Jean Elizabeth Fossum was born on January 30, 1906 “with sawdust in [her] veins,” as she described, in the sawmill town of Baker, Oregon. Jean’s parents were Scandinavian, having immigrated to America after joining The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In 1926, Jean embarked on an ecclesiastical mission to California, where she preached to the interested, labored in the mission office, and even became president over the mission’s Primaries and Young Ladies Mutual Improvement Association (auxiliary Church units for children and young women respectively). “I am thrilled to my toes,” Jean wrote in a letter, “but… the position looks so big, and I feel so little.” Still, she dedicated herself to the responsibility for the remainder of her mission.
\nJean finished her mission in 1928, and in 1930 she married Andrew May. However, Andrew died in 1933, leaving Jean alone with their two sons. Jean rose to meet the tragedy and challenge, and she worked to support and raise her family.
\nIn 1959, after her sons were grown, Jean began working as head resident of Stover Hall (a Helaman residence building). Jean was fond of the young men there. She encouraged each to be a “true son of Helaman,” and they called her “Ma,” reenacting the Book of Mormon story in which a troop of young men called their beloved leader, Helaman, “Father.”
\nWith fond memories of her mission, Jean urged her “Stover boys” to also serve missions. Across her ten years as head resident, approximately 2,000 Stover residents became missionaries.
\nWhen Jean died in May 1969, her students mourned. BYU president Ernest Wilkinson remembered “an irresistible plea was made for a building to be named in her honor.” Later that year BYU named its newest Helaman Halls building May Hall, after Jean Fossum May.
\nWith 43 residents to each wing, May Hall’s early rooms were a tight fit for two roommates. Beds were pull-outs, and when both were out there was so little space roommates could only pass each other by turning sideways. Rooms had one window, one door, two closets, and two desks. Restrooms were communal to each wing and became “social gathering space[s].”
\nMay Hall gave rise to close friendships. Residents in a wing could end up doing nearly everything together: eating at the Cannon Center, studying at the library, listening to music, celebrating engagements, gathering for hall parties, and praying every evening. Residents had playful indoor water fights, followed by laborious efforts to dry the carpet with hair dryers. There were nicknames and banana bread; tender hugs and tearful goodbyes. One 1977 resident reminisced, “For the first time in my life I had sisters. We loved and lifted each other.”
\nBetween 1993 and 2005, BYU renovated all Helaman Halls buildings, including May Hall. Brought up to modern standards, May Hall still stands and still hosts women BYU students who carry on Jean May’s legacy of education, independence, and conviction.
","sponsor":null,"accessinfo":"","lede":"One of only two current buildings on BYU campus bearing women’s names, May Hall was named after Jean Elizabeth Fossum May, a Latter-day Saint missionary and later beloved head resident of BYU’s Stover Hall. As a residence hall, May became a house of learning, play, and sisterhood.","website":"","related_resources":["Argento, Jillian. “Student Challenges Lack of Women’s Representation in BYU Statues, Buildings.” Daily Universe, February 26, 2018. https://universe.byu.edu/2018/02/26/student-challenges-lack-womens-representation-byu-statues-buildings/.","“Benson to Give Address and Prayer at Dedication.” Provo Sunday Herald, October 4, 1970. Utah Digital Newspapers. https://newspapers.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6n350sn/27924559.","Bergera, Gary James and Ronald Priddis. Brigham Young University: A House of Faith. Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1985. Via Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/brighamyounguniv0000berg.","Jean Fossum May obituary. Provo Sunday Herald, May 11, 1969. Via Utah Digital Newspapers. https://newspapers.lib.utah.edu/details?id=27922772&q=\"Jean+Fossum+May\"&sort=rel.","Hatch, Ephraim and Karl Miller. Brigham Young University: A History of the Campus and the Department of Physical Plant, 1875 to 1975. Provo, UT: Physical Facilities Division, Brigham Young University, 2001. Vol. 7, bk. 1.","Hatch, Ephraim. Brigham Young University: A Pictorial History of Physical Facilities, 1875–2005. Provo, UT: Physical Facilities Division, Brigham Young University, 2005. Americana collection, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah.","Hermia (pseud.) and Tangerine (pseud.). Board question #40644. 100 Hour Board, November 14, 2007. Via Internet Archive, archived October 20, 2018. https://web.archive.org/web/20181020000838/http://100hourboard.org/questions/40644/.","“Joseph William McMurrin, Sr.” n.d. Church History Biographical Database. https://history.churchofjesuschrist.org/chd/individual/joseph-william-mcmurrin-1858.","Koford, Jenna. “BYU Group Seeking More Public Recognition for Exemplary Women.” Daily Universe, September 8, 2015. https://universe.byu.edu/2015/09/08/many-seek-female-recognition-on-male-dominated-campus1/.","Koford, Jenna. “Petition Seeks to Name Life Sciences Building After Mormon Woman.” Daily Universe, October 15, 2014. https://universe.byu.edu/2014/10/15/petition-seeks-to-name-life-sciences-building-after-mormon-woman/.","Lewis, Ann Laemmlen. “May Hall, BYU 1977.” Ann’s Words (blog), August 22, 2013. https://annlaemmlenlewis.com/2013/08/22/may-hall-byu-1977/.","May, James A., comp. Biography of Jean Elizabeth Fossum May. Unpublished typescript (MSS 2083, folders 1–4), April 15, 1998. L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah. https://archives.lib.byu.edu/repositories/ltpsc/resources/upb_mss2083.","“Progress in Long Beach District.” Messages from the Missions. Improvement Era, March 1928. Via Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/improvementera3105unse/page/414.","“Provo Services Eulogize Jean F. May.” Manti Messenger, May 15, 1969. Via Utah Digital Newspapers. https://newspapers.lib.utah.edu/details?id=5736130&q=\"Jean+Fossum+May\"&sort=rel.","“Road to Remain Closed Through July at BYU.” Provo Daily Herald, July 1, 2004. Via Utah Digital Newspapers. https://newspapers.lib.utah.edu/details?id=23578213&q=\"jean+fossum+may\"&sort=rel&facet_paper=\"Provo+Daily+Herald\".","“University Dedicates 37 Buildings.” Provo Daily Herald, October 6, 1970. Via Utah Digital Newspapers. https://newspapers.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6jh8qdr/28222677.","Wilkinson, Ernest L., ed. Brigham Young University: The First One Hundred Years. Vol. 2. Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 1975. https://archive.org/details/brighamyounguniv02wilk/.","Wilkinson, Ernest L. and Leonard J. Arrington, ed. Brigham Young University: The First One Hundred Years. Vol. 3. Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 1975. https://archive.org/details/brighamyounguniv03wilk."],"factoids":["Jean Fossum’s first Sunday service as a missionary in California was unexpectedly eventful. Church president Heber J. Grant was present to dedicate the congregation’s new chapel, and all the missionaries sat on the rostrum with him and California Mission president Joseph McMurrin. During the service, McMurrin, without any advance warning, invited Jean to “say a few words” extemporaneously. In her written reminiscence, Jean observed, “My first Sunday in the mission field was a memorable one.”","During her mission, Jean Fossum served for one day as a scribe taking dictation from Heber J. Grant, the Church’s prophet-president at the time—though she wrote in her diary that she “had a hard time making… notes, [she] was so thrilled, and so in awe of him.”","BYU originally designed Helaman Halls as a mens-only dormitory complex. However, when too few men applied for on-campus housing in 1959, BYU opened two Helaman buildings to women, making the housing complex coeducational. (Individual buildings remain gender-separated.)","In 1970, Church president Ezra Taft Benson dedicated May Hall along with thirty-six other new campus buildings, including the Thomas L. Martin Classroom Building and the John A. Widtsoe Life Sciences Laboratory Building.","Since 2019, May Hall has been one of only two buildings on BYU campus named after women. (The other is the Caroline Hemenway Harman Continuing Education Building.) Other BYU buildings named after women have over the years been demolished (such as Allen Hall) or sold (such as Amanda Knight Hall). Since the turn of the twenty-first century, BYU gradually pivoted away from naming buildings after people; at the time of writing, BYU consistently names new buildings only for their function.","Each Helaman Halls building is also given an alphabetic designation. May Hall is designated Helaman Halls I, abbreviated to HLI."],"files":{"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/fullsize/143ca49e5a16e0d56d23b5d80eecc660.jpg":{"id":2465,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Welcome to May Hall","description":"A glimpse of what a new student moving into May Hall might see. | “BYU HLI.” GreenwoodKL (pseud.?), August 14, 2010. Via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0). https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BYU_HLI.jpg.","thumbnail":"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/square_thumbnails/143ca49e5a16e0d56d23b5d80eecc660.jpg"},"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/fullsize/86848e61225c8040dfaf33130edb4451.jpg":{"id":2466,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"May’s name","description":"The hall’s name, “Jean Fossum May Hall,” is featured here on the building in 2022. Before the turn-of-the-century renovations, however, the name was emblazoned on a different part of the building (see the next photograph). | Contributed by Makoto Hunter, January 13, 2022. | Makoto Hunter","thumbnail":"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/square_thumbnails/86848e61225c8040dfaf33130edb4451.jpg"},"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/fullsize/fabcff2345a280eeabe2f33919ff2aac.jpg":{"id":2467,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"May Hall, 1977","description":"A glimpse of what new students moving into May Hall would have seen in 1977, prior to the major renovations made to Helaman Halls. Compare it to the first photograph. | 1977. Courtesy of Ann Laemmlen Lewis. In her “May Hall, BYU 1977.” Ann’s Words (blog), August 22, 2013. https://annlaemmlenlewis.com/2013/08/22/may-hall-byu-1977/.","thumbnail":"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/square_thumbnails/fabcff2345a280eeabe2f33919ff2aac.jpg"},"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/fullsize/d365141fb0aaf0c67a372af7a36a9e89.jpg":{"id":2468,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"At a distance","description":"From this vantage point, one can better make out the size of May Hall, despite which its interior made for crowded living. | 1977. Courtesy of Ann Laemmlen Lewis. In her “May Hall, BYU 1977.” Ann’s Words (blog), August 22, 2013. https://annlaemmlenlewis.com/2013/08/22/may-hall-byu-1977/.","thumbnail":"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/square_thumbnails/d365141fb0aaf0c67a372af7a36a9e89.jpg"},"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/fullsize/94b99b28f78c58a75edf9e4aef76a286.jpg":{"id":2469,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"The “1200 floor girls”","description":"There were (and are) several different wings, sometimes called “floors,” in each Helaman Halls building, including May Hall. Ann Laemmlen Lewis, a BYU student and May Hall resident in 1977, captioned this photograph as depicting the “May Hall 1200 floor girls.” | 1977. Courtesy of Ann Laemmlen Lewis. In her “May Hall, BYU 1977.” Ann’s Words (blog), August 22, 2013. https://annlaemmlenlewis.com/2013/08/22/may-hall-byu-1977/.","thumbnail":"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/square_thumbnails/94b99b28f78c58a75edf9e4aef76a286.jpg"},"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/fullsize/bb28e6991ac1cb42c3da04a8f3ec8af1.jpg":{"id":2470,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"“Small rooms”","description":"In 1977, each dorm room in May Hall had two beds “that pulled out from a sofa-ish thing against the wall with a narrow closet at the foot and a built-in desk at the head,” as Ann Laemmlen Lewis reminisced. Lewis’s caption reads, “Yikes those were small rooms!” | 1977. Courtesy of Ann Laemmlen Lewis. In her “May Hall, BYU 1977.” Ann’s Words (blog), August 22, 2013. https://annlaemmlenlewis.com/2013/08/22/may-hall-byu-1977/.","thumbnail":"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/square_thumbnails/bb28e6991ac1cb42c3da04a8f3ec8af1.jpg"},"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/fullsize/548e8ec7e2ef46fa498a6b873ba3452b.jpg":{"id":2471,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Bulletin board","description":"The bulletin board offers a glimpse into the life and thought of one of BYU’s “May Hall floor 1200 girls” in 1977. A calendar, a mantra to “read books,” a BYU logo, photographs of loved ones, religious imagery, aesthetic items, and ribbons and honors all mingle together. | 1977. Courtesy of Ann Laemmlen Lewis. In her “May Hall, BYU 1977.” Ann’s Words (blog), August 22, 2013. https://annlaemmlenlewis.com/2013/08/22/may-hall-byu-1977/.","thumbnail":"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/square_thumbnails/548e8ec7e2ef46fa498a6b873ba3452b.jpg"},"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/fullsize/4ce5eb99c10ea64cc78f3b1dbc8fe606.jpg":{"id":2472,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Sunday best","description":"In their Sunday best, these May Hall residents may have been on their way to or home from a weekly church service. Ann Laemmlen Lewis recalled, “On Sundays we all went to church together and every evening we prayed together.” In the twenty-first century, group prayer (often “ward prayer” at the congregational level) remains a common BYU dormitory tradition, though typically held weekly rather than nightly. | 1977. Courtesy of Ann Laemmlen Lewis. In her “May Hall, BYU 1977.” Ann’s Words (blog), August 22, 2013. https://annlaemmlenlewis.com/2013/08/22/may-hall-byu-1977/.","thumbnail":"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/square_thumbnails/4ce5eb99c10ea64cc78f3b1dbc8fe606.jpg"},"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/fullsize/2bd60a08cb6bf19d4cc4b7797b09a76f.jpg":{"id":2473,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Ice cream","description":"“When some[one] kissed a boy,” Ann Laemmlen Lewis reminisced, “they ‘owed ice cream’ to their roommate.” | 1977. Courtesy of Ann Laemmlen Lewis. In her “May Hall, BYU 1977.” Ann’s Words (blog), August 22, 2013. https://annlaemmlenlewis.com/2013/08/22/may-hall-byu-1977/.","thumbnail":"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/square_thumbnails/2bd60a08cb6bf19d4cc4b7797b09a76f.jpg"},"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/fullsize/d81c9abeca8d0be438c539ec600710f7.jpg":{"id":2474,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Sister Jean Fossum","description":"Jean May (Jean Fossum at the time) can be seen on the top row, second from the right in this array of photographs for the Improvement Era magazine’s report on the Long Beach District missionary conference. | “Progress in Long Beach District.” Messages from the Missions. Improvement Era, March 1928. Via Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/improvementera3105unse/page/414.","thumbnail":"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/square_thumbnails/d81c9abeca8d0be438c539ec600710f7.jpg"}}}![https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BYU_HLI.jpg](\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BYU_HLI.jpg\"){kind=link}