Biographical History

Virginia Farrer Cutler (1905-1993), educator, author, lecturer.

Virginia Farrer Cutler was born 17 December 1905 in Park City, Utah, to Robert and Mary Farrer. She attended the University of Utah and received her bachelor's degree in 1926. She married Ralph Garr Cutler in 1929 in Salt Lake City. After only two years of marriage, with a young child and another on the way, Culter became a widow in 1931. Because of the depression, Cutler realized she would have to work hard to find employment. She went back to school and received her master's from Stanford University and her doctrate from Cornell University. In 1946 she became a professor and head of the Home Economics Department at the University of Utah. She worked there for eight years and during that time also created the Family Home Living Center. In 1954, with her sons now gone, Cutler became more adventurous and took a position as an educational advisor for the State Department's International Cooperation Administration in Southeast Asia, first in Bangkok, Thailand, for two years and then in Djakarta, Indonesia, for five years. In 1961 she returned to Utah and became the dean of the College of Family Living at Brigham Young University. While there she also contributed to the planning of Heritage Halls. She was awarded the Fullbright Fellowship to the University of Ghana in Legon where she taught for three years starting in 1966. She retired in 1970 and spent the next five years working as the chairman of a Consumer Action Panel for the appliance industry.

Her major honors include United States delegate to the World Forum on women, Brussels, 1962; Joseph F. Smith Family Living Award, Brigham Young University, 1962; American Association of University Women, woman of the year, 1966; first distinguished professor at the Brigham Young University, 1967; appointed by President Nixon to the Consumer Advisory Council, 1972-1975; Utah Mother of the year, 1972; member of Utah Governor's commission on the Status of Women, 1972; distinguished service awards from the University of Utah and Cornell University; Abraham Smoot Public Service Award, Brigham Young University, 1982; Outstanding Home Economist, Ricks College Home Economics Department, 1984; Beehive Hall of Fame, 1986. She died 20 May 1993 in Eugene, Oregon, where her younger son lived.