Join us as we conclude Carol Lynn Pearson week on Mormon Stories Podcast!
Today we have planned a celebration & Q&A with beloved author, poet, feminist, and activist Carol Lynn Pearson. We will have several guests on to share their dedications to Carol Lynn. And Barbara Brown from Signature Books will join us as we also discuss the new release of: The Diaries of Carol Lynn Pearson–Mormon Author, Feminist, and Activist: Volume 1 (1956-1990).
Please help us support Carol Lynn Pearson and purchase her new memoir, here: https://exponentii.org/product/diaries-of-carol-lynn-pearson-vol-1/
Episode Transcript
Host: John Dehlin · Co-host: Margi Dehlin · Guests: Barbara Jones Brown, Carol Lynn Pearson, Nadine McCombs Hansen
This transcript is machine-generated and lightly edited for readability. The audio is authoritative. Please excuse occasional errors in names and spelling.
Welcome and Introduction to Carol Lynn Pearson Week
John Dehlin [00:00:00] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast and to Carolyn Pearson Week. I'm your host, John Dehlin. The recording date is February 27, 2026. I'm here with my wonderful co host, Margi.
Margi Dehlin [00:00:16] Hello.
John Dehlin [00:00:16] Hi, Margi.
Barbara Jones Brown [00:00:17] Hi, babe.
John Dehlin [00:00:19] You're not normally here for the live streams, but I guess wild dogs couldn't keep you away from a tribute to Carolyn Pearson. Is that right?
Margi Dehlin [00:00:29] True enough, that is right.
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:00:30] Wow. Wow. Thank you.
John Dehlin [00:00:32] And we're here to celebrate Carolyn Pearson, but also to promote this amazing book, volume one. The diaries of Carolyn Pearson, Mormon author, feminist and activist, were covered in the years 1956 to 1990 before Carolyn and I met. I'm curious to know if I make her diaries, but no spoilers. But this book is published by Signature Books and I believe Barbara Jones Brown is the editor. But we will be bringing on several friends of Carolyn throughout today's episode. But we could not be more excited to have with us joining remotely from Walnut Creek, California, the Carolyn Pearson and Barbara Jones Brown.
Barbara Jones Brown [00:01:20] Hi.
John Dehlin [00:01:21] Are you going by Barbara Brown? Barbara Jones. Barbara Jones Brown. What is it?
Barbara Jones Brown [00:01:25] Barbara Jones Brown, first reference and then just Barbara is great.
John Dehlin [00:01:28] Okay. Carolyn, we love you.
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:01:31] Well, John, how happy does that make me?
John Dehlin [00:01:35] Where have you been all our lives?
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:01:38] I have been right there beside you and finally you noticed me.
John Dehlin [00:01:46] This is like the fifth time you've been on Marvin Stories, maybe six.
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:01:51] Yeah, those.
John Dehlin [00:01:53] Those of you who've been following along on Carolyn Pearson week will know Carolyn was on my very first original long form video interviews with high quality video. We will have broadcasted that, rebroadcasted that on Monday, combining it into a single episode. Go watch that. If you haven't watched it then I believe for Wednesday we munged together our tribute to Carolyn where we talked about her book the Ghost of Eternal Polygamy. We munged that together and rebroadcasted. And now today we're here to give another tribute to Carolyn. Carolyn, you've been a dear friend for many, many years. I'm pretty sure I met you in 2004, 2005, at my very first sunstone. But you've been a mother figure, a matriarch to me and to so many people. So welcome back to Mormon Stories.
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:02:46] Oh, how happy does that make me, John? So great to be just part of your personal and professional life there. Truly, truly. And I honor all the work that you have done.
John Dehlin [00:02:59] Thank you. Do you remember when Margi and I lived in Logan, we whenever I had a long drive from Salt Lake to Logan or from Logan to Salt Lake. Who I'd call.
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:03:09] Yeah, we had some good phone conversations, didn't we?
John Dehlin [00:03:13] We had some epic hours, long conversations, Carolyn.
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:03:18] Yeah. Wow. Yeah, I hadn't thought of those until you just spring it on me right now.
John Dehlin [00:03:25] I hear Covid was a little rough for you. Is that true?
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:03:30] What did you say? That Covid was rough for me.
John Dehlin [00:03:32] I heard Covid might have been a little rough for you. Rougher than on some.
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:03:36] Well, I think so, because I believe I'm still dealing with some of the. Some of the results of long Covid. Yeah.
Barbara Jones Brown [00:03:45] So sorry.
John Dehlin [00:03:46] Well, you look fantastic as always.
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:03:50] Thank you, John. Thank you so much for being so creative in your conversations.
Barbara Jones Brown [00:03:58] Marilyn is beautiful on the inside and out and 86, she's still gorgeous. I'm sitting right here with you and I can attest.
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:04:05] Well, I will just say thank you. And let's move on. Let's move on to Barbara.
The Origins of the Diary Series
John Dehlin [00:04:11] Tell us about how this amazing multi volume series of books came to be. And yeah, give us any introduction you want to this book, to this series and to your work with Carolyn.
Barbara Jones Brown [00:04:27] Absolutely. Let's maybe do that together. But recently I received a phone call, I guess it was a little over a year ago now, from Greg Prince, who's a mutual friend of ours, and he said that Carolyn was going through her multi, multi volume diary.
Barbara Jones Brown [00:04:44] If you could go in her closet, which I have, she has diaries in white notebooks, like printed out now all across the top, you know, one for each year across of her closet. It's remarkable. And turns out I did not know this, but she started keeping a diary when she was 17 years old in 1956, almost a near daily diary.
Barbara Jones Brown [00:05:10] So when Greg called me and he said, Carolyn's working on this diary project, she's looking for a publisher. Of course I was so excited to talk with Carolyn. We had never met in person, but I was a big fan of hers just like everyone else. I grew up listening to my turn on earth in the 70s. I don't know if you and John
John Dehlin [00:05:28] remember that, Margi, but the world turns round like a.
Barbara Jones Brown [00:05:34] And I think it's the. Yeah, the main character's name is Barbara. So anyways, and my mom was a big fan of Carolyn Pearson, so we always had these books. So I remember I called and left a message for her and then when she called me back in my phone, it said Carolyn Pearson. And I picked up the phone, I'm like, I can't believe Carolyn Pearson calling me.
Barbara Jones Brown [00:05:57] I was like deer in the headlights, so excited. But anyways, we talked about her diary project. And she told me that she was wanting to publish them, looking for a publisher. I said that Signature Books would dearly love to publish her diaries the way that she decided to. And I'll pass it this to you in a second, but the way that you decided you wanted to publish your diaries was you were invited to speak at the Utah State capitol on the 50 year anniversary of the era.
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:06:29] Yeah.
Barbara Jones Brown [00:06:30] And you. So you got out your diaries and we're reading through them. You want to take it from here?
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:06:37] Yes, this is true. I was invited to participate this look back in history, and I thought, oh, I've got some history that I could share on this. So I, I went right to my diaries and found the, the places that intersected with what, what was going on.
Barbara Jones Brown [00:06:57] And they're all in here.
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:06:59] Yeah, but, but to, to celebrate that, that, that. What was it, Bicentennial?
Barbara Jones Brown [00:07:08] I think it was like the 50, 50 50th anniversary of the era.
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:07:12] Yes, whatever.
Barbara Jones Brown [00:07:13] It's passing.
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:07:14] Yeah, whatever that was. I was thrilled to be able to find something that I had already written down about that. And so I went to my diaries and found that easily found that exact place and my enthusiasm about what was going on there, after which I began to think, you know, these little books are kind of valuable. So I was rather quickly converted to the idea that I could find a lot of valuable things in history by going through what I had already written day by day by day. Not always day by day, but
Guest [00:08:05] if
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:08:05] I ever missed more than a few days, the way I wrote it, I feel like I have not washed my hair for that long. So, yes, when I, when I remembered the valuable history, I quickly began to search it for important things. And important things were found, not, not just about my own personal life, but about what was going on. I had this, this bird's eye view of what was happening in my ward, in my stake in a larger measure about the issues that had become very important to me, women's issues.
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:08:56] Of course, I personally was involved because of my own awareness about women's issues. And then of course, I married into gay issues. And all of that became a real gold mine for me to have personal experience that I could share around these issues that were turning out to be really important for a large part of society and certainly for the little Mormon slice of all of these issues.
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:09:35] It was just a remarkable thing that I happened to be there with my own little pen and then my typewriter to watch them materialize in front of my eyes, which I knew was happening. In so many people. So I know I encouraged a lot of people to be able to notice how they were intersecting with all of these issues and to do their own work about them.
Barbara Jones Brown [00:10:09] And as you told me, you said as you're going through your diaries, you thought, well, someday some historians going to come along and mind my diaries.
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:10:19] Which I did.
Barbara Jones Brown [00:10:22] But then you said, but, well, maybe, maybe that someone ought to be me. Maybe I ought to go through and curate and just take, you know, the most relevant to a broader general audience, leaving out more personal things about your kids who had their own stories to tell.
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:10:35] Right.
Barbara Jones Brown [00:10:36] But you've curated it. And she sent as a signature, 700,000 words and that equals four volumes. So I started reading through these volumes what Carolyn had shared with us. My jaw just dropped. It's jaw dropping stuff. Because she had not only a bird's eye view of what was going on in the church and in America from the 1950s on, but she also had some of an insider's perspective because of the book Beginnings that she published in 1969. That put her on the map and general authorities were quoting her in general conference all the time. She developed personal friendships with folks like Elder Marion D. Hanks.
Barbara Jones Brown [00:11:19] And so she also had an insider's view of what was going on in the church. And whether you're interested in Mormonism or just in Americana, this is a great journal to understand. And if I may, I pulled out a couple of quotes that she had written in her journal that I just wanted to share really quick. They're on the back of this volume one. But she wrote, I feel somehow that of all the writing I am doing and think about all that writing, all these books, all this poetry, all these plays, of all the writing I am doing, my diary is the most important.
Barbara Jones Brown [00:11:56] She wrote this back in her 1979 diary and a few years before that she had also written, I feel the imperative of history. Add that to my being a household word to many, and I cannot escape the feeling that in many years there might be a number of people interested in these pages. Well, today, that day has come and we can all read her diaries in this diary project.
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:12:25] Oh, how great is that of Okra? A coincidence, but you know, sort of a historical coming together of some important things, of my having chosen to start documenting the things that were happening in my life and in my mind, particularly from an LDS point of view in this, this whole, this whole richness of society. I did have a bird's eye view to this small but very interesting phenomenon of Mormondom. I'm grateful for that, Carolyn.
John Dehlin [00:13:12] I kept eight journals between my childhood and maybe my mission, and then I stopped. What made you such an avid lifelong and thoughtful journal keeper and journal writer?
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:13:30] Well, I, I really don't know if I can answer that accurately. It was, it was just it I think it started out just being an interesting thing to do, and then it kind of turned into a compulsion because, and there was something in me, you know, because I, I did just in my own life, I came up against interesting things going on, interesting people. You know, I did have interactions with a number of the general authorities and I did write down the things that we talked about or when my my
Barbara Jones Brown [00:14:16] observations there and General Relief Society presidencies and Dallin H. Oaks's mother, Stella Oaks. I mean, it's remarkable. Barbara B. Smith, just in volume one,
John Dehlin [00:14:28] there's Gordon B. Hinckley, Marion Hanks, Thomas S. Monson, Jeffrey R. Holland, Dallin H. Oaks, Dallin H. Oaks. Do you have any stories of interactions from volume one, either Barbara or Carolyn? And not to make this about men by any stretch, but I think your candid and thoughtful reflections on those interactions are fascinating. One of the best parts of the book, in my opinion,
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:14:59] you might be able to remember exactly what those would be. To my mind, it's just this vast reservoir of events and people that I talked about.
Polygamy, Marion D. Hanks, and Early Faith Tensions
John Dehlin [00:15:13] Barbara, you were telling me you had had some thoughts around the power of her engagement with Marion D. Hanks, specifically.
Barbara Jones Brown [00:15:22] They became very close friends. In fact, Marion D. Hanks, sealed in the LDS Salt Lake City Temple, sealed Carolyn to her husband gerald back in 1960, 67, I believe. And so she wrote about that. But they eventually become very good friends. And one of the parts in the journal that was so touching to me was after Carolyn's husband, former husband gerald, he contracts AIDS.
Barbara Jones Brown [00:15:51] This is back in the early 80s, before people understood this disease. It was still not understood how it was passed, you know, was it passed through saliva? Was it passed through just touch, you know, people didn't know still. But Carolyn had the courage and the love to bring home her former husband Gerald into her home here in which we're sitting and care for him, provide hospice for him as he died.
Barbara Jones Brown [00:16:20] She wrote this incredible book about that called Goodbye, I Love youe, which was an international bestseller. She was on Oprah, Good Morning America, every news story, People magazine, because she kind of changed not only how Latter Day Saints looked at gay men who was she was really writing about just, just gay men at the time, but also how America saw this disease and saw Gay men. And after Marion D. Hanks, elder Marion D. Hanks of the 70 read, Goodbye, I love you, he said to her, and this is in her diaries, he said, carolyn, I've always taken off my hat to you, but now when I'm with you, I take off my shoes when I'm in your presence.
Barbara Jones Brown [00:17:06] In other words, I'm walking on holy ground when I'm around you. He was so touched, as all of us were, by the love that she showed in caring for her former husband as he died for maids.
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:17:18] Wow. Yeah. That's very moving to me to have to remember that. And I know he did. He did mention our story without using my name in a major talk at byu. I know that. So I do know that these strange opportunities that I've had have been forced into by life because I had already been prepared to not only observe them and live them, but somehow I had been been prepared because of this little high school girl who. Who felt compelled to start a diary.
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:18:11] So I. All of these important things would never have happened, but would never have been grabbed hold of and made his. Made part of history if I had not known early on how important words were to capture what you were thinking, what you were doing, to capture all that in words was something that happened to me and I don't know why, early on in my. In my school career. So, yeah, wow,
John Dehlin [00:18:54] Carolyn.
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:18:56] Amazing life I have really had. Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:18:59] Amen, Carolyn. I remember talking to my grandma Karma, who, Who lived polygamy. She was the daughter of a third wife, and I would ask her about polygamy, and she was like, it was fine. She would smile and say, we had a good time. Like she. She couldn't say enough good things about it. That's very, very different than what you were writing about. Your feelings of the doctrine of polygamy as early as 17 years old in 1956. Barbara, you highlighted that as something to mention. Do you want to take over on that, Barbara? Page two.
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:19:41] Sure.
Barbara Jones Brown [00:19:41] The very first entry in this volume, one of her diaries is October 3rd, 1956. She's only 17 and she wrote all day long. I was distraught about the idea of polygamy in heaven. That was very early on, concerned about the Ghost of Eternal Polygamy, a book she wrote many, many years later. It started when she was still just only a teenage girl. And then you add here that it was because of a seminary lesson when they talked about polygamy in heaven. Do you remember that?
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:20:17] Absolutely, I remember that. And my very dear seminary teacher, I could not speak more Highly of him. But he told us that he was now living with his second wife and his first wife had died, and he had been sealed in the temple to both of them. And he was thrilled to know that in the heavens he would have both of his wives, because that's. Because plural marriage is a very strong part of God's plan. And I remember sitting there thinking, oh, I. There's something wrong in this line of thinking, something wrong here that, that, that polygamy is, is a divine operation. And so, yeah, all of these, these things that, that came into my life and just landed there, waiting for me to write about them at some point. The idea of eternal polygamy came very, very early. Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:21:34] And Carolyn, I mean, that's so many of us when we were born into Mormonism and raised in the Mormon Church, we're just like, oh, what are we supposed to believe? Okay, we'll believe that. It's clear that for some reason from a very early age, you had a conscience and a sense of confidence and a sense of almost a compass of right and wrong that did not seem to bend to where the church or correlation might want to bend. You another example of that, Barbara, you. You highlighted.
Barbara Jones Brown [00:22:10] Yeah, the very next entry.
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:22:12] Yeah, go for it.
Barbara Jones Brown [00:22:14] You can see she's a feminist at. Before she even knew what the word was, I think, as you write. But on October 6, 1957, so just a year later, she wrote in Sunday school, they discussed what a wife had to do to make a happy home. It indeed painted a dark picture. I don't intend to go through life acting the part of a stupid, inefficient, fragile idiot to make men think they're superior. They're not. I doubt if I shall ever find the type of man I want, the one who want me as an equal, not an inferior ego builder. So there she is at 17 or 18 maybe, by then expressing her feminism. Very early on.
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:23:02] Yep, I was. I guess I was born with it or other. I looked around and said, oh, this is not okay.
John Dehlin [00:23:12] Yeah. What. Who do you think you were, Carolyn?
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:23:18] I thought I was Carolyn Wright, a little girl who somehow or other just was compelled to look around and say, this is good. This is not good. And that somehow the woman question was very early in my mind to look around and see that in general, femaleness seemed to be lower on the, on the list of important things than maleness. So, you know, just what was going on around me and the things that had been going on inside of me, those all combined to. To insist that I take A look at certain things that became important to a lot of people as I grabbed hold of them and began to write about them.
Barbara Jones Brown [00:24:19] And this was very much part, not only of Latter Day Saint culture, of course, in the 1950s, but American culture. The second wave feminist movement starts in the late 60s, early 70s, and it's a national movement. And Carolyn is right there, a part of it, writing about it, recording it, documenting it in these diaries here.
John Dehlin [00:24:42] But. But I'm thinking, you know, when I'm. I'm growing up in the. Like a kid in the 70s, and I'm watching, like, reruns of Leave it to Beaver and Father Knows Best, and I'm seeing these. These women portrayed on tv like June Cleaver. They're wearing their aprons and their hair's all done, and they have pearl earrings home at home, and they look super happy vacuuming and making dinner. And I'm just. I'm thinking, wow, women really love their lives in the 50s. But that's not what you were thinking, Carolyn?
The Equal Rights Amendment and Social Advocacy
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:25:20] No, that is not what I was thinking. I think somehow we. Maybe we each just come here carrying with us some thoughts that have to become things, as I had all of these thoughts around the valuing of femaleness, and I have no way to pin down where those came from, but they were there. And so they did form this real solid foundation for me to look around and say, this is good. This is. This is not good, Carolyn.
John Dehlin [00:26:05] I know we would have talked about this in my interview with you on Mormon stories way back when, but what did you. When the. When the Equal Rights Amendment started to emerge and feminism started to really sweep the nation? As a Mormon woman, did you have any idea that it was going to run afoul of the Brethren, so to speak, and become something they would not only fight, but spy on people and ultimately defeat. When you were thinking about it and advocating for it early on, did you even know it was going to be something the Brethren would fight against?
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:26:40] I believe that I did. And if I looked through some of the pages, I believe I would find that kind of conflict. But I did know that what I was feeling and embracing as I saw certain things happening in the world that shone a better light on femaleness,
Guest 2 [00:27:11] I
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:27:11] knew that that was correct. I just knew it was a true, true path that we needed to take. And somehow or other I was able to say, I don't know why the Brethren don't understand this, but they don't.
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:27:31] And I think maybe I'm here in part to help them see this larger picture of how things need to be as we move. And we didn't really have the word partnership by that time. Well, soon, soon I think we did.
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:27:49] But. But intuitively I knew that something that felt like partnership needed to become part of LDS perception as well as general perception, which, of course, would be pretty challenging because everything in our church was patriarchal. Yeah, that's what I kind of came up against. And to me, it was just so real, so very real that I could not turn away and say, well, I'm wrong and they're right, because I knew it was not that. That's not what it was.
Barbara Jones Brown [00:28:35] Carolyn, early advocate oh, sorry, John.
John Dehlin [00:28:39] I was going to say. Go ahead, Barbara. Go ahead.
Barbara Jones Brown [00:28:41] Carolyn became a very early advocate of the Equal Rights Amendment. In fact, there's an entry if I could read from and have comment on. In 1972, January 6, she called Kbyu and she wanted to do a segment on the Equal Rights Amendment because she felt people misunderstood it, that it shouldn't be seen as a threat. It was just equality for women.
Barbara Jones Brown [00:29:07] And so she ends up on a program on kbyu. And on the pro side, it was Virginia Cutler, former head of the College of Family Living, State Senator Robert O. Bowen and Carolyn Pearson. And on the con side, it was two BYU professors, Professor Rodney Turner and Carlton Marlowe.
Barbara Jones Brown [00:29:31] Anyway, she gets up, they all spoke, and then it was her turn to speak. And this was fascinating to me. She talked about the women of the early Woman's Exponent, which was edited by the Relief Society president at the time, in the late 19th century, early 20th century, named Emmaline B. Wells. And she talks about these women, how these were early women's rights women leaders in the church and were supported by the church in their advocacy for women's rights. And then Leonard Arrington, the church historian. Leonard Arrington had sent Carolyn something called the Utah Women's Suffrage Psalm Book. And she said she selected one of the songs out of that songbook to the tune of Hope of Israel. And it's called Woman, Arise. And she got up and sang that early Mormon suffrage song. Do you feel like singing it?
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:30:29] Oh, yeah.
Barbara Jones Brown [00:30:29] You want to sing it?
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:30:30] Oh. Oh, I. I don't know.
Barbara Jones Brown [00:30:35] You don't have to.
Guest 2 [00:30:36] You don't want.
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:30:37] Let's see. Freedom staughter rouse from slumber See the something are withdrawn, which flood your something. Lo, your day begins to dawn. Woman, rise thy penance or sit thou in the dust no more. I. I don't have my See the
Barbara Jones Brown [00:31:05] scepter hold the van equal with thy brother man and this was written by early Mormon women suffragists.
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:31:15] Yeah.
Barbara Jones Brown [00:31:15] So she got and sang this on this program, trying to advocate for the ERA to church members.
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:31:21] And Rodney Turner did not like that.
Barbara Jones Brown [00:31:27] He was a BYU professor who she describes in her journal was very sexist.
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:31:32] Yeah. So those were very interesting, exciting days when I started to fit, you know, the dissonance that I had grown up with because I was a wide eyed feminist before I even knew the term. When I when I realized how that conflicted with very much that was going on in the church that I loved. It was, you know, kind of a coming, coming up against something that was unexpected. And I had to find a way
Barbara Jones Brown [00:32:19] to
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:32:22] let my budding feminism and my ongoing love for my church find a way to coexist. And that's been one of the major, major challenges of life.
John Dehlin [00:32:38] I mean this in the most complimentary ways. It's almost like you were a Mormon, Forrest Gump feminist woman version. Because like Barbara, you're shaking your head, so you finish the sentence.
Barbara Jones Brown [00:32:49] BARBARA well, I was going to say, so she's friends with Sonia Johnson, who was eventually excommunicated for her advocacy of the era. She's documenting all of these things that are going on. And in fact, speaking of the women's exponent, there was a group forming in Boston in the early 70s. John, you've had a segment about this with Katie Ludlow Rich and Heather Sundahl talking about the exponent too.
John Dehlin [00:33:15] I've also had Karen, I had Claudia Bushman on Mormon stories very early on as well.
Barbara Jones Brown [00:33:20] So she's like one of her diary entries, she says, I'm flying out to Boston because there's some women out there doing some really interesting things. And you want to talk about meeting Claudia, she stayed with the Bushmans, young Claudia and Richard Bushman at the time,
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:33:37] in 1970, it was just like discovering a gold mine when I learned from some of the things that they had been writing that all of those women, I mean, that there was really a nest of women there who were already thinking and behaving the way that my mind had been, insisting that I go and that society and church society and has to go, that we have to move in this direction. So, yes, I went, I went back east and stayed with Claudia and Richard Bushman. And I remember Richard Bushman saying to me, I get so sick of the woman question. And I said, oh, I do too. I wish we could just solve and move on.
Barbara Jones Brown [00:34:29] You write in 1973, you agree with Richard Bushman and you say, I am Sick to death of the woman question. I wish to solve it in some reasonable way and move on. Sitting around talking about it is like studying your bicycle for days and days and never getting on it and going anywhere. I want to go somewhere. Except that some study and work in the area will always be pertinent for there are such a lot of women who don't even know they have bicycles.
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:35:00] Yep, that was a smart thing for me to say. Yeah.
Barbara Jones Brown [00:35:04] So she talks about meeting these women, meeting with Claudia Bushman, meeting Laurel Ulrich, and I love this too. She wrote, they got together on a Thursday night, the whole group of Exponent 2 women, and said Thursday night they all met for a potluck dinner and conversation. They are an impressive bunch. They told me they had solved the housework problem problem some time ago by deciding it simply wasn't as important as they had previously thought.
Carol Lynn and the LGBT Community
Barbara Jones Brown [00:35:34] Yep, so she wrote. Then she adds, the most important thing I put to them was this. I explained that within myself I have come to feel very good about my own value as a woman, my own capacities relative to manhood and womanhood and personhood. But I have come to this insight of, not because of our religions, doctrines concerning the sexes. And my question to them was, if anyone had come to those feelings by dealing with our doctrines, I had no takers. Claudia's attitude is just to put all of that away and not worry about it, to concentrate on the here and now doing with your life what you want to do.
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:36:18] Yep. There were a lot of women in, in one way or another who were addressing this in their own. In their own way. Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:36:28] Carolyn, you know, obviously this is just volume one of, of, of what is it, three or four volumes? Barbara? What?
Barbara Jones Brown [00:36:38] Four volumes?
John Dehlin [00:36:39] Okay, three.
Barbara Jones Brown [00:36:40] We hope to publish by the end of this year.
John Dehlin [00:36:42] So this one only goes up through 1990. So there's a, there's a lot that, that will be covered in future episodes. But after the era stuff and the women's stuff in the 70s, I think the 80s for you are mostly defined by the AIDS crisis, by Gerald dying, you taking care of Gerald and then goodbye. Love you coming out. Carolyn, let me just ask you.
John Dehlin [00:37:11] It seems like the defining public issue of Mormonism of the past 30 years from today, going back to, let's just say 2005 is the LGBT issue, whether it's Prop 8, whether it's evergreen, whether it's the November 15th policy, and then it's undoing four years later.
John Dehlin [00:37:39] When you were publicly advocating for Gerald for gay Mormons during the AIDS crisis, did you have Any idea, number one, that this issue was a problem for Mormons in the word of wisdom, so to speak? And did you have any inkling that this issue was going to become possibly the defining issue for the church's public image in the, let's just say, final three to four decades of your life? Carolyn?
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:38:15] Wow. I, that's really a large question. And I will have to say that I knew at the time that all of that was fomenting. I knew that it was a large thing and that it would continue to get large and that somehow I had been placed in the middle of it and that I personally had to do some work through my writing and my speaking that that impinged strongly on all of that. So to answer your question, I don't know really how to answer it except to say I just knew that something big was in process and that I had been invited to participate.
John Dehlin [00:39:16] It sounds like you were doing what was right and letting the consequence follow.
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:39:20] Yeah, I think that's absolutely true.
John Dehlin [00:39:25] Barbara, you we've had Bruce Bastian, Word Perfect co founder Bruce Bastian on Mormon Stories. There's a lovely appearance of Bruce Bastian in this diary. Do you want to share that and then let Carolyn respond to it?
Barbara Jones Brown [00:39:40] I think it's, yeah, give me one minute.
John Dehlin [00:39:43] I think it's page 279. October 20, 1986. And for those who haven't checked out my Bruce Bastian interview. Bruce Bastian's a legend. He passed away just in the past few years, but he was maybe one of Mormonism's first hundreds millionaire, if not billionaire. He was one of the co founders of WordPerfect. He led the marching band at BYU and he developed some software before computers were even used to help organize the marching band performances. And he turned that with Alan Ashton into one of the world's most successful software companies. And it turns out he's another one of those Forrest Gump like characters in your story.
Barbara Jones Brown [00:40:37] Yeah, this is one of those jaw dropping entries that again, there are many of. But on October 20, 1986, Carolyn wrote last week a man flew in from Utah to talk to me. Married, gay, father of four, very distressed about what to do. And again, this is just, I don't know, I think, yes, her book Goodbye Love you had just come out and that's why he knew who Carolyn was. So he flies out to talk with her, says he had come to hate himself.
Barbara Jones Brown [00:41:11] Three years ago he met a man and fell in love with him. The first time he had ever been in love and the first time in Years, he did not feel suicidal. He saw some good in himself. He felt some of the darkness lift. I had no firm answers for this man. I tried to help him look into the future, knowing he will have to make a choice that will mean a huge sacrifice either way and try to make whichever sacrifice will bring him to a better place of peace.
Barbara Jones Brown [00:41:42] Incidentally, this man is a very rich. Is very rich, works in computers and wants to give me a computer and a laser printer and word processing outfit. He said it would thrill him to do that. He is so grateful for my book and he also wants to find other things that might help in develop me developing a better understanding of homosexual people. That was. The term that was politically correct at the time, was homosexual. We don't necessarily use that today, but this is a diary entry from 1986. So a better understanding of homosexual people. I told him if it would thrill him to set me up with a computer, that I would certainly allow him to do that.
Barbara Jones Brown [00:42:27] He assured me it would thrill him enormously. So I'm reading this and thinking, who's that? In her notes, she adds, years later, the man's name was Bruce Bastian, a name that meant nothing to me in 1986. I did not know that he was co founder of the software program WordPerfect and that he would go on to become a prominent philanthropist doing remarkable things in the world as well as an ongoing blessing to me and my family. I emailed him just now asking if I could tell the story using his name. And he said, of course you may use my name. I would be honored and flattered. I love you, my dear. And I think it wasn't long after that email exchange that he passed away.
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:43:14] Yeah, right. I think so.
John Dehlin [00:43:17] Beautiful.
Barbara Jones Brown [00:43:17] Oh, yeah. And. And it's. It's in volume two of this. But later on, the historian D. Michael Quinn has come out. He's been excommunicated from the church and he's just trying to survive doing his historical work without an appointment at a university. And Carolyn tells Bruce Bastian, you need to help out D. Michael Quinn so he can continue his studies. And Bruce gave Michael a $20,000 donation to keep him going. And D. Michael Quinn writes about that in his own memoir, Chosen Path. And Carolyn writes about it in her diaries.
John Dehlin [00:43:59] Speaking of D. Michael Quinn, one of my viewers and listeners wrote in, her name is Carolyn Toronto, and I'll just read. So if people are just listening, this is a cartoon of D. Michael Quinn with a fig leaf. He's naked, but with a fig leaf. He's carrying a book or two. And then next to him is Carolyn, naked with the fig leaf, carrying a book or two. And the headline says, that was me.
Barbara Jones Brown [00:44:30] When did this come out, John?
John Dehlin [00:44:32] This was, I think probably, I'm going to guess around 93 or, you know, years around that time. But the headline says, this is Deseret News. What part of no doesn't Sunstone understand? A spiritual movement that wants it both ways. And then Carolyn Toronto, who's one of my listeners, she wrote, oh, I love Carolyn. It's been years since I visited with her. I'm in Arizona. I remember when I was illustrating for the Deseret News in the late 80s 90s, and I had to draw something for the article about Sunstone being scrutinized. And I felt so bad about having to portray her as Eve being expelled from the Garden of Eden with the temple in the background.
John Dehlin [00:45:19] I called her and said, please don't take this as a personal offense, but I have to do this illustration. She was gracious about it and we laughed. Please give her a huge hug from me. How about that, Carolyn Pearson?
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:45:35] Absolutely. Thank you for that.
Tributes from Friends and Readers
Barbara Jones Brown [00:45:39] I received some comments too, on a Facebook post that I did saying I was going to be interviewing Carolyn, and I just wanted to share some of the comments about Goodbye, I love you and how it shaped people. Back in the late 1980s, Cherie Peterson wrote her book Goodbye, I Love youe was an enormous influence in reshaping my views about homosexuality and embracing my son. When he came out years later, it sent me on a mission to try hard to educate people, especially within the LDS community, that it is not a choice. I later ordered multiple copies of Circling the Wagons, another book she wrote about standing up for LGBTQ siblings and gave them to our bishop and stake president and others to help them better understand what it is to be a queer Mormon.
Barbara Jones Brown [00:46:33] Somebody else wrote, Please tell Carolyn thank you for speaking at Weber State University in 1986 when she shared the story of her marriage and through her book tour, Goodbye, I love you. She was at the beginning of time, the time when Mormon gay men were encouraged to marry straight women in attempt to cure themselves.
Barbara Jones Brown [00:46:54] I want to share my own tribute. My mother read Goodbye, I love you and she gave me the book in 1987. And I read it. And it was the beginning of changing how I saw queer people and helping me to understand what it was to be, in this case, a gay man. And completely changed started to turn me in how I saw this to where I see myself as an ally today for our LGBTQ Community. But it started with your book, Carolyn.
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:47:24] Yeah. And you know, Gerald Pearson would be. And is. Hi, Gerald. So grateful that this unusual journey that he and I went through has had such good fruit for so many people to change the way they feel about themselves, about their children, about everybody in their life who happens to be. Through no decision of their own,
Nadine McCombs Hansen [00:48:05] of
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:48:07] gay or however it is you want to choose a word for. For those who are not straight.
John Dehlin [00:48:16] Amen.
Guest [00:48:16] Yeah.
Barbara Jones Brown [00:48:17] And you heard me get a little emotional a second ago. So it was after I read Goodbye, I love you that a very dear friend of mine from BYU came out as gay, who lived right here in Walnut Creek and gay cousin, gay family members. And now my own son came out as gay. And I'm so grateful that I read her book in 1987. And it influenced me to be an ally for this community.
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:48:47] Yeah. What greater opportunity do you have to help people than to give them a gift like that? And if I ever communicate with Gerald, which I do once in a while, I know he's. He's thrilled to see where our journey, where our story has moved to be of value to a lot of people.
Barbara Jones Brown [00:49:17] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:49:18] That was a beautiful. That was. That was a beautiful tribute. Barbara, before you go, Barbara, before we have to end, Margi has also prepared a little tribute. Did you want to say something really quick, Barbara, before Margi shares?
Barbara Jones Brown [00:49:31] Go ahead, Margi. And then I'll. I'll share mine real quick. And then.
John Dehlin [00:49:34] Oh, wait, are you finishing up. Go ahead and. Go ahead and finish yours.
Guest [00:49:38] Sure.
Barbara Jones Brown [00:49:39] So I. When Carolyn approached me about doing this diary project, I remembered that I had read Goodbye, I love you. And so I went to my diary from my teenage years, which also happened to be red, just like Carolyn's diary was read. And I looked in it and I was astonished to discover that I had written about Carolyn Pearson when I was 19 years old and I had just finished reading Goodbye. Love you. And this is what I wrote in my diary on January 14, 1987.
Barbara Jones Brown [00:50:13] I decided today that I want to be a writer. I want to start out in journalism, maybe magazine journalism, and then move on to books, etc. I don't know if I can do it, but it's a dream. I have a dream that's spent just beginning to wake up inside me. I know that I'm afraid to try. I don't know why, but I have been reading a book by an author I admire and respect, Carolyn Pearson. And I suddenly realized she started out just like me. She had to realize her dream just like me. And she was probably afraid also, but she did it, and so can I.
Barbara Jones Brown [00:50:59] And then, as I've read her teenage diaries, I did read that that was true, that she had these dreams and she was afraid to, but she achieved them. And then I write Modern Times in the days, in the years and decades that followed, I did indeed go on to major in journalism, work at three different magazines, author my first book, and edit and publish numerous other books.
Barbara Jones Brown [00:51:25] That 19 year old girl who recorded that dream in her 1987 diary would have been astonished to know that she, some 40 years later, would be privileged to work with Carolyn Pearson to publish her diaries and discover that Pearson, too, at about the same age, recorded her dreams of making a difference through her writing. I am well aware that I am just one of countless people whom Carolyn has inspired through her long life. Whether you are one of them or about to become one, I hope you'll cherish walking with her through the pages of her remarkable journey as much as I have.
John Dehlin [00:52:07] Beautiful, Beautiful, Barbara.
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:52:09] Oh, thank you. Thank you.
Bishop Bo Euler and Community Reflections
John Dehlin [00:52:13] Let's go ahead and bring in Bishop Bull Euler. I was introduced to Bo Euler once by receiving an email from Carolyn Pearson saying, john, my former bishop moved to Salt Lake and you need to get to know him. And that's how I got to know Bishop Bo. Hey, Bishop Bo.
Guest 3 [00:52:31] Hey, John. Hey, Margi. Great to see you. Thanks for hosting this. For Carolyn, I couldn't love her more. She had such an impact on me as a very young bishop. And two things I want to share. The first was I remember calling her in to extend a calling, and I was all of, like 33 years old. And so I knew exactly what I was doing.
Guest 3 [00:52:56] And I sat down with her in my office and I just said. I just said, you know, Carolyn or Sister Pearson, I'd like you to extend this calling to you. And she just looked at me all lovingly and she just said, oh, honey, that's not my calling.
Guest 3 [00:53:12] And I was taken back. I was like, what do you mean it's not your calling? She's like, that's not my calling. My calling is to help people who aren't included in our church. And I was just like, what?
Guest 3 [00:53:25] It was the first time I'd ever heard somebody, A, reject a calling and B, know what her calling was in the greater picture. And it was just beautiful.
Barbara Jones Brown [00:53:36] Yeah.
Margi Dehlin [00:53:36] Wow.
John Dehlin [00:53:39] Did you ever get to do a worthiness interview with Carolyn and was she worthy?
Guest 3 [00:53:44] She was worthy, but she chose not to go to the temple. And yes, she was worthy.
John Dehlin [00:53:54] I remember talking to her about her decision, her active decision to not pursue a temple recommend. What was that like as a bishop to have a member say, yeah, I don't want one.
Guest 3 [00:54:05] It was shocking because so much of the work I would do as a bishop is like, trying to help people to the temple, get to the temple. Right. And as I got later and later on in my bishoping, I became extremely liberal in giving temple recommends because I just felt like if people wanted to go to the temple as part of their spirituality, they should be there. And so for Carolyn to have the confidence to say, hey, that's not part of my spirituality and hasn't been for a very long time, and I could feel her spirit.
Guest 3 [00:54:39] It was eye opening for me, for sure. And the other memory that strikes me is she invited me on an interview. What would be a bishop's interview? Right. But she invited me to go hiking with her. And so we hiked up in the hills behind her house in Walnut Creek, and there's beautiful hills. And we just hiked and walked and talked.
Guest 3 [00:55:03] And there was this little patch of. Not little. It was actually quite a large patch of wildflowers. And she said. She asked me to look at those flowers. And she said, those flowers represent all the religions in the world, and they're all beautiful, and none of them are more important than any other. And see that one right there? That's mine. That's Mormonism right there. And I was born a Mormon, and I'll always be a Mormon.
Guest 3 [00:55:33] And because I'm planted here like this is me, that I'm that flower, and I get to be amongst all the other beautiful flowers equally. And it just helped to kind of reset this mindset of, like, we are the only ones. And it was just a very soft, very lovely way of teaching me that. And then she blessed me and she said a beautiful prayer, and then we walked down. And, you know, we've just been really good friends since then.
John Dehlin [00:56:00] Wait, a woman blessed a man in a Mormon context?
Guest 3 [00:56:05] Her bishop. She blessed her bishop and she didn't lay her hands on my head. It wasn't that. I think she did hold my hand, if I remember right. And it was just very motherly and soft and beautiful and, God, you just can't be around her without feeling her love. And she said, it's such a good example to me of just serve and act in love. That's it. That's all you need to do.
John Dehlin [00:56:34] Beautiful. Well, Bishop Bo, thanks for giving any final words you want to say to Carolyn when she sees this?
Guest 3 [00:56:42] Yes, I love You, Carolyn, thank you so much for giving me some of your energy.
John Dehlin [00:56:50] Beautiful. All right, Bishop, you take care of yourself now.
Guest 3 [00:56:53] Thank you.
John Dehlin [00:56:54] Try to stay out of trouble. Try to stay out of trouble, Bo.
Guest 3 [00:56:57] I'm trying so hard.
Margi Dehlin [00:56:59] He's like, you have no idea.
Guest 3 [00:57:03] Oh, I love you guys. Keep up the good work.
John Dehlin [00:57:06] Love you, Bo. See you.
Guest 3 [00:57:07] Bye.
John Dehlin [00:57:10] All right, everyone. So next in our tribute to Carolyn Pearson is one of my favorite Mormon Stories podcast interviews. Her name is Nadine McCombs Hansen. She's been an active Mormon feminist, outspoken human since at least the 1970s. She sat on the Open Stories foundation board for many years. Last time I checked in with Nadine, she was a Guardian ad litem Attorney for FLDS Refugee Women. But. Nadine McCombs Hansen, welcome back to Mormon Stories and to this tribute of the Carolyn Pearson.
Nadine McCombs Hansen [00:57:51] Hi, Doug.
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:57:52] Have you. Wow. And Carolyn, still having. Yep.
Nadine McCombs Hansen [00:57:59] I'm so happy to see you.
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:58:02] Thank you.
Nadine McCombs Hansen [00:58:02] You've been my inspiration for most of my adult life.
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:58:06] Oh, golly.
Nadine McCombs Hansen [00:58:11] From Beginnings to the Ghost of Eternal Polygamy, I thought I had read most everything you'd published. When I looked you up on Amazon today, I saw that I've missed a few, and I have a little catching up to do.
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:58:23] Oh, well, okay.
Nadine McCombs Hansen [00:58:28] Okay.
John Dehlin [00:58:29] Do you remember. Do you remember the first time you heard about or met Carolyn Pearson?
Nadine McCombs Hansen [00:58:36] Well, the first time I knew anything about her is I got her book, Beginnings, which I think was her first poetry book. And I think I picked it up. We had a little. Kind of a little church bookstore, and I think that's where I got it. And I had never heard of her, but I got it and I read it and I loved it. And after that, I was hooked. And so everything she. Everything she wrote, as time went on, I just bought it and read it,
Carol Lynn Pearson [00:59:12] for which I am very grateful. But, you know, that little book called Beginnings, that was supposed to be just a simple little offering from a woman who liked to write poems, Suddenly, that just turned into some kind of a phenomenon. It was just unusual and remarkable and certainly opened all of the doors for me, but for lots of other people, too, because we began to think, oh, you know, people can write and sell their work, and it's worth finding, it's worth buying, it's worth reading. So I know that I was a real pioneer in that. In that area. Beginnings started a lot of stuff.
Barbara Jones Brown [01:00:03] Yeah, it came out nine. Right.
Carol Lynn Pearson [01:00:06] 69, I think that sounds about right. Maybe 68. I. I'd have to.
John Dehlin [01:00:14] 69 is the year I was born.
Carol Lynn Pearson [01:00:16] Oh,
Barbara Jones Brown [01:00:20] that's the year that this woman right here was put on the map because of that book.
Believing Members on Carol Lynn's Influence
John Dehlin [01:00:26] Nadine, let me ask you, as a believing Mormon, what was it like to have a woman who identified, who's a poetess and a published author who was advocating for the Equal Rights Amendment, talking about Mother in Heaven, and then eventually advocating for LGBT people back in the 80s during the AIDS crisis? What was that like as a believing Mormon woman to see that?
Nadine McCombs Hansen [01:00:53] It was very inspirational.
Guest 2 [01:00:56] And
Nadine McCombs Hansen [01:01:00] I think I thought of her kind of as Eliza R. Snow, especially after I read her book of Daughters of Light, which introduced me to the rich heritage of women's contributions to the early LDS Church. And, and I, I just thought of her as, as being like those women. I didn't know a lot about, about gay people back then.
Carol Lynn Pearson [01:01:29] There was such a thing, of course.
Nadine McCombs Hansen [01:01:34] Well, well, I, I knew that there were homosexuals, but I, but I, I just had no idea about the social change that was happening. I was kind of blind to it, but.
Carol Lynn Pearson [01:01:58] Weren't we.
Nadine McCombs Hansen [01:01:59] Yeah, that's part of what I wrote in this tribute. I said before I ever met you, I loved your poetry books. I'm not a huge reader of poetry, but yours spoke to me in my young adulthood. Daughters of Light introduced me to the. The contributions of early eldest LDS women. And goodbye, I love you gave me an early on understanding of how problematic it was to think that gay men could be straight if they just married a woman. And your care for Gerald at the end of his life was an inspiration, I think.
Carol Lynn Pearson [01:02:37] I'm so glad. Yeah.
Nadine McCombs Hansen [01:02:39] Yeah. You've been a perfect example of blooming where you're planted. Which is a phrase I learned from you decades ago.
Carol Lynn Pearson [01:02:48] Well, yes. And you know, as you enumerate those things, I'm. I, I know. I think maybe I volunteered before coming down here to get it into the mix of something that would be helpful, that would be kind of unusual. And jumping into Mormondom the way that I did with all of these, these ideas that had a place to resonate was kind of a remarkable thing. I'm grateful for it. I wasn't always grateful for it because, you know, it was kind of troublesome sometimes, but I relate to that. Yeah. I am really grateful that I had an opportunity to do something that I know has been beneficial to thousands of people who have come behind me, looking at the things that I did and taking courage from that.
John Dehlin [01:03:54] Absolutely.
Carol Lynn Pearson [01:03:55] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:03:55] Nadine, are there other parts of your statement you want to read? We want to make sure.
Guest 2 [01:03:59] Yeah.
Nadine McCombs Hansen [01:04:00] Just a little bit more.
John Dehlin [01:04:01] Yeah. Please read the whole Thing.
Nadine McCombs Hansen [01:04:03] Well, I've already read most of it.
John Dehlin [01:04:05] Okay.
Nadine McCombs Hansen [01:04:06] But I treasure the memory from back in the 1970s of riding Bartrain up from the south end of San Francisco Bay where I lived, to your home up at the north end and spending the day with you while we solved the problems of the world and more specifically, the problems of the LDS Church. If only they had listened to our solutions.
Carol Lynn Pearson [01:04:29] Oh, my. Where would we be now?
Nadine McCombs Hansen [01:04:32] Someday they will.
Barbara Jones Brown [01:04:34] Right now that you came up and had that conversation, I'm sure we're sitting in the same room where that conversation took place. Sure.
Carol Lynn Pearson [01:04:40] Yeah, probably.
Nadine McCombs Hansen [01:04:42] I imagine so.
John Dehlin [01:04:44] So, wait, does that make you and Carolyn Pearson the real prophets?
Nadine McCombs Hansen [01:04:50] I think so. Don't you think, Carolyn?
Carol Lynn Pearson [01:04:54] Think what? That Gerald and I were real prophets?
John Dehlin [01:04:58] No. Do you ever consider yourself a prophetess, Carolyn Pearson?
Carol Lynn Pearson [01:05:02] Oh, well, sure, in the large sense. And we all ought to be doing. If we can all do our pioneering work, then we should all qualify somehow as, as prophets. If we see. If we see a future that needs something and we have that something to offer that future, then I suppose that's. That's being a prophet.
Nadine McCombs Hansen [01:05:32] I think so.
John Dehlin [01:05:33] Nadine, any final. I know you gotta go. Any final thoughts you want to share to or about Carolyn Pearson?
Nadine McCombs Hansen [01:05:41] I think that's it for now. And I look forward to watching the whole episode when, when it comes out.
John Dehlin [01:05:48] Well, we love you, Nadine. And we're going to have our own Nadine Hanson rebroadcast because your episode is worthy, right, Margi?
Barbara Jones Brown [01:05:55] Absolutely.
Margi Dehlin [01:05:56] Just you wait, Nadine.
John Dehlin [01:05:58] We love you, Nadine. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for honoring Carolyn, Nadine.
Nadine McCombs Hansen [01:06:02] Okay, my pleasure.
John Dehlin [01:06:04] Keep doing the great work you do.
Nadine McCombs Hansen [01:06:07] Keep on keeping on.
John Dehlin [01:06:09] All right, see you, Nadine.
Nadine McCombs Hansen [01:06:11] Bye.
John Dehlin [01:06:12] All right, well, the next person that we have who's joined us to give a tribute to Carolyn Pearson is Roseanne. Roseanne, tell us a little bit about yourself.
Guest 4 [01:06:22] I, I've been Carolyn's friend for many years. So I moved into the ward. She moved in when I was still an active Mormon. And it was maybe like 45 years ago. And I remember thinking, Carolyn Pearson, the Carolyn Pearson lives here. And, and she gave a talk in church one day that was very progressive. In my mind, this was like 40 something years ago. And I went up afterward and I said, I just loved your talk. And she said, oh, would you like to go for a walk? That's how she would reel people in.
Guest 4 [01:06:59] And we got to be friends. And she just taught me things that I had never thought of or heard about. I remember she wrote a piece called A Walk in the pink moccasins many years ago. And it, it flipped, it flipped reality on its, on its head where the women were the ones who were in charge of things and the men were the sweet stay at home fathers. And seemed like it was, it was like really revolutionary back then. And I just had never thought about things like that. So. Oh, she used to take me to, we went to see Rhiann Eisler, who was the first one that really talked about God being a woman in prehistory.
Guest 4 [01:07:44] And, and we would talk about women's issues before I had even thought about it. I, I guess I was one of those women who said, well, I, you know, if people said, well, don't you want the priesthood? And I would say I don't need it. But you know, eventually as I started thinking more and Carolyn would talk to me more, my thinking about women's issues became so clear. And then about gay issues. It was just something I had never really thought a lot about, even though I was a theater major in the 1970s.
Margi Dehlin [01:08:21] Just,
Guest 4 [01:08:23] just really starting to see things so much more clearly through Carolyn's eyes. And then when she went into, I remember one day she said, I'm going to write a book and take on polygamy. I'm going to get rid of moron polygamy. And I was like, can you do that? And she did. I mean, she just has always been, she doesn't say she's a scholar, but she's a scholar. I mean, she really thinks about things and researches things and remembers things and knows how to repeat them back to people so that they are understandable.
Guest 4 [01:08:57] I think, I think my perspective of the world is much, much more broad than it ever would have been if Carolyn hadn't been my friend. Because, and I tell her, I say, carolyn, I don't know how you do this, but you're able to say things that maybe people find outrageous, but you don't upset them. I mean, you're able to say things that in a way that you don't upset people. I mean, take her, the ghost of Mormon polygamy. I would have thought that would have upset a lot more people. But instead it got people to really think because, for example, she was able to present Joseph Smith in a way that he wasn't the enemy.
Guest 4 [01:09:34] And to me I was like, can you do that? You know, because I think he's a pretty bad guy sometimes. But she, she's able to look at the good and then kind of weed out the bad. And I think that's A real skill she has, too, to be scholarly but very accessible for people, and I've always really admired that about her.
Carol Lynn Pearson [01:09:56] Thank you, Roseanne. See, I've had such good friends to move me along my path, and I am so grateful for them.
John Dehlin [01:10:07] Man. Bishop Bo and Roseanne are both friends of yours. That's pretty impressive. Carolyn Pearson. You got a good group of friends.
Carol Lynn Pearson [01:10:17] What do we say? Something of riches. I have overflow of riches, a wealth of friends. Yep.
Guest 4 [01:10:26] And we've had so much fun. We've hiked a lot. And we always find synchronicities that are crazy over the years.
Barbara Jones Brown [01:10:32] We'll call each other.
Guest 4 [01:10:32] Oh, I just had another good synchronicity. I love that my perception of what's out there is so much more broad because Carolyn introduced me to things like synchronicity and the fact of Mother God. And. She's been a really wonderful friend for me. I mean, of the top five people that have influenced me in my life, Carolyn is definitely on that list.
Carol Lynn Pearson [01:11:04] Thank you, Roseanne. Very happy to be there.
John Dehlin [01:11:09] I don't know if you remember, Carolyn, but when I came to Walnut Creek to do a conference, I visited your house. And you took me on that walk on that trail right above your house as well.
Carol Lynn Pearson [01:11:23] I know. I'm glad to have that jog into my memory. That would have been a good time.
John Dehlin [01:11:31] And we talked about synchronicities there then as well. So you've got a. That's a. That's a recurring theme for you.
Carol Lynn Pearson [01:11:40] Yes. Yes, it is. And I was one of the. One of the books that I was just really thrilled to be able to work with is the one about synchronicity. And it is a. Magic is afoot if we just look around for it and see how this collides with this in a way that is meaningful. And so I'm glad that I was able to help people see that. Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:12:13] Love it. Any final words for Carolyn before you sign off, Roseanne?
Guest 4 [01:12:20] Just another really meaningful thing for me was when Prop 9 came along and then that November policy. The November policy.
John Dehlin [01:12:29] You mean Prop 8, right?
Guest 4 [01:12:30] Prop 8, probate.
Margi Dehlin [01:12:31] I'm sorry.
Guest 4 [01:12:33] The fact that I really paid attention was because Carolyn had really been talking to me about that for so long. And to be in California and watch all this and to hear the story she would tell me about. She's had every Sunday night gay men who wanted to commit suicide that called her for years, and she kept them from committing suicide. And she. She's always been so accessible to people that needed her. And I don't know if everyone knows that about her, but she's very accessible and she has saved a lot of people from, from doing, from suicide even. So I think that, I think that her early work on, on gay issues was just so important and it's all so loving and so kind and I really appreciate that about her, too.
John Dehlin [01:13:35] Carolyn, you always say you were born into women's issues and you married into gay issues. Did I get that right? Did I get that right?
Carol Lynn Pearson [01:13:42] That is true. And see, from Roseanne, you can see the quality of the wonderful women that I was able to collect and be my, my co partners in Moving forward with LDs, women's issues and then gay issues.
Guest 3 [01:14:00] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:14:01] Well, Roseanne, thanks for joining us today on Mormon Stories. We really appreciate it.
Guest 4 [01:14:05] You're welcome.
Carol Lynn Pearson [01:14:06] Yes. Love you.
John Dehlin [01:14:08] Wait, say that again. Do that again.
Carol Lynn Pearson [01:14:11] What I said, I said, roseanne, love you.
John Dehlin [01:14:16] And also, Roseanne, thanks for being such a good friend to Carolyn because I can tell you, when you're a public figure, close private friendships can make all the difference. So thank you for being a support to Carolyn.
Carol Lynn Pearson [01:14:29] Yes.
John Dehlin [01:14:31] All right. Take care, Roseanne.
Barbara Jones Brown [01:14:35] So Tamara Wright, you know, Carolyn Pearson is, what would you like to share with her?
Guest [01:14:42] All right. I have had the privilege of knowing about Carolyn since I was about 16 years old. It was probably 1973. Her book Beginnings had been out for a few years and somehow got in the hands of one of my friends who gave me a copy or gave it to me growing up in Tacoma, Washington. And this book, book, you know, this simple book of poetry and beginnings, I could hear a different voice in her words and I, I knew that there was something there. And subsequently in the following years, I just kept track of her and her writings. When I graduated from BYU in 1981, we moved into Carolyn's ward here in Walnut Creek, Crete, and we, I, you know, this was before the Internet.
Guest [01:15:42] I did not know really what Carolyn even looked like. I only knew her from her words and her books and was sitting in a cultural refinement lesson in Relief Society with my three month old baby and I had just graduated from BYU and she, she was up there teaching this lesson and she says, if I may quote from one of my, from one of my books. And so I nudged the gal next to me and I said, who is this? And they said, well, this is Carolyn Pearson. And I'm like, what, you know, this, this was one of my idols. And subsequently through the years got, you know, got to know Carolyn better, got to know her personally, living nearby.
Guest [01:16:31] Years later, after moving away, moving back in the area, moved back into her ward. I even invited her to come and speak at my 50th birthday celebration. And it was really wonderful to have her come and share with a large group of my friends, once again sharing her wisdom.
Guest [01:16:55] But what I really found in becoming one of her friends was that sitting with her in church is really a unique position to watch her in action on a regular basis. I don't ever remember meetings where she didn't have something to say, like in a Relief Society or a Sunday school class, if she ever heard something that was maybe being delivered, either a little controversial, maybe a little untruthful.
Guest [01:17:33] The beauty of Carolyn was that she just had a way with love to be able to. She always raised her hand and she would always stand up and face the class, face whoever she was talking to. And she. In essence, you know, and I'm not. I'm Maybe I'm not saying it word for word how she would say it, but in essence, she would always say, perhaps there's a better way to look at this. And I think that when she had that ability to stop everybody in their tracks of being. Of just hearing something that was either actually sometimes very crazy, she would have us stop and think, maybe there's a better way to look at this.
Guest [01:18:21] And then she would offer another view. And kind of reminds me of her, of her words, you know, a widening view of, you know, better ways to look at things. And then the crystallizing moments with Carolyn is that she always brings it back to love.
Guest [01:18:42] And she's very, very Christlike, very much in just about everything that she does, she makes it about love. And thus all of her great works on what she has done, you know, for the gay community and for so many. So many forgotten people, she sees the forgotten.
Guest [01:19:07] Her script for Cypher in the Snow, when I was a young teenager, had a profound, profound effect on me to notice the people around me who are being forgotten and that other people don't see. And I would directly attribute that to Carolyn.
Guest [01:19:31] Like Roseanne said, one of the other things. I am no longer practicing Mormon, but I. I held something very sacred to me that was a common favorite of mine with Carolyn, was about synchronicity. And I still hold that sacred, that I do pay attention to how the universe lines up. And it is magical. There. There's so many magical moments in my life that I have paid attention to because of synchronicity and. And my wonderful talks with Carolyn and sharing. Synchronicity has been just a treasure to be able to share with her and her with us the stuff that she is able to always recall and recall it so beautifully and timely and when it's needed.
Guest [01:20:28] So, yeah, I, and I also, along with Roseanne, I would tell you of the five most influential people in my life, Carolyn is absolutely close to the top. She has, she has really changed the way that I listen and look at the world. So thank you, Carolyn.
Carol Lynn Pearson [01:20:53] Thank you so much. Isn't it great to have wonderful friends like that? Wow. I am richly abundant with good friends.
Guest [01:21:03] Well, I call you a friend with benefits.
Guest 2 [01:21:07] Okay.
Carol Lynn Pearson [01:21:08] That's good. Thank you.
Barbara Jones Brown [01:21:11] Tamara.
Guest [01:21:12] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:21:14] Carolyn, I, I'll also say that when, when I came to visit you in Walnut Creek, Tamara picked me up at the airport, dropped me off at the airport. I stayed with Tamara. She's a devoted friend because it was almost like you had your own,
Nadine McCombs Hansen [01:21:31] I
John Dehlin [01:21:31] don't know, personal support for anyone who came to visit you. And that is just a testament to how much love people feel for you, Carolyn.
Carol Lynn Pearson [01:21:42] Oh, thank you. And it's true, I have been fortunate to collect lots of excellent people around me as my friends. Deeply grateful for that.
John Dehlin [01:21:52] We have a very special guest that will be joining us in a second. Let's have Margi do her tribute and then we'll add our final special guest before we close. Margi.
Margi Dehlin [01:22:02] Yes. Oh, so much I could share. I think I'll just share maybe a few touch points that have occurred to me. I thought it would start the first touch point of me with Carolyn was when my parents joined the church and I was around eight years old when that happened. It would have been back in Washington, D.C.
Margi Dehlin [01:22:30] and one of the first things I remember, this was like a great change in our family for my brother. And I was listening to My turn on Earth and the significance of basically it was my introduction into this church and what it meant and what, you know, mortality and what it meant to be on earth and why we're on earth and having a body and all the things. And it was through music. And that music filled our home. And my dad, I was lucky enough to have a dad who sang to me at night, would sing me songs from My turn on Earth. He's saying angel's lullaby.
Margi Dehlin [01:23:13] He sang My turn on Earth. And it's just interwoven, I think, into my child self. I have just this real tenderness, I think, from, you know, you're just kind of part of my childhood story. So I think that's where it began. But then I also have just a real personal touch point with you Carolyn, when we were going through excommunication in Logan and you called me personally and I remember at that time it feeling like just a ton of chaos for us. I think the New York Times article had come out. You know, our children were very worried. I was worried. The outcome felt uncertain in that moment.
Margi Dehlin [01:24:08] And I remember you had such a way of showing up for me in that moment. And I think it was very John focused. There were reasons for that. But you called me and you said something to the effect of how you wanted to support me in that moment.
Margi Dehlin [01:24:29] And you told me to hold my head high as I was kind of walking in to a very man filled room. And I also remember you talked about me resisting being bitter about that moment. And that really, really stayed with me.
Margi Dehlin [01:24:59] So that would have been. So that's the second and then the final touch point I thought I would just share and I've shared this, I think with you before Carolyn, but was with my dad. And so my dad had Lewy Body Disease. He was kind of. So that is a blend of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease at this point. He was kind of later stage. It was difficult oftentimes to have him communicate, but I saw him every week and one of these times he had come over to my house in Logan and I was sitting with him. And many times it would just be presence. It was difficult again to kind of communicate.
Margi Dehlin [01:25:45] And it occurred to me, you know, growing up, he had read me poetry all through growing up. And I had your poetry book, I think it's called In Love Again in All Ways. I think that's the title of it, but I'm not positive.
Margi Dehlin [01:26:06] But I had that book and I started just reading him poetry. And I'll just always be grateful for that because as I was reading. It's a beautiful book, beautiful poems, tears just started, you know, falling from his eyes. And it was just a moment of connection. Like I couldn't really connect with him about his life or feelings or. But he could feel the poems. And it was a way I was able to reach him at a time that felt difficult to do so.
Margi Dehlin [01:26:46] So I'll always be grateful for that. Those are just a few ways that you have impacted my life directly. It's so difficult to overstate, but you have my heart.
Carol Lynn Pearson [01:26:59] Oh, that's such a gift to have you give me that. I am so grateful that those several points that I was of some value to you. Nothing could be a better gift than to know that you have gifted somebody else with something like that.
Barbara Jones Brown [01:27:20] Thank you Have.
Margi Dehlin [01:27:21] Thank you.
John Dehlin [01:27:24] That was beautiful, Margi. And I'll just add really quickly before we bring our special guest on. You know, people say to me, how have you survived so long in this space, John? I don't know. I've been here 20, 20 years, 21, 22 years.
John Dehlin [01:27:41] And I've met a lot of the greats, Sandra Tanner and the Michael Quinn and Richard Bushman and Claudia Bushman and Phil Barlow, and I've met a lot of them, Maxine Hanks and Brett Metcalf and on and on and on.
John Dehlin [01:28:01] But you're the legend, Carolyn Pearson. You have been. You're an author of, I don't know, more than a dozen books, a poet. You've written songs that are in the primary book. You've written screenplays for motion pictures or for church movies.
John Dehlin [01:28:21] And you've been an activism. You've been an activist not just for LGBT issues, but for women Against Polygamy. You're a historian. Somehow you've maintained your membership in the church. You never got excommunicated, and like Margi said, you never got bitter.
John Dehlin [01:28:40] And I think the most special thing to me, I've already mentioned it, were the hours and hours and hours you spent talking to me on the phone. You would call me darling, you would say, my darling John, and you would read to me excerpts from your journal on those long, long drives from Logan to Salt Lake and from Salt Lake to Logan for years and years and years.
John Dehlin [01:29:06] You're a living legend. Nobody has had the impact that you have had on Mormonism for almost, almost a century. But more than that, you've just done it with brilliance and eloquence and grace and poise and artistry and kindness and most importantly, love.
John Dehlin [01:29:33] I'll walk with you will always be probably my favorite Mormon song of any type. And that's saying a lot. And just most of all, you've been a dear friend, Carolyn. So I love you.
Carol Lynn Pearson [01:29:46] Oh, John, John, I wish I could be right there on the couch with the both of you and just to give you a true hug and kisses, I. It's, you know, there's just nothing that is more rewarding than to hear what you just said to me about how my work has been of significant down to earth helpful benefit to you. Thank you. Bless you forever as you're a giant.
John Dehlin [01:30:27] You're a giant. And we stand on your shoulders. And speaking of someone who's had a gigantic impact on modern Mormonism, I didn't expect this, but we have the Kim Turner from Waka Women of a certain Age. Hey, Kim.
Final Tributes and Closing Reflections
Guest 2 [01:30:42] Hello.
John Dehlin [01:30:43] Welcome back to Mormon Stories.
Guest 2 [01:30:47] I didn't think this would still be going on. I had a commitment I couldn't break, and I thought, I'm sitting in a parking lot at Starbucks. Perfect. I'm going to tap in and see how it's going or see if it's gone. But thank you, John.
John Dehlin [01:31:03] Well, Barbara's got to run, but we would love to include. Include your tribute really quick to Carolyn.
Guest 2 [01:31:10] I'll do a short one then. First of all, I want to tell on. On Carolyn. She keeps her dark chocolate in her oven. Do you still do that, Carolyn?
Carol Lynn Pearson [01:31:28] Keep it in the oven just to store it there?
Guest 2 [01:31:30] Yeah, you used to wrap it up when you'd give me some. You'd go to the oven and pull it out and unwrap it and give me a piece and you'd take a piece.
Carol Lynn Pearson [01:31:39] Well, I had forgotten that, so it must be that I stopped that habit. But it's a good one. I mean, we should store our check anywhere we want to store it.
Guest 2 [01:31:51] But the story that I wanted to talk about, and I hope Carolyn will be okay with this because it was a hallmark in my life and a privilege to be there. I picked her up from the airport a couple of times to come into Salt Lake, but this and that would take her to see her good friend Trevor Southey.
Guest 2 [01:32:11] And Trevor at the time was ill and was going to pass away from the cancer that was taking his body. And when I would. We'd go into Trevor's apartment and he'd have paintings stacked everywhere, and it was just. It was just so interesting. But to sit there and listen to these two dear old friends talk to each other and kept. Keep up with their lives and, and all of this, it was. It was a privilege and an honor to sit there. But the day that when we were there that she got a pot of water and got some soap and she asked Trevor if she could wash his feet.
Guest 2 [01:32:53] His. His body ached and everything. And she sat there and massaged his feet and rubbed them while they talked about their life. And I. I will never forget that moment. And I'll never forget that love and dedication those two people had. I've had many experiences with you, Carolyn. You are in the archives of my life and always will be. You were with me as a young bride, as a young mother, and now as an old woman.
Guest 2 [01:33:23] And I honor you. And I. I love you. And I wish we could be in the car going down the road talking about some of the things we've talked about through the years. But anyway, thank you, Carolyn. Thank you for everything.
Carol Lynn Pearson [01:33:39] Oh, my gosh. I just want to thank you for even reminding me of those beautiful moments that we shared. To have the opportunity, as I have had, just to be able to reach out and touch a lot of people that somehow my circumstance has allowed. It is just such a privilege, a privilege to be of some importance in someone's life. I'm so grateful to know that.
Guest 2 [01:34:20] Well, this is something that was behind closed doors even where you showed your. Your humanity and your love. And I don't know, it was, it was, it was an honor to be there. But I've had many moments like that with you through the years, but we haven't seen each other for years. I'm sad about that.
Carol Lynn Pearson [01:34:40] Well, even seeing you now is a. Is a pleasure. Thank you.
Margi Dehlin [01:34:45] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:34:47] Well, Kim, it's great to have you back on Mormon Stories. And let me just say, anyone, any more, any ex Mormon women of a certain age, check out WAKA Worldwide. W O C A. There's an amazing support group for women 40 and above on Facebook.
Guest 2 [01:35:06] There is. And, yeah, and it's still growing, still doing its thing. We keep adding to our ranks and many disappear Come, come and go through the years as they've needed us. Because we're just a space. We're a space for a woman to find her footing, find her place and move on, you know, and it's a healthy atmosphere, and I'm very proud of that. Very proud of that.
John Dehlin [01:35:31] Well, thanks for joining us today, Kim. It's such a delight. It's such a delight to see you back on Mormon Stories. Yeah.
Guest 2 [01:35:37] And I, I haven't seen Margi forever either. Margi, it's nice to see the two of you sitting there.
Barbara Jones Brown [01:35:44] Absolutely, Kim.
Guest 2 [01:35:45] Yeah. You do good work. You guys keep doing what you're doing. There's so many markets that are so appreciated, they appreciate so much your good work and everything you do. And I don't know how you've done it all the years you have either.
Margi Dehlin [01:35:57] John.
Guest 2 [01:35:57] I'm one of those that say, how have you done this?
John Dehlin [01:36:00] And I've only done it a third as long as Carolyn Pearson. Kim, we love you. Thanks. Thanks for joining us, Kim. All right, take care, Kim. All right, Barbara, why don't you close this out, because I know you got to run to the airport.
Barbara Jones Brown [01:36:17] I mean, countless people, when they heard I was interviewing Carolyn today and you were interviewing Carolyn today, sent me comments that they asked me to share. Jody England Hansen said she was a number of women who inspired, inspired my activism and Mormon feminism starting 50 years ago. Yay, Max. Maxine Hanks, she wrote, carolyn has mentored me like the divine mother since 1973. There's no one like her. Her journal is a stunningly detailed revelation of our girls and women's lives in Mormon culture during each of the second half of the 20th century and into the 21st.
John Dehlin [01:36:59] And then, Barbara I think we also have a comment from Jill Hazard Rowe. She writes, carolyn Pearson was a great support to us moms when we started Mama Dragons, which was a Mormon mom support group for LGBTQ Mormons. And then she writes, please tell her many of us are grateful for her incredible voice. So that's Jill Hazard Row, Mama Dragon.
Barbara Jones Brown [01:37:26] Just countless comments like that have come in to you, Carolyn.
Carol Lynn Pearson [01:37:31] How great is that? Nothing could be more satisfying.
John Dehlin [01:37:38] Well, the book, if you love Carolyn Pearson, you'll love the book. The book is the Diaries of Carolyn Pearson, Mormon author, feminist and activist, Volume 1, 1956-1990, which is the year I got off my mission. Signature Books is the publisher. You can buy it at Benchmark Books, my favorite Mormon bookstore. You can buy directly from Signature Books or you can find it on Amazon or wherever else you get books. Please buy this. It's a great gift. Anything else you want to say about it?
Barbara Jones Brown [01:38:13] Barbara no, just that any historian also of 20th century Mormon or American history that needs to refer to these journals, if they don't refer to them in their work, they're missing a big piece of it.
Carol Lynn Pearson [01:38:28] So.
John Dehlin [01:38:29] Yeah. And thanks for joining us on Pioneer Week. I'm sorry, I'm Carolyn Pearson Week. Carolyn, do you remember the poem Pioneers? Do you still have that in your memory?
Carol Lynn Pearson [01:38:39] Wow. I don't know that I would have the whole thing. I know it begins, my people were Mormon pioneers. Is the blood still good Truth by like a dove and dropped a feather in the west where truth flies, you follow if you are a pioneer. I have searched the skies and now and then another feather has fallen. I have searched the skies and now and then another feather has fallen. Pack the hand cart with the precious things thrown away the rest I will sing by the fire at night out there on uncharted ground Where I am my own captain of tens Where I blow the bugle, bring myself to morning prayer and never know where or when or if at all I will say this is the place I face the plains on a good day for walking. The sun rises and the mist clears. I will be all right.
Guest [01:39:55] My people
Carol Lynn Pearson [01:39:59] were Mormon pioneers.
John Dehlin [01:40:10] No more needs to be said.
Barbara Jones Brown [01:40:13] Beautiful ending. That was a great idea.
John Dehlin [01:40:14] John well, that poem will never leave me. Carolyn Pearson, we love you. Barbara Jones Brown, we love you. Signature books. Thank you for what you're doing to keep Carolyn Pearson's legacy alive and with us forever.
Carol Lynn Pearson [01:40:33] John and Margi, thank you. Bless you. I truly do love you so much.
Barbara Jones Brown [01:40:38] Thank you so much, John and Margi, for your thoughts. I've been very moved hearing your personal experiences with Carolyn as well.
John Dehlin [01:40:45] Likewise.
Barbara Jones Brown [01:40:46] Thank you, Barbara.
John Dehlin [01:40:46] All right, you take care. We want you for at least another decade, Carolyn, so you stay healthy.
Carol Lynn Pearson [01:40:52] I will do it. I will do it.
John Dehlin [01:40:54] We need you around. And, Barbara, we need you around for at least a couple decades doing what you're doing. So don't you go anywhere.
Barbara Jones Brown [01:41:01] Five more decades.
John Dehlin [01:41:03] All right. All right. Thanks, everyone. Thanks for joining us today on Carolyn Pearson Week on Mormon Stories. Buy the book. Check out my interviews with Carolyn Pearson. Margi, thanks for joining us.
Margi Dehlin [01:41:12] Absolutely. Wouldn't miss it.
John Dehlin [01:41:14] Thanks to everyone who helped us today, including Julia Brooklyn. Thanks to all the special guests that came. Be good to each other. Be kind to each other. Go Mount Mormon Pioneers. The blood's still good. Where truth flies, you follow. Take care, everybody. We'll see you all again soon. We love you, Carolyn Pearson.
Carol Lynn Pearson [01:41:35] Oh, love you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
John Dehlin [01:41:39] All right, we'll have you back for the other three volumes. How does that sound?
Carol Lynn Pearson [01:41:44] Excellent. Excellent.
John Dehlin [01:41:45] All right. All right, well, Karen and I love you guys. Take care, everybody. See you again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. Bye, everybody.
Guest 2 [01:41:53] Bye.
Barbara Jones Brown [01:41:53] Thank you.
Transcript © 2026 John P. Dehlin. All rights reserved. Brief quotations are welcome with attribution and a link to mormonstories.org; all other use requires written permission.
Thumbnail Credits: Main image courtesy of Carol Lynn Pearson; Background image from NASA (public domain)
One Response
Roughly 24 years ago when my nephew came home 6 months early from his mission due to his overwhelming depression because he, at long last, realized that the gay was simply a part of his very being. Lucky for him, his parents and me you had recently released “Goodbye I Love You” which was so impactful to our whole family. Long story short, my nephew has learned to embrace himself and just last year he married the man he has lived with for the last five years. Our family is much better for it and you, Carol Lynn, helped us all get to that better place. Thank You Sweet Sister Pearson!