Kate Holbrook died on August 20, 2022, in Salt Lake City after battling rare cancer of the eye. She was 50.
Kate’s death was announced by her husband, Sam Brown, on August 20 on Twitter.
“Today I have no poetry, only a broken heart and the brutal fact that broke it.”
“Kate died this morning. Funeral expected this Saturday in Salt Lake City,” Brown tweeted.
Kate Holbrook was a historian and writer who worked as the managing historian of women’s history in the Church History Department (CHD) of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church).
Born January 13, 1972, Kate Holbrook earned a BA in English and Russian literature from Brigham Young University, an MTS from Harvard Divinity School, and a PhD in Religious Studies from Boston University.
She served as an LDS Church missionary from 1993 to 1994 in Samara, Russia. Her primary research interests were religion, gender, and food.
Holbrook was the first recipient of the Eccles Fellowship in Mormon Studies at the University of Utah. While at Harvard College, she was voted Teaching Fellow of the Year.
Holbrook was married to the physician, medical researcher, and religious historian, Samuel Brown; they had three daughters; Amelia, Lucia, and Persephone Holbrook-Brown.