Ursula Merchant Ursula Merchant Ursula Merchant (born September 10, 1932 in Rostock) is a German Las Vegas-based performance artist, conceptual artist, carpenter. She is probably best known for her series 'Forkin' Hell'. Merchant was born "Ursula S. Wernerberger" in post-war Rostock. Her parents were of Russian extraction. Her father abandoned Ursula and her mother early in Ursula's youth, when he returned from a prisoner of war camp after World War II. Her family moved to a remote village in the Black Mountains of Switzerland after the house next to theirs was destroyed during the bombing at the close of World War II.
Ursula van Beckum Ursula van Beckum Ursula van Beckum née Ursula von Werdum (before 1520 – 13 November 1544) was a Dutch Anabaptist noblewoman who was burned at the stake for heresy in Delden, the Netherlands. She was born as the daughter of Ulrich von Werdum (d. 1530) and Armgard von Fikensolt. On 12 June 1538 she married Johan Hendrik van Beckum and went to live with him in Nijenhuis, his castle in Diepenheim. Her sister-in-law Maria van Beckum became a follower of David Joris and was sent out of her house by her stepmother as an Anabaptist. She fled to Ursula who