René Mortensen (Harbertson)

René Mortensen lived in the same neighborhood as then Dean Jeffrey R. Holland. She was working in another department at BYU, but he suggested she come to work as his assistant in Religious Education. After she agreed, he worked through the internal approvals to have her transferred. She remembers that she started on a Thursday or Friday. In their first meeting together, Dean Holland expressed how much he was looking forward to working with her for the next several years. And then, the very next Sunday, he called her with the sad news that he had been called as Church Commissioner of Education. Her time working with him lasted a single day or two. A week later, she became assistant to the new dean, Ellis T. Rasmussen.