I · Wear · My · Heart · on · My · Sleeve

Mary Fielding Smith
She Endured.

Of all the Uppity Mormon Women, Mary Fielding Smith has got to be one of my favourites. I cannot help but admire her inner strength and courage and wish I could have but half her qualities. She stood strong in the face of affliction that would have turned me into a timid little mouse cowering in the corner.

She was one of the members of the John Taylor Society of Toronto, a group of Methodist dissenters whose members later converted to the LDS faith through Parley P Pratt, Samuel Lake and a few missionaries. (I am descended from the Hill family who were also members of the John Taylor Society; just had to share.)

Later, Mary became the second of Hyrum Smith's wives, his first one, Jerusha Barden, having passed on. She found herself step-mother to five children but took on this role with the strength and courage she would later become famous for.

She loved Hyrum very much, and it saddened her greatly when he and his brother Joseph Smith were imprisoned many times. How devastated she must have been when one of those times of imprisonment ended in the martyrdom of her husband.

Unlike her sister-in-law, Emma, for whom the trials of her situation had become too much, Mary stood tall, with an even stronger resolution to not let the Dementors get her. Alas, she fell, forgotten, into Emma's shadow, and was offered little in the way of aid for her and her young family to flee West with the other Saints.

But she was an Uppity Mormon Woman. After her violent widowhood, nothing could shake her now. There were those who tried, those who sought to take advantage of her apparently weakened state, but to many people's surprise, she stood firm.

Susa Young Gates shares this story^[1]:

"One day [Mary's] little son Joseph [Fielding Smith] sat in the upper chamber of her Nauvoo home into which chamber ran the pipe of the sitting-room stove below, thus making it possible to hear distinctly the voices of those below in the sitting room. The boy knew that his brother John had left secretly, or at least quietly, in the company of Brother Heber C. Kimball, with the first company of refugees from Nauvoo who crossed the ice to begin their journey for the unknown West. He knew also that his mother would follow with her little family sooner or later. But he was startled to hear the voice of his uncle William Smith below one day, lifted in angry expostulation with his loved mother for permitting her son John to be "spirited away."

The boy heard his uncle demand the return of the Patriarch's [Hyrum's] son, and as the mother quietly and firmly refused to accede to the angry man's insensate demand, he became so violent and abusive in his language that the boy upstairs longed for age and maturity in order that he might defend his helpless mother from such unwarranted and bitter assaults."

She stood up to her brother-in-law, and continued to stand up to those who thought to take advantage of her weakness.

She chose to cross the plains with her children. To aid her, Heber C Kimball assigned her to a wagon train. The captain of the train took one look at this widowed woman and her children and told her to stay, and perhaps come cross later. He told her it was foolish for her to go with them, for should anything go wrong, he firmly believed she'd be a burden to them. To this, she replied, "I will beat you to the Valley and will ask no help from you either!" ^[2]

Sure enough, she did. Onya, girl!


Once she arrived in Salt Lake Valley, she continued her independence, moving her home to a 40-acre farm several miles out from downtown Salt Lake (about 2700 South and Highland Drive) to live in a one-room adobe home. (Personally, I find the fireplace there too smoky for my comfort.) She rejected offers of protection and vowed to stand on her own two feet. "What about wolves? What about Indians?" they asked her. But she would not be afraid. Instead, her farm prospered, and she lived there until she fell ill and passed away on September 21, 1852

She may not have been an outspoken advocate for Equality, a gifted writer, or distinguished by her accomplishments the way some of the other Uppity Mormon Women have been, but she endured through trials that would leave me faint and that is why I like her so very much.

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^[1] http://jfs.saintswithouthalos.com/Reprints/sygmoths/02.htm
^[2]http://jfs.saintswithouthalos.com/Reprints/sygmoths/03.htm

Next Post: The last in the "Uppity Mormon Women" series. I'm keeping it a surprise.

Susa Young Gates

SuperMom


Susa Young Gates, daughter of Brigham Young by his twenty-second wife Lucy Bigelow Young, was a leader, prolific writer, editor, trustee of Brigham Young University, active in the local and national women's organizations, and the mother of thirteen children, world traveler and a general overachiever-type of SuperMom we didn’t think arose until the 1980's. Give her a minivan and a membership in the local PTA and stand back. Her famous quote; "Keep busy in the face of discouragement"^[1] Breathe, woman, breathe!

She had the usual overachiever's accomplishments of a private education, including music and dance and went to university at age 13 in a flurry of Doogie Houser-like precocity. She married young at 16 to Dr. A.B. Dunford. They had two children but the marriage didn't last. Picking up the pieces, she moved to Brigham Young University and started the department of music where she learned to breathe.

Second time to the altar, she married one Jacob F. Gates and enjoyed a rather successful marriage. She devoted herself to her family and her causes. She was yet another of the raving bluestockings that lobbied furiously for women's rights and for equality between the genders. She became press chairman for the National Council of Women, and founded all sorts of magazines and wrote articles, pamphlets and books. Only death could pluck the pen from her fingers.

At the turn of the century, Susa suffered a nervous and physical breakdown. (Are you surprised? I'm not. You know it had to happen eventually.) Lacking a prescription for valium, she toned down her activities and turned more to her spiritual side. "I disciplined my taste, my desires and my impulses—severely disciplining my appetite, my tongue, my acts…and how I prayed!" ^[1] She became addicted to church work and once again, took on a heavy load of genealogy, temple work and research.

But she had already made an impact. This abbreviated bibliography shows that her thoughts turned often to other Uppity Mormon Women of her time. She'd hung out with people like Susan B. Anthony and Queen Victoria. She corresponded regularly with Tolstoy. She is known as one of the most prolific Uppity Mormon Woman writers to take up a pen in support of equality.

I have a feeling she wasn't much of a catwaxer. I only hope she remembered to breathe until 1933 when she stopped.

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^[1]Person, Carolyn W. D. "Susa Young Gates." In Mormon Sisters: Women in Early Utah, ed. Claudia L. Bushman, pp. 198-223. Cambridge, Mass., 1976.

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Next post: Mary Fielding Smith, wife of Hyrum Smith and sister-in-law to the prophet Joseph.

Emma Lucy Gates Bowen

The Voice
Emma Lucy Gates Bowen was one of the great early opera singers of the 20th century.
She was born in 1882, the granddaughter of Brigham and Lucy Bigelow Young, and daughter of Susa Young Gates. She loved music and she loved to sing. As a child her family spent a few years in the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii), where she had the opportunity to perform before Queen Kapiolani.

Back in Utah, at the not-so-early age of twelve, she finally, officially studied music, like many Utahn children did, and her choice of instruments: piano and violin. A few years later, she became the youngest winner in the piano competition of the Welsh Eisteddfod held in Salt Lake.

She traveled to Germany to study piano but changed disciplines to voice, her first love. "My whole soul seems to be brought out when I sing," she wrote at the time. She spent some time in the US study opera in New York but returned to Germany in 1907 to study with Madame Blanche Corelli. So impressed with Emma's voice, Madame Corelli urged Emma to embark on a professional opera career.
She received a contract with the Royal Opera of Berlin. Later she became a prima coloratura soprano for the Kassel Royal Opera and her popularity in Europe soared.

She married Albert E. Bowen in 1916 (she was his second wife, but he was a widower when they married). He happily supported her in her career, following her from performance to performance.

Nothing like a World War to disrupt one's European success. During the war, she returned to the US and did rather well for herself as a prima coloratura, though not as well as she had in Europe. Later she established an opera company and began a rather successful recording career with the Columbia Graphophone Company, at one time selling more records than any other opera singer. She toured North America, husband in tow, until 1934 when his religious career called him back to Salt Lake. She returned with him to Utah and spent the rest of her life teaching music there. She also sang in the famous Mormon Tabernacle Choir in 1935

"Miss Gates is the equal of the greatest prima donnas this country has produced," wrote one critic. Often compared to Galli-Curci, the then-current reigning prima donna of opera, she was praised for her "flawless agility," "purity of intonation," and "dazzling style," all demonstrating a "lyric charm and sensuous beauty of tone." Critics also praised her beauty, her stage presence, and her natural theatrical ability. Music was a universal experience, she believed. "We are part of music and music is part of us," she wrote. "Not all feel and sense this to the highest, yet all are touched by it as we pass this life." --Carol Cornwall Madsen

I wish I could have found a photograph of her online, but I couldn't but novenaric did! See the link in the accompanying comment. Meanwhile, there is an archive of her photographs and documents at the repository of the Utah State Historical Society. Feel free to go have a look if you're in town.

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Next post: Susa Young Gates, Emma's mother.

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

Forgive me as life gets in the way and other projects capture my time and attention. But the Guilt Monkey has won this day and I present, once more, another episode in the series "Uppity Mormon Women".

Enjoy.

Worksafe Clause: This one's got clicky musical links that will take you to music pages won't play until you press "Play", so you won't be embarrassed at work by sudden music.

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Eliza R. Snow

"Zion's Poetess"

Eliza Roxcy Snow was always a writer. Her parents believed in education for all their children, including Eliza. This education served her well, for by the time she was in her twenties, her award-winning work been widely published in magazines and newspapers. As an adult, she supported herself by teaching school.

She found the written medium--especially poetry--the best way to express her thoughts. She wrote many poems about the things that touched her in her life.

She joined the LDS Faith and embraced its doctrine, pondering long about the tenets therein. She wrote many poems, some of which became hymns for the Church: "Be Not Discouraged", which became the beautiful hymn "Though Deepening Trials", and "How Great The Wisdom".

Her most famous poem, originally went by several names: "My Father in Heaven" and later, "Invocation", but the world knows it as the hymn loved and regularly sung by millions, "O My Father."

Eliza loved her faith and studied its tenets thoroughly. A certain piece of doctrine got her thinking: why was God called "Heavenly Father"? Was there a particular reason for this particular form of address? Eliza wasn't stupid and knew that a father could only be called a father because there is a mother.

Could there be a Heavenly Mother? The more Eliza thought on this, the more it made sense. All the other doctrines and practices of her faith pointed to this. Joseph Smith did not tell her she was wrong in her speculation. He himself often spoke of the nature of God, which suggested a dual parental role (for example, see notes on the King Follett Discourse).

Inspired by her musings, she penned this poem, which included the following stanza:

I had learned to call thee Father,
Through thy Spirit from on high;
But until the key of knowledge
Was restored, I knew not why.
In the heavens are parents single?
No; the thought makes reason stare!
Truth is reason, truth eternal
Tells me I've a mother there.

This idea has resounded within the minds and hearts of Mormons ever since. (The hymn "O My Father" was Brigham Young's favourite.) Scriptures and most other doctrine do not directly mention a Heavenly Mother, but She remains in the LDS consciousness, and the idea of Heavenly Parents is often mentioned. (For example, see "The Family: A Proclamation to the World": "Each [person] is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny. Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose." (Emphasis mine))

Her poem has touched many (including myself). "The connectedness to deity Eliza expressed so eloquently in "O MyFather" and the glorious doctrines by which she had begun to define herself in Nauvoo would enable her to inspire her sisters in Utah with a sense of woman's eternal worth, equality in the sight of God, and divine destiny."^[1]

With such strong doctrinal concepts as a Heavenly Mother, no wonder so many early Mormon women believed in concepts of gender equality.

Eliza later served as General President of the Relief Society, but she is better known as "Zion's Poetess", and the woman who openly voiced the comforting knowledge of the reality of a Heavenly Mother and the divine destiny of a woman.

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^[1] The Significance of 'O My Father' in the Personal Journey of Eliza R. Snow
by Jill Mulvay Derr

P.S. Okay, I had to throw in something fun: Mental Gas.

Next Post: Elizabeth Claridge McCune - rags to riches.

Emmeline Wells
"I believe in women, especially thinking women."

Emmeline Blanche Woodward Whitney Wells (say that three times fast!) was a thinking woman. She learned, early on, that if something needed doing, the best person to rely on was oneself. Born in Massachusetts in 1828, her early life was not easy as her father died when she was four. She graduated from school at age fourteen and became a schoolteacher. When she was fifteen, she married sixteen-year-old James Harris. Perhaps they were too young for marriage, or perhaps the death of their infant son was too much. James left to "look for work" and never came back.
She returned to teaching school to support herself. About this time, she started keeping a diary and continued writing until shortly before her death.
Like many, Emmeline was a radical feminist, believing that women were just as good as men, and therefore, it seemed only natural that they be able to work, to vote, to own property, to be educated, and to have all the same rights as men did. They were reasoning beings, she thought, and were not substandard or subservient to men. You tell it, sister!
She became a plural wife of Newel K. Whitney and bore him two daughters. He died in 1850, leaving her a young widow. She continued to support herself and her two daughters by teaching school. Much later, she married Daniel H. Wells (it was her idea; she approached him) and became his seventh wife.
After she raised her children, she became a journalist, eventually becoming the editor of Utah's "Woman's Exponent" newspaper. She believed the paper should "furnish good material for future historians...not only concerning woman's work, industrial and educational, but the lives of the women."
"I believe in women," she wrote, "especially thinking women." The "Exponent" was a platform for her views on a woman's right to vote and women's professional sphere beyond the household. On the national level, she associated with both Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony and lobbied for Utah's interests in Washington DC, especially in the areas of polygamy and women's rights. She also served as a historian, keeping detailed documentation of women's political activities in Utah.
As well as her journalistic work, she also penned short stories and poems. In 1912 she received an honorary degree in literature from Brigham Young University.
She ran as a republican in the same election as Martha Hughes Cannon, and had she won, she would have had the honour of being the first female State Senator.
On the religious side of things, she served as the fifth General President of the Relief Society, one of the largest and longest continual women's organizations in the world.
She lived long enough to see the passing of the 19th amendment, then died in 1921 at the age of 93.

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For a good article about Utah Women in Church, Religion and Politics, cliquez: http://www.autry-museum.org/explore/exhibits/suffrage/suffrage_ut.html


Next post: Eliza R. Snow, "Zion's Poetess".

Uppity Mormon Women: Interlude

Stories of some of the Uppity Mormon Women from Utah's history are plentiful, and often retold. We're lucky that we have their stories, for they and others thought to write them down.

The LDS faith has always been an advocate of keeping a journal, to record the moments, both subtle and significant, of our lives. It is thanks, mainly due to these journals, that we have much of the information we do of these women.

Granted, those who seem to have lived significant lives have had much written about them, these vocal, outstanding, public-faced women, but what about all the others? How much do we know about Harriet E. Cook, Brigham Young's fourth wife?

How much do we know about Rebecca Hood Hill? (see image right) Believe me, she may not have been some radically outspoken feminist, some politician, or any other sort of public figure, but she was very important to her family, and they remember her still to this day because someone thought to write down her story. (Her husband was a diarist and had a few adventures himself.)

I'm not terribly good with names, even of the living. (Just ask my daughters. They get called everything but the name they were born with.) Likewise, I forget the name of one of my ancestresses no matter how often I ask my family for her name and write it down. I always seem to lose that piece of paper. But I don't forget who she was, because of something she wrote down that stuck with me ever since I first heard it.

She was the mother to many children. Unfortunately, the family was struck repeatedly by illness and she lost four young children within the space of two years. Even before I had children of my own, before I lost children of my own, and even before I was married, I felt touched by the words she recorded:



"Oh the stillness of the room where the children used to play.
Oh the silence of the house, when the children went away.
This is the Motherlife, to bear, to love, to lose,
Till all the sweet, sad tale is told in a pair of little shoes,
In a single broken toy, in a flower pressed to keep,
All fragrant still the simple life of those who fell asleep."



It touched me so much I had to write music to it.

The world probably won't remember us for the things we do, only for the things someone remembered to write down.

In one hundred years, what will be remembered about you?

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For those of you who are interested in knowing more about Uppity Mormon Women, here are some books to get you started:

• orth Their Salt: Notable But Often Unnoted Women of Utah, Colleen Whitley (Editor.) Utah State University Press, 1996 ISBN: 0874212065
  
  
  
• Worth Their Salt, Too: More Notable but Often Unnoted Women of Utah, Colleen Whitley (Editor.) Utah State University Press, 2000 ISBN: 087421288X
  
  
  
• Heroines of the Restoration, ed.Barbara B. Smith and Blythe Darlyn Thatcher. Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1997 ISBN: 157008307X
  
  
  
• Heroic Mormon Women: True Stories from the Lives of Sixteen Amazing Women in Church History, Ivan J. Barrett. Covenant Communications, 1991 ISBN: 1-57734-676-9
  
  
  
• Representative Women Of Deseret: A Book Of Biographical Sketches To Accompany The Picture Bearing The Same Title, Compiled And Written By Augusta Joyce Crocheron (1884)
  Intro: http://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/ut/state/bios/ajc/intro1.txt
  Index: http://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/ut/state/bios/ajc/
  
  

And now, for more Uppity Mormon Women.

Jane Manning James

African American pioneer

As Ann Eliza Young was an angry, prideful woman who later left the church, Jane Manning James was the complete opposite. She was humble, solid and grateful, despite the miseries she encountered in her life, and remained faithful to the end.

If you thought it was hard being a woman in the 19th Century, try being a woman of color.

Jane, of African American descent, was born free in Conneticut in 1822. She was baptized into the LDS faith in 1841, and went to join with the Saints in Nauvoo. Along the way she and her family suffered, but they never lost their faith.

In her own words: "We started from Wilton, Connecticut, and traveled by canal to Buffalo, New York. We were to go to Columbus, Ohio before our fares were to be collected, but they insisted on having the money at Buffalo and would not take us farther. So we left the boat and started on foot to travel a distance of over eight hundred miles. We walked until our shoes were worn out, and our feet became sore and cracked open and bled until you could see the whole print of our feet with blood on the ground. We stopped and united in prayer to the Lord; we asked God the Eternal Father to heal our feet. Our prayers were answered and our feet were healed forthwith."^[1]

Along their journey, they were often stopped by officials and asked to prove they were free, waded through deep and freezing water and suffered hunger. Yet when they reached Nauvoo, they were welcomed warmly by Brother Joseph, who helped her and her family find jobs and become self-sufficient. After the death of Brother Joseph, Brother Brigham made sure Jane and her family were okay. Even though the prophets treated her kindly as a human being deserves, Jane suffered from the racial prejudice which, sadly, was the social norm of that day.

When they reached Salt Lake, her life continued to be one devoid of luxury. Yet she continued to be faithful and live Christian principles, including giving what little she had to those who had even less. Eliza Partridge Lyman shared in her journal that when Eliza's husband went on a mission, she was left “without anything from which to make bread … Jane James, the colored woman, let me have two pounds of flour, it being half of what she had.” It is easy to give when one has plenty, but when one has very little, yet shares, that is where the character of true charity shines.

Through hard work Jane and her husband Issac, also of African American descent, owned property and livestock. Brother Brigham made sure they both had employment.

She died in 1908. Despite facing prejudice and near-poverty most of her life, she chose to remain to the faith she adopted over sixty years prior.

People of black African descent have had a rough time in the past few centuries of Earth's history, and the social beliefs and practices of the world have, sadly, also been reflected in the attitudes of many members and practices of the LDS faith. I'm glad to say that changed, and is still changing today. No one is denied the opportunities presented in the LDS faith because of the race they were born into.

If you're interested in information about those of African descent and the LDS faith, check out Genesis Group.

Next post: Emmeline Wells.

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^[1] In her biography, written to be read at her funeral.

Ann Eliza Webb Dee Young
Divorced Brigham Young

Brigham Young had lots of wives. A few of them weren't satisfied with their lot and divorced him. (For the most part, Brigham Young did all right by his wives, assuring they had sufficient financial support for them and their children. Even if they decided to divorce him, he was more than willing to offer them continued support.) Ann Eliza was one of those dissatisfied few.

Some call her the nineteenth wife, other the twenty-seventh. (Wikipedia, lists them in order of marriage date, putting her (married in 1868) at number forty-ninth of fifty-two, other sources list her as fifty-second of fifty-five.) I'm not completely sure, but I believe she's one of those wives-in-name-only and never enjoyed the marital bed.

Brother Brigham was not Ann Eliza's first husband. She had already been divorced from her first husband James L. Dee by the age of twenty-four, two children in tow. She was a strong-willed, prideful feminist who probably shouldn't have married Brother Brigham. We may never know what led her to accept plural marriage with Brother Brigham.

Perhaps it was the money. Brother Brigham was a wealthy man. Maybe she thought that if he was loaded, her life would be one of ease. Ann Eliza was a city girl, so when she was dropped off at Brigham Young's Forest Farmhouse, about seven miles south of the city, she wasn't happy. Why should she slave at a farmhouse so far removed from the social hub of Salt Lake? It wasn't fair! Why couldn't she live at the Beehive House? Or why couldn't she have a nice place like the Gardo House? And if she had to live at some isolated farmhouse, why did the stairway have to be in the parlour?

Ann Eliza grew bitter and resentful. She became jealous of his other wives, especially the lovely Amelia Folsom (residing in the rather nice Gardo House), who had married Brother Brigham five years before Ann Eliza did. Ann Eliza became a rather shrewish woman, who felt abandoned and put upon by her husband.

Ann Eliza fled Utah and launched bitter civil divorce proceedings against Brigham Young. She claimed he was worth over six million dollars, therefore she wanted at least US$500 a month, plus court costs. Brigham was more than willing to settle, offering her a livable $100 a month. He claimed he was nowhere near as rich as she made him out to be.

The courts wanted him to pay an expensive alimony to Ann Eliza. Brother Brigham said he'd pay it if this meant that the courts were willing to recognize polygamy as legal and lawful in the US. If not, then Ann Eliza was not his legal wife in the eyes of that court, and he was under no obligation to pay anything.

The courts threw out the case, and Brigham Young honoured his original offer of $100 a month.

After that, Ann Eliza was a vocal opponent of Brigham Young, polygamy and Mormons in general. She went apostate, was later excommunicated and wrote a scathing exposé that is still being published today. Feel free to read it, but keep in mind the veracity of a bitter, disillusioned woman.

She later married one Moses R Deming, but that marriage didn't last either. Marriage didn't seem to be her thing.

The neat thing about Ann Eliza that most people may not know is that it is rumoured that her ghost haunts the Forest Farm House. I'm certainly not inclined to disbelieve this, as lots of freaky things happened when I was working there in the 1980's.

One summer day we were having an outside activity when one of the other living history interpreters pointed to a dining room window and said, "Look." We turned and looked, and there was a woman standing at the dining room window. She backed away, fading from view, and a few of us hurried to the house, as there aren't supposed to be any public visitors inside without an interpreter (all of whom were outside) in the house.

When we got up to the house and unlocked the door, we found no one inside. All the doors had been locked at the time. I’m not sure who the woman at the window was, but general consensus among us was that she was the ghost of Ann Eliza Young. That was the first and only time I've seen her, but other guides have had more experiences, including talking to her.

There are a few other ghosts there, like the dancing children, and the mysterious man who may have been a farm overseer, but Ann Eliza, the bitterest of Brigham Young's wives, is probably the most famous.


Next Post: Jane Manning James, someone quite the opposite of Ann Eliza.

Maude Adams

I find Maude most interesting.

Maude Ewing Adams Kiskadden was the daughter of Annie Adams, an actress in a stock company that played in the local Social Hall. Her first role was at the age of nine months as a stand-in when the original baby in a play was so fussy she couldn't go on. Maude filled in and did rather well, smiling and waving to the audience.

Her father wasn't too happy about her becoming an actress, but she was one of those Uppity Mormon Women and joined her mother on the stage. Since it was the tradition back then for actors and actresses with awkward names to change them, Maude adopted her mother's maiden name, Adams.

Back then, as today, it was hard growing up a child actor. She suffered a few identity problems and returned to Salt Lake for a while, where she attended college.

Later she performed on stage in California, Boston and New York. While in New York, she met a man named Charles Frohman, who would help her in her career. There are rumours, but little substantiation, that they may have had a romantic attachment. At the very least they were close friends. When he died tragically aboard the Lusitania, it dealt her a sharp blow. She never married.

As an adult, she played engenue roles where she was praised for her charm, delicacy and simplicity. The role she is best known for is the title role of James M. Barrie's Peter Pan. Yep, she's the original Peter, and played the role so well, many of her young fans had no clue she was a woman.

As an actress, Maude was easy to work with. She never acted the diva and the of casts and crews she worked with admired her. This could have contributed her success in her career. She was not one for society and harboured no strong opinions on the issues of the day, whether it be fashion or suffrage. She just didn’t care. Her true passion was the stage and everything about it.

What a lot of people don’t know about Maude is that she was an inventor as well. At the General Electric Laboratories she experimented with color lamps for movies. She invented a high-powered incandescent lamp that later made colored movies possible. Go chica!

Maude kept her personal life closed to public scrutiny. "I don't see why an actress must give her personality to the world," she once told a newspaper reporter, "although it seems to be expected and those who curiously investigate her private life are not always careful how they use their information." ^[1]

One of the things that people wonder about Maude Adams was whether or not she was a lesbian. Very little of her personal documents remain, as she burned all her correspondence and more shortly before her death.

The only scrap of information that suggests she was is the statement made by one Mercedes de Acosta who claimed she had a lesbian relationship with Maude. (Then again, she claimed to have a lesbian relationship with lots of popular actresses, including Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich, and apparently true) but as for her liaison with Maude, there is no proof other than de Acosta's word^[2], which was printed in 1960, after Maude Adams' death in 1953, so there was no way the late Maude could confirm or deny the rumour. (We know how truthful autobiographies are. Dare we suppose an alternate interpretation of the title, "Here Lies the Heart"?)

For all we know, Mercedes was simply expressing out an unfulfilled fantasy. Maude was quite the handsome woman.

Now, if Maude was Sapphically inclined, she sure kept it under wraps. Well, anything romantically inclined, whether homo- or heterosexual, was kept quiet by her. Maybe she had no romantic inclinations at all, as her passion was theatre and the supposition of her connections with Frohman or de Acosta may be just that.

Interesting factlet: the character of Elise McKenna in the movie Somewhere in Time was based on Maude Adams.^[3]

If you're interested in knowing more about Maude Adams, there are lots of biographies out there.

Next Post: Ann Eliza Young A wife of Brigham Young and someone I've met.

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^[1] http://www.hunterchamber.org/site/firsts.htm (Original source: Davies, Acton, "Maude Adams" New York, Frederick A. Stokes company, 1901)

^[2] Mercedes de Acosta, "Here Lies the Heart" (1960) ISBN 0405073607. Go look it up on Amazon if you really care.

^[3]http://www.bookmice.net/darkchilde/maude/adams.html

Rachel Ridgeway Ivins Grant

Single mother

Rachel started out life as a Quaker. Probably would have remained as such, but she loved music so very much. (Quaker meetings are known for their silent contemplation, and they don't sing hymns.) Being religiously-minded, eventually she ended up a Mormon.

Rachel was beautiful, and considered a pleasant person, though a bit reserved at first due to her Quaker background. It took her a while to get used to a faith that believed in laughter and joy and lots of hymn singing. The prophet Joseph Smith Jr. bemused her, for how could he be the leader of a faith and still have a sense of humour?

She knew Joseph Smith as an adolescent, and even turned down a proposal of marriage from him. ("So," sez Brer Joseph. "Ya wanna become my plural wife?" "I don't think so!" sez Sistah Rachel. "Talk to the hand!")

This isn't to say she never got married. Rachel met this really great bloke by name of Jedidiah (Jeddy) Grant when she was in her teens but didn't get around to marrying him until in her thirties, becoming wife number seven. I wonder if she ever looked back on her life and wished she'd married him sooner.

She was rather fond of him. Alas, their life together was marked by tragedy. Rachel was his wife for only a year. Nine days after she bore him one son (Heber J), "lung disease" took Jeddy, leaving her a widow.

She, and a few of Jeddy's other wives, later married George Grant, Jeddy's brother, but that marriage was a disaster. Georgie-boy, once a war hero and other publicly-distinguished things caved in under the pressure of life and soon succumbed to alcohol. Since no Mormon woman was obliged to stick with a failed marriage, Rachel and the other wives divorced him soon after. Rachel's attitude was "Good riddance!" The marriage was so traumatic for her she refused to ever marry again. Her son became her focus. She loved young Heber very much.

Being a single mother, she lived rather frugally. Still, she had an independent streak, even rejecting Church aid when offered to her and chose to support herself through seamstress work and taking in boarders.

She was more moralist than activist, but still retained a flavour of the feminism so prevalent among Mormon women by choosing to remain a single, self-supporting mother and raising her son to respect women. (Later, Heber J's ten daughters loved him very much.)

To the rest of the extended family, she became known as beloved "Aunt Rachel", a woman of education, personality and self-determination.

When it came to raising a son, she seemed to have done pretty well. This is how her son describes her, and he often spoke of her in public throughout his adult life: “I, of course, owe everything to my mother, because my father died when I was only nine days of age; and the marvelous teachings, the faith, the integrity of my mother have been an inspiration to me.” ^[1]

“I stand here today as one whose mother was all to him. She was both father and mother to me; she set an example of integrity, of devotion and love, of determination, and honor second to none. I stand here today...because I have followed the advice and counsel...which came to me from my mother.” ^[2]

"One of the greatest desires of my life has been to live worthy of the father and the mother I have had..." ^[3]

Awww, what a sweet boy to say such things about his mother. I hope my children regard me as well.

Next post: Maude Adams There's a touch of mystery about this one. I leave it up to you to decide: "Was she or wasn't she?"

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^[1] "Gospel Standards", comp. G. Homer Durham (1941), 151.
^[2] The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints Conference Report, Apr. 1934, 15
^[3] The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints Conference Report, Oct. 1909, 26.

Martha Hughes Cannon

First Female State Senator in the United States

If you were a woman who wanted to be on the cutting edge of political opportunity in the late 19th Century, then Utah was the place to be. The first female US senator was from Utah: Dr. Martha Hughes Cannon.

Yeah, you heard me Doctor Cannon. Senator Cannon. And occasionally she was called Mom.

Martha lived an interesting life. She's one of the bevy of Utah women to get a tertiary education and become a doctor. She received a chemistry degree in 1875, graduated from medical school in 1881 and earned a pharmacy degree in 1882. She worked at the Deseret Hospital as a staff physician. You go, girl!

Like so many Utahn women of the time, she fully believed in rights for women: suffrage rights, right to education, right to work and more. She did not subscribe to the notion that a woman had to remain at home with no outside interests: "Somehow I know that women who stay home all the time have the most unpleasant homes there are. You give me a woman who thinks about something besides cook stoves and wash tubs and baby flannels, and I'll show you, nine times out of ten, a successful mother."^[1]

She was also a plural wife, being number four of six to Angus M. Cannon and bore him three children.

Because she was a doctor at the Deseret Hospital, she was pressured by federal agents seeking to persecute polygamists to give out the names of babies born to polygamist fathers, which would have resulted in jail time for the fathers. She said, "To me it is a serious matter to be the cause of sending to jail a father upon whom a lot of little children are dependent, whether those children were begotten by the same or by different mothers - the fact remains they all have little mouths that must be fed."^[2] Rather than contribute to the hardship and potential destruction of families, she went into self-imposed exile to Europe.

When she returned to Utah, she entered the political arena. She supported the Utah Equal Suffrage Association and became involved in the national suffrage movement.

In 1896, the first year of Utah's statehood, she ran as a democrat for the Utah State Senate. (FYI, her husband ran in the same election as a republican. She beat him.) After serving two fruitful terms in office, she served as a member of the Utah Board of Health.

She died on July 10, 1932.

Next post: Rachel Ridgeway Ivins Grant

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^[1]http://www.autry-museum.org/explore/exhibits/suffrage/suffrage_ut.html
^[2] Lieber, Constance L. and Sillito, John, Editors. “Letters from Exile: The Correspondence of Martha Hughes Cannon and Angus M. Cannon, 1886-1888.” Signature Books, Inc., Salt Lake City, Utah, 1993. ISBN 0-941214-77-X.

Sarah Melissa Granger Kimball

Early Advocate of Universal Rights


Sarah Melissa Granger Kimball (born 1818) was not a woman to take life meekly. She possessed the courage to say what she thought.

Did she believe in suffrage? You bet your sweet bippy she did! And not just voting rights, but universal rights for all. In her opinion, not only should women have the right to vote, but the education and self-presence to know their own mind. As president of the Utah Woman Suffrage Association, she worked closely with Susan B Anthony to encourage universal suffrage in the United States. She believed "education and agitation are our best weapons of warfare." ^[1] No shrinking violet she.

Sarah Kimball was a vocal advocate for women's rights. She believed that women were more than capable of contributing and functioning in society as intelligent, skillful people and encouraged them at every opportunity. She was a suffragist, a first member, and later served in the general and local presidencies of the Relief Society, and a supporter of education for women. She was a school teacher by career and a wife by choice. Hers "became a public life and she became a major influence on Utah’s social, religious, and political scenes." ^[2]

The neat thing about her suffragettage was that, unlike many of her contemporaries in the Eastern States or abroad in, say, England, she was not ridiculed or shunned by society or called a raving bluestocking. She was an honored and respected member of the community.

As president of her ward's Relief Society, and later, as general vice-president of the General Relief Society, she was known for her innovation and attention to the complete development of women. She encouraged the sisters of the Relief Society to seek out knowledge, not just of the sacred but the secular as well.

And nobody ever told her to shut up.

Alas, she died in 1898 and never got to see universal suffrage come to pass. She did, however, get to participate in the vote, as the Territory of Utah had universal suffrage in 1870, and got to see the first female State Senator in the US elected. (More on this senator in a later post. Um, in fact, next post.)

Next Post: Martha Hughes Cannon. You'll like her.

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^[1] "Woman's Exponent" newspaper, 20 [1 May 1892]:159 and 18 [15 Feb. 1890]:139

^[2] "Heroines of the Restoration", ed. Barbara B. Smith and Blythe Darlyn Thatcher. Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1997, p 109

Author's Note: It's August 18 and to celebrate the passing of the amendment that allowed women to vote, I thought this would be the best time to post my Uppity Mormon Women series. This was inspired by cassiphone's (Roman) Women's History Month. Go read it if you haven't.

Now, not all the Uppity Mormon Women I'm going to share with you were notable for their suffragette activity, but have distinguished themselves enough for me to find sufficient info on them in my meager library to say something interesting about them. It's hard being on the other side of the planet from Utah sometimes. (Other times, I can't be far enough away. I still love Jello though.)

Enjoy.

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In the Nineteenth and early Twentieth Century, American history has been marked by the influence of Mormon^[1] Women. Alas, not many people know the stories of these forthright and courageous women. Compared to the views of women's roles at the time, they could be considered rather uppity. But they were blessed in that they lived in a faith and a culture that allowed them to become more than just chattel, more than a simple housewife, to sit meekly at home, raise the children, keep the house and generally not be heard.

If you told an early Mormon woman that she was supposed to be the meek stay-at-home housewife, she'd laugh in your face.

( interesting historical stuff you'll probably want to know before reading this series. Skip it if you don't care. )

My background: Other than being a raving bluestocking Uppity Mormon Woman myself and having come from a background full of more Uppity Mormon Women who insisted on sharing the stories of my Uppity Mormon Ancestors, my first job was as a living history interpreter at Old Deseret Village for, ooh, about eight years or so. I had a great exposure to the history of Utah and the early LDS church, including some lovely rare documents and other bits of history one doesn't always get to read about. (For a while there, I was able to read--if just barely--books in the Deseret Alphabet and even had a few close encounters with some ghosts at the Brigham Young Forest Farmhouse. Couldn't read the DA now to save my life, and I doubt the ghosts would talk to me as I've "deserted" them.)

So enjoy this series of historical Uppity Mormon Women and learn an interesting bit of US History that not everyone gets to hear about in History class.

First Up: Sarah Melissa Granger Kimball