Kristen Meredith Mcmain is more often identified as Kristen Meredith McMain Oaks or Kristen M. Oaks. I find her biography strongest when it begins before her marriage. Born on October 15, 1947, she became an educator, earned advanced degrees, served a mission in Japan, and developed an independent working life. Her first marriage came at 52, when she joined a family already spanning several generations.
Her husband is Dallin H. Oaks, the church leader and former jurist. They married on August 25, 2000, in the Salt Lake Temple. The relationship became a prominent part of her public life, but it did not create all of her experience. Her writing about single adulthood draws its substance from the many years that preceded it.
Education as a Foundation
Kristen earned a bachelor’s degree in English and a master’s degree in special education from the University of Utah. She later completed a doctorate in curriculum and instruction at Brigham Young University. The progression joined language, teaching, and the design of learning into a professional foundation.
Exact graduation years are not established by the estimates in the timeline. The qualifications themselves are established more clearly than their dates. They show that her educational identity was substantive, rather than a title added through her later association with a prominent church household.
Her work included teaching special education and consulting in publishing. A connection with Deseret Book’s international activities also appears in her professional account. Those roles gave her experience with learners and the movement of educational or religious material across audiences, themes that later appeared in her public service.
A Mission in Japan
Kristen served a full time mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints in Japan. The experience placed her in another language and cultural setting during early adulthood. I see it as a practical beginning to the international dimension of her later church work.
The supplied material does not establish every assignment or a complete fluency record. What is clear is the service itself and its place within a life that combined faith with education. It preceded her marriage and belongs to her own history.
She spent decades as a single adult within a church culture that places considerable attention on family. Her later talks have drawn on that experience. The years were not simply a waiting room before marriage; they included professional development, service, and relationships beyond a spouse and children.
Marriage to Dallin Oaks
Dallin Harris Oaks was born on August 12, 1932. His career included law, service on the Utah Supreme Court, and leadership in the church. His first wife, June, died in 1998. Kristen’s marriage to him in 2000 was her first and his second.
Their courtship included involvement from his adult children, with daughters helping create opportunities for them to meet. The known result was a marriage that brought Kristen into an already established extended family.
She became stepmother to six adult children. She did not become their biological mother, and June’s place in their family history remained distinct. I find that distinction important because affectionate accounts of blended families need not erase the earlier parent whose death preceded the new marriage.
Six Adult Stepchildren
The family list includes Sharmon Oaks Ward, Cheri Lynn Oaks Christensen, Margaret Oaks, Elizabeth Jenny Oaks Baker, Dallin D. Oaks, and Douglas Oaks. Sharmon is associated with her husband Jack Ward, while Cheri is associated with Alan Christensen. Some fuller name forms and approximate birthdates vary in the supplied account, so the simpler established names are preferable.
Jenny Oaks Baker has a public career as a violinist, with recordings including Noel and Awakening. Her husband is Justin Baker. She has publicly expressed appreciation for Kristen as a stepmother and grandmother. That tribute provides a concrete example of family welcome without requiring a claim about every private interaction.
Dallin D. Oaks is associated with linguistics at Brigham Young University. Details about Margaret and Douglas are less extensive here. The broader family had 29 grandchildren and more than 60 great grandchildren in a 2021 account. Those figures belong to that dated snapshot, rather than a permanent current total.
Service in the Philippines
From 2002 to 2004, Kristen accompanied Dallin during a church assignment in the Philippines and helped train church auxiliaries. The experience gave her educational background another setting in which to be useful. It also connected their marriage with shared service abroad.
In April 2024, their participation in the Urdaneta Philippines Temple dedication prompted reflections on the earlier period. I see that return as a specific link between past work and later public memory. The relationship with the Philippines was not introduced only for the ceremony; it had a history in their years of service there.
Kristen has also been associated with the board of Primary Children’s Hospital. The role connects her wider service with children’s welfare, while remaining separate from a medical qualification. Her expertise is in education, not an invented clinical career.
Books and a Public Voice
Her books include A Single Voice in 2008, The Testimony Glove in 2010, My Home Can Be a Holy Place in 2012, and Trust in His Promises in 2018. They address faith, family, and the experience of an unexpected life course. Her writing gives her a public identity beyond accompanying her husband.
She continued speaking at devotionals and young adult gatherings, including events in 2025. Themes of service, resilience, and meaningful single adulthood recur in that activity. It establishes continuing participation in the church’s public conversation.
Her personal wealth is not independently disclosed. Estimates of stipends for church leaders do not establish her own salary or assets. The more concrete professional record consists of degrees, education and publishing work, books, and public speaking rooted in her own experience.
FAQ
When did Kristen Meredith McMain marry Dallin Oaks?
They married on August 25, 2000, in the Salt Lake Temple. Kristen was 52, and it was her first marriage. Dallin’s first wife, June, had died in 1998.
Does Kristen have biological children?
No biological children are established in the supplied account. Through marriage, she became stepmother to Dallin and June’s six adult children and joined their extensive family of grandchildren and great grandchildren.
What did Kristen study?
She studied English and special education at the University of Utah and earned a doctorate in curriculum and instruction from Brigham Young University. Her later work included education, publishing, service, and authorship.
