Richard Andrews, founder of the Utah Chapter of American Atheists, addressed the November general meeting of Humanists of Utah. Andrews was a long time personal friend and correspondent of Opal Fisher, the widow of Vardis Fisher.

Vardis Alvero Fisher was born in Annis, Idaho, in 1895. His parents were sent by Brigham Young to settle the Upper Snake River Valley. Since there were no schools nearby, Vardis was taught by his mother in his early years. When he was 12 years old, he and his brother were sent to town attend school. They lived with an aunt for one year and then moved into a house of their own.

It was in Annis that Fisher met his first wife, Leona, whom he married in 1917. After graduating from High School, he attended the University of Utah. He attended graduate school at the University of Chicago. Here he first experienced how the non-Mormon world lived. After several trips back and forth between Salt Lake City and Chicago involving various teaching positions, Fisher received a Ph.D.(magna cum laude) from the University of Chicago.

Fisher wrote numerous books and articles during his lifetime. Among them is a series of 12 books known collectively as the Testament. These volumes chronicle the history of life, beginning with Darkness and the Deep (evolution of the ancestors of humans) through Orphans in Gethsemane (describing the human condition in the 20th century--with our male-dominated, Judeo-Christian Western society, its families, its values, and its wars). The other 10 volumes in the series are: The Golden Rooms (life in caves and use of fire), Intimations of Eve (matriarchy and moon worship), Adam and the Serpent (patriarchy replacing matriarchy), The Divine Passion (worship of the sun and women's lot in a male-dominated world), Valley of Vision (King Solomon--a "different" view), Island of the Innocent (contrasts Greek culture with Judaism), Jesus Came Again (the most controversial of the series because it treats Jesus as a human), A Goat for Azazel (delineates the pagan origins of Christianity), Peace Like a River (treats female subjugation), and My Holy Satan (describes the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition).

Fisher was a most prolific author. Other titles of interest include: Children of God, which demystifies the Mormon story of Joseph Smith; The Mothers, chronicling the Donner Party; and Tale of Valor, which describes the Lewis and Clark expedition. He also wrote Mountain Man, which was the primary source for the Sydney Pollack and Robert Redford film, Jeremiah Johnson. Besides his novels and historical chronologies, Fisher wrote regular, and sometimes controversial, columns for the Idaho Statesman and Idaho Statewide.

By any standard, Vardis Fisher led an extraordinary and exemplary life.

--Richard Andrews
Founder, Utah Chapter of American Atheists