Upppity Mormon Women: Elizabeth Claridge McCune

Elizabeth Claridge McCune
Rags to Riches

Elizabeth Claridge McCune's early life was spent in near-poverty. Her father Samuel Claridge dwelt in a town called Nephi in southern Utah. Elizabeth loved living in Nephi.
Then her father was called to move to a town named "Muddy" in Nevada. Elizabeth was heartbroken, but she knew her father would go and because she loved her father, she was willing to follow him.

Life in Muddy was very hard, and eventually the Claridge family failed to make a living due to persecutions and incompatible societal conditions, so they moved back to Utah, where Brigham Young called him to establish a town using the social structure of the United Order, a voluntary form of Christian communalism. Free from vicious persecution, the Claridges in Orderville thrived.

Elizabeth learned, early on, how to live as well as one could with very little. She grew strong and brave through the family's ordeals and also developed a generosity of spirit and an admirable strength of character, and was known for having a shrewd common sense.

As an adult, she moved back to Nephi and became one of the few female telegraph operators in the early days of the telegraph. (There were few women operators in those days and most of them were in Utah.) She had a sense of humour and would often pass jokes and riddles along to the other operators.

Elizabeth knew Alfred W McCune as a child. He, too, was raised in the near-poverty of those early small communities. As he grew older, he went out into the world to make his fortune.

And make his fortune he did! He gained vast wealth in the mining industry and the railroad and returned to Utah. He was a congenial and respected man. Elizabeth and Alfred became reacquainted and they were married in 1872.

Elizabeth, who had spent her whole life in poverty, just getting along, or living the law of consecration, suddenly found herself rich.

For Elizabeth, this did not mean she could kick back her heels and become an idle society matron, as shallow and snobbish as some rich women she knew. She was used to hard work, and her hard work continued. She had many interests, many of them connected to her faith. She served in various positions within the Church, bore nine children, traveled the world with her husband, served a mission to England with him, and was active in the women’s rights movement and as an influential patron, attended international women’s conferences in London and Rome. She became a woman of refinement and grace who was highly respected in social circles both secular and spiritual, at home and abroad. Elizabeth was entertained by Queen Victoria and she conversed with the common man in the streets.

In 1901 Alfred commissioned a grand home built. Elizabeth oversaw the architecture, construction and decoration. Today the McCune Mansion, overlooking downtown Salt Lake, is one of the finest homes in the Salt Lake Valley. (If you're interested, it's reputed to be haunted.)

Today everyone is so focused on the beauty of the McCune Mansion that they don't always remember Alfred (who was a contemporary and business partner of J. P. Morgan, William Randolph Hearst, and Frederick Vanderbilt), and don't realize just how well-liked and influential Elizabeth Claridge McCune was in her time.

Next post: Emma Lucy Gates Bowen