Osborne J. P. Widtsoe

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Osborne John Peder Widtsoe (December 12, 1877 – March 14, 1920) was an LDS Church leader, educator, and missionary. He was the principal of the Latter-day Saints University in Salt Lake City and a professor of English at the University of Utah. He became the first LDS missionary to serve in Rarotonga, in the Cook Islands, conducting mission work there from 1897 to 1901 after earlier service in the Society Islands. Born in Namsos, Norway, he was the brother of John A. Widtsoe and was baptized into the LDS Church in 1886 in the Utah Territory. He earned a bachelor’s degree from what is now Utah State University and a master’s degree from Harvard University; he also studied at Brigham Young College in Logan. He married Rosetta Homer and they had at least two children. At the time of his appointment as head of the University of Utah’s English Department, he was serving as a bishop. He also served as assistant editor of the LDS Church publication Juvenile Instructor and, at his death, was on the general board of the Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Association. He helped compile the sermons and writings of Joseph F. Smith into Gospel Doctrine, working with Albert E. Bowen and Franklin S. Harris. Widtsoe wrote several works during his life.