Eliza R. Snow (1804-1887) was born in Becket, Berkshire County Massachusetts. She gained early renown in her area as a gifted poet. She was baptized in 1835 and moved to Kirtland, where she taught a school for girls and was, for a time, the governess to the Prophet Joseph Smith's family. She moved with the Saints to Far West, then to Nauvoo, where she taught school and wrote "O My Father," her most beloved poem, notable for its doctrine concerning a "heavenly mother." She was the first secretary of the Relief Society, organized in 1842, and became one of Joseph Smith's plural wives on June 29, 1842. After the death of her husband she accompanied the pioneers west, where she was married to Brigham Young in 1849, residing in the Lion House until the time of her death. She was president of the Relief Society, the director of the women's work in the Endowment House, and she assisted in organizing the Primary Association. She published two volumes of poems in 1856 and 1876.

Works by Eliza R. Snow included on the Mormon Literature Website:
How Great the Wisdom and the Love
Invocation, or the Eternal Father and Mother
Be Not Discouraged
My First View of a Western Prairie
Mental Gas