Maureen Johnson (Heinlein character)

Maureen Johnson Smith Long (July 4, 1882 - June 20, 1982), most often referred to as Maureen Johnson, is a fictional character in several science fiction novels by American writer Robert A. Heinlein. She is the mother, lover and eventual wife of Lazarus Long, the longest-living member of Heinlein's fictional Howard Families. She is the only character from the "Lazarus Long cycle" to have an entire fictional memoir devoted to her life.

Maureen first appears as a secondary character in the 1973 novel Time Enough for Love. She appears briefly in The Number of the Beast (1980), The Cat Who Walks Through Walls (1985) and recounts her own life story, and sometimes contradictory versions of events recorded in other Heinlein stories, in 1987's To Sail Beyond the Sunset.

Maureen was born in Missouri on July 4, 1882, the daughter of Doctor Ira Johnson, a member of the Howard Families. As a young teenager, Maureen discovers this fact from her very frank father who encourages her to seek a husband from among the accepted list of family candidates. She marries Brian Smith and they settle in Kansas City and have several children, all subsidized by the Howard Families foundation.

The most famous of her children is Woodrow Wilson Smith, born November 11, 1912. Woodrow will eventually be known by many names in his long life, the most famous being "Lazarus Long."

Time Enough for Love recounts how, during 1916, Maureen and her father are visited by a mysterious man who calls himself Theodore Bronson. Bronson and Maureen are mentally and physically attracted to one another, and even go on a date and attempt to have sex, but are thwarted by young "Woody," who sneaks along, hidden in the back of the car. Ted Bronson eventually goes off to fight in the war, and is presumed killed. "Bronson" was eventually revealed to Maureen to be her time-traveling son, Woodrow, aka "Lazarus Long."

When Brian Smith divorces Maureen to marry their daughter-in-law, Maureen strikes out on her own, becomes a board member of D. D. Harriman's Harriman Enterprises, the first company to put a man on the moon in Heinlein's central universe ("The Man Who Sold the Moon"). She also witnesses the introduction of the "rolling roads" ("The Roads Must Roll").

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