Mary Bradford

Feminist and faithful Latter-day Saint Mary Lythgoe Bradford died peacefully in her Provo home on November 8, 2022 at the age of 92.
Born in Salt Lake City, Utah on October 24, 1930 as the eldest child of quiet, hardworking descendants of Mormon pioneers, Mary remembered with fondness her idyllic formative years in a caring family and LDS ward while living in a modest home on an acre of land filled with fruit trees, a vegetable garden, a cow, and a view of Mount Olympus.
Mary became the first member of her family to graduate from college, earning bachelor's and master's degrees in English literature from the University of Utah. Mary was teaching at Brigham Young University when she agreed to marry the love of her life - fellow extrovert and BYU instructor Charles H. ("Chick") Bradford. They exchanged vows in Salt Lake's LDS temple on September 12, 1957.
Mary and Chick soon moved to the Washington, D.C. area, where she would live for 62 years. While there, they raised three children, served separately and together in a number of church, community and government-related leadership positions, and pursued their passions for thinking, writing, public speaking, and collaborating with others in worthy causes. Chick, who lived an energetic and highly productive life despite dealing with FSH muscular dystrophy, died of Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 1991 at the age of 63.
Mary and Chick's children recall a loving and nurturing home environment filled with laughter and conversation, music and dancing, and a revolving door of short and sometimes longer-term guests of extended family, friends, and those simply seeking free accommodations.
Mary produced a variety of influential written works while navigating an active family, church, and community life. Mary's thought and themes varied but would often touch on her own experiences as a believing, family-oriented LDS feminist with a moderate left-of-center worldview and a self-assuredness that her perspective aligned with what it means to be a Christian.
Mary played a key role in popularizing the personal essay, poetry, and other artistic forms as means of improving relationships across diverse family, religious and community dynamics. Mary also encouraged subsequent generations of believing Mormon feminists in their own advocacy as they ventured onto new platforms of expression.
Mary's literary accomplishments include:
Editor of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, 1976-1982;
Mormon Women Speak (Editor, Olympus Publishing, 1982);
Leaving Home: Personal Essays (Signature Books, 1987), which received the Personal Essay Award from the Association for Mormon Letters in 1988;
Lowell L. Bennion: Teacher, Counselor, Humanitarian (Dialogue Foundation, 1995), which received the Mormon History Association Best Biography Award and the Evans Biography Award for best biography;
Purple: Poems (Dialogue Foundation, 2009);
The Harp (Anam Cara Publishing, 2020), Mary's first novel.
In addition, Mary's works received prominent consideration in Mormon Feminism: Essential Writings (Brooks, Steenblik, and Wheelwright, Oxford University Press, 2015), a collection of "the best Mormon feminist thought and writing". She also has been included on lists of significant Mormon poets, been referred to as the "first Mormon critic to engage on a scholarly level with the work of Virginia Sorensen", and received the Distinguished Emeritus Alumni Award from the University of Utah.
Mary's Dialogue editorship required her to collaborate productively with those of divergent viewpoints within both the LDS church and the scholarly community, which she did with characteristic aplomb. During her years at the helm of this journal of Mormon thought, Mary successfully tackled both the positive and sometimes negative aspects of the church with a sympathetic but unflinching eye for truth and fairness.
In "BIG D/Little d: The View from the Basement", Dialogue 20 (Fall 1987: 13-23), Mary wrote wryly of her experiences editing Dialogue and often breaking important new ground in the field of Mormon studies from the self-described "terrestrial" basement office of her suburban home, while her husband served upstairs in a presumably more "celestial" home office as bishop of the Arlington (VA) Ward. She noted during this time seeing Lech Walesa on TV "as he was released from prison. He was speaking in the same style that sent him there. But I think I know why Walesa doesn't shut up. He has to speak. And some of us have to write and publish. We can't help it. Not doing it would be too much like dying."
Robert Rees - Mary's predecessor as Dialogue editor - aptly and humorously described Mary while commenting on The Harp: "For the past seventy years, [Mary] has been one of the boldest, most thoughtful, and most eloquent voices on the Mormon landscape. As an award-winning poet, essayist, and biographer, her work explores the range and richness of Latter-day life during a time of important challenge and change. Having mastered poetry, the personal essay, and scholarly biography, now in her ninetieth year, Mary has ventured into the world of fiction. The Harp, a story of the discovery of family history, cultural mythology, and love, is set in Mary's adopted country of Ireland. What can we expect next from Mary-a five-act play on polygamous marriage or the War in Heaven? Stay tuned." (While Mary ran out of time to produce such a play in this life, she may very well do so in the next!)
When asked at age 85 to name her greatest accomplishments, Mary responded, "My children. I'm really pleased with all my kids and grandkids and the choices they've made. I'm also quite proud about the books I've written. I [also] couldn't go on without the people in my life. Brother Bennion always said, 'People count the most.'"
Besides her husband Chick, family members preceding Mary in death include her younger siblings Thomas, Dennis and Gaye, her beloved daughter Lorraine, and many predeceased mentors and friends.
Her survivors include her son Stephen Bradford and his wife Jane Bradford (Berkeley, CA); son-in-law David Kelley (Great Falls, VA); and son Scott Bradford and his wife Sharon Bradford (Provo, UT).
Mary is also survived by the following grandchildren and their families: David Bradford, his wife Taylor Parsell, and their children Rosalyn and Harrison (Berkeley, CA); Chad Gravallese, his wife Tira Gravallese, and their children Oliver, Emmett and Briella (Mapleton, UT); Louisa Bradford and her partner Adam Albro (Salt Lake City, UT); Aaron Gravallese and his wife Melissa Conway (Ashburn, VA); Marilyn Krieger and her husband Kurt Krieger (Charlottesville, VA); Alice Brown, her husband Zach Brown, and their sons Callahan and Luke (Birmingham, AL); Gabriel Bradford, his wife Brooke Bradford, and their daughter Ruby (Durham, NC); Thomas Bradford (Winston Salem, NC); Tara Gravallese and her husband Anthony Draper (Spotsylvania, VA); Daniel Bradford and his wife Abby Woodfield (Provo, UT); Christy Bradford (Provo, UT); and Eva Gravallese (Blacksburg, VA). Mary's sisters-in-law Gwen Goaslind, Gwen Lythgoe and Marti Lythgoe, and brother-in-law Kelly Smith, also survive her.
For anyone who wishes to honor Mary's exemplary life, we invite you in lieu of flowers to consider a donation in her name to Latter-day Saint Charities - Humanitarian Aid, FSH Muscular Dystrophy and/or the Dialogue Foundation (see links below).
A memorial service celebrating Mary's life will be held at 3:00 p.m. on Saturday, November 19th, at Nelson Mortuary, 4780 N. University Ave., in Provo, Utah. This service will be livestreamed (see link below). A second memorial service is planned for April 2023 in northern Virginia.