Hephzibah Beulah Bechly (née Dumville; September 9, 1833 – April 6, 1869) was a writer who wrote about the life of common women in the anpre-American Civil War era in the Midwest of the United States.
Hephzibah died eleven months after the birth of her second child, and was buried in Iowa at Forest Home Cemetery.
[citation needed] The Dumville Family Letters are currently in the custody of the archives of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library.
[1] There are 117 letters in the collection that were written by Dumville family members, neighbors, Civil War soldiers, and Methodist clergy.
In her writings, Bechly was concerned about her future, and how she should make decisions regarding work and career, as she viewed the two options as distinct.