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Concept
Mary B. Moser
Summary
Mary Margaret Beck Moser (October 12, 1924 – January 12, 2013) was an American field linguist and Bible translator who worked on behalf of the Seri people of Mexico for more than fifty years. She authored and co-authored numerous articles and two books (an ethnobotany and a substantive trilingual dictionary) about the language and culture of that group and brought to completion the translation of the New Testament in the Seri language.
Daughter of Robert and Vila Mae Beck, Mary Margaret was born on October 12, 1924 in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania. The name by which people later knew her best, Becky, was also the nickname that her father used. She graduated from high school in Williamsport, Pennsylvania and attended Wheaton College (Illinois) for two years and then taught first grade on a War Emergency Certificate. She met her future husband, Edward W. Moser during her first year of college. They married in 1946, after Edward finished his service in the United States Navy. Both of them studied how to analyze an unwritten language at the Summer Institute of Linguistics at the University of Oklahoma. It was there that they learned about the Seri people of Sonora, Mexico, and made the decision to dedicate their lives to serve them. They became members of Wycliffe Bible Translators in 1950.
The Mosers took up residence in the Seri area on the Gulf of California in 1951. A major effort in the early years was to learn the Seri language well and understand the culture, but the Mosers also helped in various ways to deal with a measles epidemic and other medical and physical needs. Mary helped deliver more than thirty Seri babies during the years before Seri women began using the hospital in Hermosillo, the state capital. When the Mosers first arrived, the Seri population was about 230. During the time that the Mosers lived with the Seri people, the population of the Seri people reversed its downward trend and the total population began to increase.
Although the Mosers thought that they could not have children, their family grew when in 1952 a daughter (Cathy) was born.
Official source
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