Beryl Bonner Meyers was born in Leadville, Colorado and attended the University of Colorado. There she became a member of the Zeta Chapter of Chi Omega. She was the second woman to graduate from the University of Colorado’s law school.
Beryl Bonner married Joseph Lawrence Meyers, a mining engineer, on May 7, 1918. They lived most of their married life in Utah and Idaho. She first worked in the county assessor’s office in Salt Lake City. In 1927, she was selected as the lone woman on the four member Utah Code Commission. They spent six years revising, annotating and cross referencing Utah’s laws. She was then tasked with setting up a state liquor commission.
Meyers was the first female attorney to be admitted to practice before the U.S. District Court in Utah, the first woman admitted to practice before the Department of Interior’s U.S. Land Office in Salt Lake City and the first to serve in Utah as a city judge and as a city attorney. The city was Midvale, Utah.
She was active in many organizations including AAUW, Business Professional Women’s Club, League of Women Voters, Soroptimist and American Legion Auxillary. Musically inclined, she served on the board of Idaho State Federation of Music Clubs.
Her formula for success was quoted in a 1965 newspaper article, “Any woman who wants to succeed in a man’s world has to study and work a little harder than the men she is competing with.”
Meyers died on September 20, 1965, at the age of 75.
