL. 1910 U.S. Census, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake Co., UT, ED 132, p. 12, Olive D. Christensen.

  11. 11 “How the Children’s Friend Got Its Name,” Children’s Friend, Apr. 1940, 163.

  12. 12 Chronology, 2 Oct. 1910, Diaries of Emmeline B. Wells (https://www.churchhistorianspress.org/emmeline-b-wells/events?lang=eng#18901928, accessed 28 Sept. 2021). Carol Cornwall Madsen, Emmeline B. Wells: An Intimate History (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2017), 446.   

  13. 13 “S.L. Woman, Church Aide, Dies at 88,” Deseret News and Telegram (Salt Lake City), 1 June 1959.

  14. 14 Salt Lake Stake Relief Society, Minutes and Records, 1882–1973, LR 604 14, CHL, 1921–1922, image 63/91, 1923–1925, image 6/202.

  15. 15 Utah Department of Public Health, Utah Death Records, 1959–1964, Death Certificates, box 113, nos. 5–8, 1959, Registrar’s no. 1237, State file no. 59-18-1295, Olive Lora Derbidge Christensen, 31 May 1959, DGS 101152033, image 1152/2672, FHL. “Olive Lora Cook Derbidge Christensen,” Salt Lake City Cemetery, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake Co., UT, Find a Grave, posted 31 May 1959, memorial no. 103357576 (http://findagrave.com, accessed 4 Jan. 2021).