Mormon Women Doctors and Polygamy's Surprising Freedoms

Claudia Bushman [00:00:51] And we had this real flowering of Mormon women doctors. Now, that would seem impossible, but it still was doable. Her sister wives could take care of the children. She managed, she got some encouragement. Anyway, things like that show me that there are possibilities for Mormon women to do really whatever they really want that is reasonable at almost any given time.

Guest [00:01:23] Because that was an extraordinary achievement in the day.

Claudia Bushman [00:01:27] Yes. I mean, there were more female doctors in Utah per capita than in any other of the places in the United States.

Guest [00:01:37] But the remarkable irony is that it seems to have been polygamy that enabled that. In fact, I've heard feminists today at times advocate polygamy as a way to provide women the means to do more remarkable, extraordinary things while still having a family. Have you heard that before?

Claudia Bushman [00:01:57] I'm sure you have, yes, and I've argued that myself. But of course, it's an argument after the fact.

Guest [00:02:03] Right.

Claudia Bushman [00:02:04] You don't do it for that purpose.

Guest [00:02:06] Sure, yeah.

Claudia Bushman [00:02:08] Do what you can. And I think it could be managed anyways.

Guest [00:02:13] But it certainly speaks to the fact that polygamy wasn't, as some might say today, awful in all cases.

Claudia Bushman [00:02:21] Well, it's very interesting to get the range of possibilities. You get people saying, he's a very fine man of their husbands. You know, that's not always the way, affectionate way you talk about your husband. But yes, they managed good things despite all, and many had good things to say. I think in connection with that, a person that we might mention is Elizabeth Cain, who again is the wife of the friend of the Mormons, Thomas Cain.

Claudia Bushman [00:02:50] And they were invited in 72, 1872, to spend the winter in St. George with Brigham Young. Cain had done many favors for the Mormons, as you remember. And so they traveled by train across the United States to Salt Lake and then went in a wagon train down to St. George. This took, I don't know how many days, 12, anyway, because what Elizabeth Kane did was write a very interesting account of visiting Mormon homes during that trip.

Claudia Bushman [00:03:21] Now, Elizabeth Kane had no real sympathy for the Mormons. She didn't like them at all. And polygamy especially was very odious to her. And one reason is that because her mother, her beloved mother, died in childbirth, telling her husband that she would prefer that he not marry again. He was married within a year, that kind of thing. So her father married three times, and so she had the experience of serial, if not consec, whatever it is, polygamy, so that she was against it on that purpose. And she quotes in her book this little phrase, my mother's my mother the whole of my life, but my father's my father until he gets a new wife.

Guest [00:04:06] Oh my gosh.

Claudia Bushman [00:04:08] So that's it was in use. So that means there's something to it.

Guest [00:04:13] Sure.

Claudia Bushman [00:04:14] Anyway, so she writes about this, but I quote a few things that she says which are interesting. She says at one point, I am quite used now to seeing with tranquility several wives of nearly the same age with a hale middle aged husband. But it strikes me with the same old repulsiveness when I see an old man going down the generations to his grandchildren's time to seek a new partner while she who shared the joys and sorrows of his youth looks on withered and gray. He will dandle babies on his knee and enjoy a wintry sunshine. But her day is over. Yeah, that's really a heartbreaker, isn't it?

Guest [00:04:58] Well, you know, a lot of people try and I don't know, there are some outrageous claims about marrying child brides and polygamy and a lot of the defenders say, oh well, it was normal to marry for a 30 year old to marry a teenager in the day. And so just because it's polygamy, it was still within. But it sounds like there, there was some generational sensitivity back then and it wasn't just common for men to cradle rob, so to speak. Or at least it wasn't unfelt. It wasn't unfelt by those who were witnessing.

Claudia Bushman [00:05:29] Well, Kathryn Dane's book on polygmy and Manti indicates that 50% of the brides, polygamous brides, were girls that came to the valley, immigrated to the valley with no male protection, no husbands, I mean no fathers, no brothers. And they would be taken into homes as servant girls and very well might be married into the family. And so that's one way of looking at it that isn't quite as difficult as the cradle robbing business. But I just think we can't say there was no attraction for these men and these younger women.

Guest [00:06:06] It was certainly there and most importantly to feel for how the older wives might have felt to witness.

Claudia Bushman [00:06:16] Right. Incredible. Elizabeth Kane made a number of very interesting observations. I thought she said that she thought that many people thought that the Mormons were thousands of years behind in some ways. But in others you would think these women, the most forward children of the age. No career by which a girl could earn a living was closed to her. Mormon girls were not ashamed to work for a living, even at domestic labor. And again here hired girls could aspire to marry their masters, assuring Themselves prosperity as well as blessings in heaven. So, you know, and you have. One of the reasons we have always made much of this idea in talking about these early women is that they had financial opportunities to work.

Claudia Bushman [00:07:06] Brigham Young really encouraged the women to work, not for feminist reasons, but because the territory needed so many things done. He didn't want men to be doing any of the jobs that women can do. And so specifically, he said that women should be employed as typesetters, proofreaders, bookbinders, clerks in stores, tailors, all that kind of thing. And he wanted them to be educated, to do all the kinds of things that belong to women that thought they should be preparing school books, because I think he said the female mind was much better fitted for such pursuits than those of the male.

Claudia Bushman [00:07:44] And he really fought against the fashionable ideas of the east, as you know. He said it was a mistake to have girls taught nothing but to play the piano, and when tired of that, to go to reading novels.

Guest [00:07:57] Who is this?

Claudia Bushman [00:07:58] This is Brigham Young.

Guest [00:07:59] So Brigham Young was advocating women becoming professionals, or at least gaining the skills of professionals and of. And of gaining education.

Claudia Bushman [00:08:08] Absolutely. The Women's Exponent, which is the newspaper of the day, the women's one, pronounced him the genuine, impartial and practical women's rights man upon the American continent.

Guest [00:08:21] Holy moly.

Claudia Bushman [00:08:21] How about that?

Guest [00:08:22] But doesn't he also have quotes of comparing women to cattle? I mean, I guess you can get a quote from Brigham Young almost. Almost any.

Claudia Bushman [00:08:27] Brigham Young says lots of things, right. But you can generally find that you want.

Guest [00:08:33] But you can't deny that there were women saying they felt very well treated. I guess that's undeniable.

Claudia Bushman [00:08:38] Well, and that they had opportunities that they could do things. And I think that this is particularly interesting because the women are encouraged to do these things. I mean, Elizabeth Kane mentions visiting a place where there were two brave little wives in Cedar City who ran an inn and managed the telegraph to support their blind husband. So here they are, taking care of him in ways that hadn't been expected.

Elizabeth Kane's Account of Nineteenth-Century Mormon Homes

Claudia Bushman [00:09:07] Anyway, she writes this book about 12 Mormon homes, I think, which I think is just a wonderful book because it's so well written for one thing, and also because it gets you right inside these houses. And she talks with lots of people and quotes. One of the things she says, I remember was there was a gardener, a woman who was an excellent gardener, and she'd come to St. George, and Elizabeth Cain said, felt bad that her great skills were lost on that desolate landscape. But she said, I'm here because I Have hope and faith. When they wanted colonists for St. George, I said, here am I, send me.

Claudia Bushman [00:09:50] And mind you Mrs. K, I don't repent. Don't you love it? I do. I think that's really wonderful. I'm going to read another of her comments about this too, please. She said. Elizabeth Cain said that anyone who had gone through suffering voluntarily for an elevated motive was well worth listening to. And she loved to see people in earnest. And she talked about the middle aged women who had joined the church in their youth. The two Steerforth wives of Nephi impressed her with their simple kindliness of heart and unaffected enthusiasm. They'd been some of the first that were in the valley, but they didn't call those dark days.

Claudia Bushman [00:10:32] And this is the quotation. We were starving, we were dying. Suffering was then consuming life itself. But it was that which gave its brightness to the flood. A flame of true religion was burning then. God was with his people. I would give a thousand days of the present luxury and folly for one hour of that exalted life. Now isn't that something?

Guest [00:10:57] Wow, beautiful.

Claudia Bushman [00:11:00] That kind of feeling.

Guest [00:11:02] You know, there's a big contrast between what Brigham Young seems to be saying about the potential and the skills of women versus what I remember hearing, let's say in the 80s about what women should be doing and stuff. I guess we need to pay attention to modern day prophets, but it's also fair to say we shouldn't just disregard past ones. And so I tend, I have three daughters. I tend to like Brigham Young's version versus like Ezra Taft Benson's when he was talking in the early 80s or whatever. But how do you, you know, how do you respect modern day revelation but still, you know, embrace the past statements that you actually happen to like a little bit better? How do you, how do you bounce that?

Claudia Bushman [00:11:47] Well, you have to say, Bingham Young is not a feminist. He's just trying to move the thing along. Where is some labor that can be used? Let's put those women to work. No point in having them sitting around doing frivolous things and just being extravagant. So it, I think the real question is why is it ever gospel principle for the woman to stay in the home? If that's the issue we're talking about, where does it say that the traditional life has always been that women have done other things and people other than the mothers have frequently, often, and certainly in aristocratic circles have cared for the young.

Claudia Bushman [00:12:29] So I think it is just really looking back to the agrarian period pretty much, where if women are on the farm, the Children are with them and they're all working together. But the idea of leaving the house being such a terrible thing is kind of a surprise to me because somebody mentioned in a blog recently that when you are in a congregation with a number of immigrants that the women will get up and express their thanks for the church and for their families and for their good jobs.

Claudia Bushman [00:13:05] And that's just something we, we don't generally hear in middle class Caucasian wars, but I think it's likely to come. Finances are such that it's more and

Guest [00:13:18] more, more and more dual income families. I have to tell you, from my experience with my wife and my sisters and the women, I know women need more than just household duties and motherhood. I mean, it's, I mean, no, I'm not, and I'm not saying this to sort of try and make a point. I feel like there is a void when there isn't something else. Because the woman tends to feel like, all I exist for is to feed and to clean and to serve. I need something outside. Even though, even though being a parent is a beautiful thing and yes, you can make your mark. I have yet to really meet a woman who doesn't have a native urging and longing for something in addition and completely separate from being the spouse and the parent.

Claudia Bushman [00:14:09] Well, it's really terrible when you realize that you only exist. The only other place you exist is in your husband's mind and he doesn't think about you very often. You have to have a life of your own. For me, it was always go to school. Because then if I was in school, if there was some kind of family crisis I could miss and nobody else would be hurt if I was working, then I'd be responsible to somebody paying my wages. But school was something I could do. And you know, I think women can solve these problems for themselves. One of the best accounts that I've heard was from a woman who would be, whose name would be familiar to you, but who was so struck by this teaching of Ezra Taft Benson, she went in to see the general authorities and said, I've been doing these other things.

Claudia Bushman [00:15:03] Am I wrong? Should I stop? I mean, just tell me. And they said, oh, that didn't apply to you. You are different. Now that's a very useful kind of a pronouncement.

Guest [00:15:17] Yeah, well, the good news is everybody's different in some ways, so maybe we can take heart.

Claudia Bushman [00:15:23] Exactly. And that's why there's a way for somebody, a way for everybody. You just have to think of your energies and your interest as Water flowing around. Now, if it's dammed up in some direction, can't go there, but there it has to go somewhere, keep going somewhere. You just got to keep your mind open for your opportunities.

Guest [00:15:43] That's a great metaphor. That's a great metaphor. The water. That's a great metaphor. So who's next?

Dr. Bushman's Grandmother and Early Mormon Women's Lives

Claudia Bushman [00:15:49] Well, I'm going to talk about my very own grandmother, who is Margaret Elizabeth Shute Gordon, who was born in 1866, just after Lincoln was assassinated, and lived until 1956. 1960. 600 years.

Guest [00:16:04] Wow.

Claudia Bushman [00:16:06] And she began her life in England and then spent the years of her childhood and adolescence on Indian in Indian colonies with her father, who. And father who was a lay missionary for the Church of England. And so she is at this time that I'm going to read this section to you. She is 19 years old, and she is then living in a little tiny place called Henvey's Inlet, which is in. Is off the coast of Lake.

Claudia Bushman [00:16:37] Off Lake Huron. That's where she is. Nowhere. But she's a very sprightly, energetic person, and she writes. I think it was in April 1885 that a strange desire came to me to learn something about Mormonism. I didn't like the idea at all. Brigham Young, who I was taught to think of as a wicked, immoral man, and polygamy, kept coming to mind. But in spite of my objections, the idea persisted, stronger than ever. Find out about Mormonism. There was no one I could talk to, no one with whom I could discuss this strange and insistent urge. So I wrote to my cousin in Salt Lake saying I would like to learn something of his beliefs.

Claudia Bushman [00:17:18] Would he send me something to read? Immediately came a letter from him. Some tracts, Spencer's letters, a discussion between Orson Spencer and the minister. This is one of my favorite lines from her. Every word I read was truth to me. There was not a doubt in my mind which side was right. I read and studied. Not a doubt in my mind. Hewson, her cousin, had written, if you read this to scorn as you did here, I'll send you no more. If you're interested and want more, I'll send it. I wrote him, from what Orson Spencer says, there is not a doubt in my mind. Your Joseph Smith was a true prophet, and Mormonism the truth.

Claudia Bushman [00:17:56] Send me more. So quickly came back. The Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants. My parents viewed with amusement my interest in the subject, thought it just a girlish whim. But deep in my soul was coming a knowledge nothing could take from me. I really Wanted to know for sure what I firmly believed that I had found the truth.

Claudia Bushman [00:18:16] I decided to read the Book of Mormon first. So taking it in my hand, I went into my little bedroom and still holding it, knelt down and asked my father if Mormonism was really true and Joseph Smith, a true prophet, to reveal it to me. As I read the book, I sat down and started to read. And immediately strange burning thrills went all over my body. At first I was afraid, and then a peace came over me. And all the while I read, those burning electric thrills stayed with me until I laid the book down.

Claudia Bushman [00:18:47] The next afternoon, when ready to start reading, I again took the book to my room and again prayed that if it was true, I could be shown clearly. For three weeks I read each day asking the same blessing, not realizing that I had the great converter of all to teach me. And every time I picked it up, after praying would come those electric burning thrills which I soon recognized must be part of my teaching. I never mentioned them to the folks. They never knew of the wonderful experiences I was having all to myself or how my father was teaching me the true gospel. As I neared the end of the book filled with the wonderful spirit it possesses, I came to the 10th chapter of Moroni, verses 4 and 5.

Claudia Bushman [00:19:28] Then she quotes that well known scripture about when you receive these things, you're to ask if these things are true and if your heart is sincere, and so on, and the power of the Holy Ghost will manifest it to you. As I read those words, my eyes were fully opened. I gave a shout. I knew then what had been thrilling and burning my whole body was the promised Spirit which had been testifying to my soul without being told. I had done just what Moroni said. I had asked my Father in the name of his Son to reveal unto me the truth. And he did just that.

Claudia Bushman [00:20:02] And I fully knew it. I cannot describe the joy I felt. It was beyond expression. I knew then, and have never doubted since, that the Gospel is true. And Joseph Smith, a prophet of the Lord. How's that for a conversion story?

Guest [00:20:18] That's amazing. When did you first read that yourself as a great granddaughter?

Claudia Bushman [00:20:24] Well, it's really an interesting story in that I put all my mother's papers into BYU special collection. And, well, she told me that story. We knew that story. That's a family story. But I put all these papers in special collections and one of them, one of these things was her autobiography and none of us knew it really existed. I put the papers in. I should have known it, but I Didn't. And it was only by accident about five years ago that I. I found it in those papers and I transcribed it and have. And made it sound and punctuated it better and so on. But this summer, my cousins and I are rereading it and we're verifying the actual text. So it's going to be just as close as it was to hers, I guess.

Guest [00:21:11] I have two questions about that. It's beautiful testimony, number one. I'll ask him separately. Number one is, did that put a lot of pressure on you to try and have the same type of experience? Did you ever feel that yourself? Or, you know, is that. Does that run in the family? Because I know a lot of people who desperately desire that type of experience, and no matter how hard they've tried, they haven't been able to have it. I believe people have that, but I believe that it's rare. Did you ever feel pressure to have a similar experience or disappointed that maybe you didn't have that type of experience? Or have you, or, you know, if

Claudia Bushman [00:21:47] you're comfortable saying, well, actually, I never did. That's just not my style. I admire it tremendously. And she lived that way. She lived on that for the rest of her life. And it was a long life. There was nothing, I mean, she said, nothing else much matters than the gospel she would say throughout. And she's a wonderful person. This is obvious, but it just didn't seem style to me.

Guest [00:22:12] Right.

Claudia Bushman [00:22:13] No, I never have had that.

Guest [00:22:15] But it transformed her life and she lived. She lived in a complimentary way to that, to that testimony. She's written down, didn't she?

Claudia Bushman [00:22:24] Right? She did. She was. And she had many hard times, but that was what she always clung to. Anyway, it's a wonderful autobiography and the whole thing is full of great stories like that and other things.

Guest [00:22:38] Well, it makes, it makes me think about the second question. You've mentioned sentimentality a few times now that, that you're not necessarily a fan of it, or at least you don't like too much reliance on it. But her testimony does make me feel a lot of emotions and it does seem to have a lot of sentiment. So how do you tell us again how you reconcile that and where sentiments and emotions have their place versus where they don't in your mind or heart?

Claudia Bushman [00:23:11] Hard to say. Well, I wouldn't say actually that that is a sentimental testimony. That seems in lots of ways to me. I mean, she had this desire to send me stuff. She says, okay, I'm going to go off and read this stuff. And then had these strange burning thrills. That's the amazing thing about it, that she had this physical experience and did not even. And didn't know what it was and then recognized what it was. I think that's exciting. But that's not just emotional, that's physical.

Guest [00:23:43] Right, right.

Claudia Bushman [00:23:44] And. And then, of course, from then on, she. She persuaded her mother, she persuaded her sister to read, and they both got testimonies. The father never did. But he had a dream that his. His family was in one rowboat, he was in another. And no matter how hard he rode to try and keep up with them, he couldn't do it. They kept drifting away. So he determined that he would join the church because they had to. Boat.

Guest [00:24:15] Wow.

Claudia Bushman [00:24:16] So that's the side I come from.

Guest [00:24:18] So just. So tell me just real quickly, what are some examples of sentimentality illustrated so that I can understand what you mean then? Because I want. You make that point a lot. I want to understand it because I like it, but I don't fully understand it.

Claudia Bushman [00:24:32] Well, I'm sorry I don't have any good examples here, but if you read the Woman's Exponent of the period, they quote a lot of things from Eastern publications. So you really have these women in Salt Lake living these bare bones, practical lives who are still going by some of the feelings of the east where they talk. This is the whole woman on the pedestal business where women is not able. Her great sympathies and her spirit is so fine that she is incapable of a thought.

Guest [00:25:07] That's okay.

Claudia Bushman [00:25:08] So overall, all that stuff and where you talk in terms of excessive adjectives and things like that, that's what I think.

Guest [00:25:18] Okay, so over idealizing, of avoiding. Avoiding candor, avoiding balance. That's what you mean.

Claudia Bushman [00:25:26] Yeah.

Guest [00:25:27] Okay, that makes sense. It just. Just really. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. And then I have a quick.

Claudia Bushman [00:25:31] That's all. Go ahead.

The Woman's Exponent and Notable Mormon Women

Guest [00:25:33] So real quickly. You've mentioned the Women's Exponent a few times. When was that? Do we have do when that was created and how long it lasted and how it ended? The first Women's Exponent.

Claudia Bushman [00:25:44] Well, again, I could have that on the tips of my head. I have. In my mind, it starts in 1872 and goes till something like 1911. But that could be wrong.

Guest [00:25:56] Late 19th century and lived for maybe 30 to 50 years.

Claudia Bushman [00:26:00] It is certainly that. And it's owned and run by women with the approval of the church. Emmaline Wells is a longtime editor of that. She makes her living off of editing the Woman's Exponent. And it has all kinds of feminist stuff. It has all kinds of suffrage stuff, but it also has all kinds of sentimental stuff. It's just a combination of all the women's stuff of the age.

Guest [00:26:28] And do we know how it met its demise?

Claudia Bushman [00:26:32] Let me see. How did it meet its demise?

Guest [00:26:34] I know I'm putting you on the spot here.

Claudia Bushman [00:26:36] Yeah, well, I know all these things, really, but it's terrible to tell hundreds of people the wrong thing, but it really. It just really became outdated in a sense, and the church took over. Well, as many things happened in the church, women were innovators, started things, and then that those jobs were taken over by men as the things were taken into the church as officially activities. For instance, the whole social work business that the women in the Relief Society were involved in, the whole medical business, lots of the teaching business, all these women's things became men's things. And eventually the church published its own magazines.

Guest [00:27:24] Okay.

Claudia Bushman [00:27:25] And circulation was falling very far at the end. It was not publication that kept up with its times. So, you know, that's how it goes.

Guest [00:27:35] Was there a time when it was very prominent and important in the minds and hearts of men and women in the church, or was it always sort of marginal?

Claudia Bushman [00:27:43] The circulation was never large, never very large. But people figure that each issue was read by a number of people. And so, yes, it was very important to some people, and it was certainly involved. It defended polygamy, it defended all kinds of voting of women, which they were doing during that period. All Relief Society activities, retrenchment, but also had poetry and short stories and biographies of people. It's a wonderful. A wonderful publication, very much worth reading for getting a view of what things were like.

Guest [00:28:22] And if somebody wants to get an old copy of the women's exponent 1, where could they go?

Claudia Bushman [00:28:28] They could probably go to Kirk Bench or Sam Willard. They probably have individual copies. Some people have a number of copies, and a few people have full runs. I've seen, oh, maybe a dozen full runs with the Exponent. My brother in law has a complete run. But I'll tell you a story. When we started doing our Boston activities many years ago, Susan Kohler, whose husband was on the Harvard faculty, and so she had access to Harvard's libraries, discovered this Woman's Exponent on the shelves of Widener Library, took out a few issues and brought them to meetings that we had, and we all pored through them with great excitement.

Claudia Bushman [00:29:14] It was because of the Woman's Exponent that we got interested in women's lives in past years at the Church and found that they were doing all sorts of things that women were not doing anymore. So it was really an exciting discovery for us. Well, Laurel Ulbricht tells me that this last year she decided she would go find those bound volumes because she knew of a microfilm copy that Harvard had. But she'd never seen the bound volumes. And in chasing them down, she discovered that once Harvard, Microsoft, they destroyed the old ones. Can you believe it? They kept lots of things they didn't keep that amazing, painful.

Guest [00:30:00] Well, sounds like if you talk about advocating projects, it sounds like if some woman out there listening wanted to make their mark and help women, finding a way to digitize those past issues and getting them online might be a great service to people.

Claudia Bushman [00:30:17] I think it's in the works, actually. I think it will happen.

Guest [00:30:19] Oh, great. That's great.

Claudia Bushman [00:30:21] And of course, it was the model of that that started us in on doing Exponent two, which is of course very different. Served the same purpose for us.

Guest [00:30:30] Right. So who comes after your wonderful grandmother?

Claudia Bushman [00:30:34] Aren't you about tired of this? Haven't you had enough?

Guest [00:30:36] I think that for my listeners who care about women, they're on the edge of their seat.

Claudia Bushman [00:30:42] Well, I don't know. There's a woman that I'm going to do some more studying on who is Alice Louise Reynolds. Do you about her?

Guest [00:30:48] No.

Claudia Bushman [00:30:49] She was a professor of English and religion at byu. She was a graduate of the school and managed to get a lot of degrees and also to study abroad quite a bit. And what is interesting to me about her is that she was considered to be such a friend, such a friend to everybody that a group of women decided to organize a club that they would call the Alice Louise Reynolds Club. And there were in the 40s, 15 shows of this club, the Alice Louise Reynolds Club. Who can believe it? There was even one in New York. There were a number in Utah and various places.

Claudia Bushman [00:31:30] And she wrote editorials for the Relief Society magazine. Actually, I think that's a series that I would like to get hold of to collect all those editorials and see what she's got to say. I've read a few of them and they're beautifully written. And they are also significant for the period, which is the 25s and 30s, things like that. But I'm just going to read you one very short tribute. When she Died. It's by Kate Barker.

Claudia Bushman [00:32:04] Hers was a choice spirit, trained in logical thinking, gifted with exceptional power of oral and written expression, with a wonderful breadth of appreciation. A great mind and a great heart, coupled with unaffected Simplicity and tenderness which made her loved and appreciated by old and young. We shall miss her greatly, but are thankful for her life and that she was our friend. Wouldn't that be a nice thing to have somebody say about you? A little sentimental, but still very nice.

Guest [00:32:31] Delightful.

Claudia Bushman [00:32:33] She never married, but she would spend her sabbatical periods studying at other universities, visiting in Europe and doing lots of things. Amy Brown Lyman, who was one of the presidents of the Relief Society, became her biographer and wrote this extensive piece about her life was published by these Alice Louise Reynolds clubs. So it's people like that that are not really the top echelon, but are very significant that I think we want to study. We want to find out about them.

Guest [00:33:07] Right? Yeah. Very good.

Claudia Bushman [00:33:13] All right. I only have one more to read. Do you want to hear it?

Guest [00:33:15] Absolutely. No, I'm not. I'm totally engaged.

Claudia Bushman [00:33:21] You're a good sport. Well, anyway, as I said earlier on, I've been reading these memoirs of Virginia Sorensen and Juanita Brooks. Juanita Brooks, who is this very important historian, but who grows up in the south of the Southern colonies. Southern Mormonism.

Claudia Bushman [00:33:40] She was born in Bunkerville, Nevada. Eventually she makes it to the big city of St. George. And she is interesting to me because she's this very powerful intellect who lives a fairly traditional life. That is, she's married to a young man.

Claudia Bushman [00:33:57] He dies, but then she marries the Sheriff of St. George and proceeds to have more children and to raise the children that her husband, who is a widower, already has. And she shows no real desire to leave that culture to go off to New York or other places, the way, for instance, Vaughn Brody does.

Claudia Bushman [00:34:22] But she becomes the voice of this area. I was very happy that I had a chance to meet her in her later days. She told me lots of things which I loved. One of them, which I remember, was that she worked in the fields quite a bit when she was a young girl, but whenever anyone would come by, she and her sisters would hide down in the growing wheat or whatever it was, because they were embarrassed to be seen doing this kind of work. And why were they embarrassed to be seen? Because they had no shoes.

Claudia Bushman [00:34:58] And this was interesting to me because at that time we were thinking, oh, women in the West. They felt so free from all the constraints of Eastern society, all this fashion, all this other business. And yet here, even living in Bunkerville, Nevada, she had the same kind of difficulty of not feeling well enough dressed to be respectable. So that's when I rethought what was like on the frontier. And here is A little story about that when she was young, they go to conference at St. George for the first time. Her father's in the bishopric and they're able to do that, and they take this long trip in getting there.

Claudia Bushman [00:35:38] And she tells of her experience. She says that it was just such a thrill to see this temple which had been the center of all they'd been taught about. And she felt frightened to go near for fear she might see angels hovering near the spire. But she did finally touch the wall at last and climb up the steps to the eastern door where Aunt Rosina said the Savior would enter when he came.

Claudia Bushman [00:36:04] So here is this realization of this thrilling aspect of her religion. Anyway, then she's there, going back and looking at all the tabernacle displays. The beauty of the basement of the tabernacle was as impressive as the temple had been. Beautiful fruit. Her father looks at the corn, squash and melons. And then she says, such a full, happy day. Things new and strange everywhere. Experiences to talk over and relive for a long time to come. One only I never mentioned, but tried hard to put into the back of my mind and forget.

Claudia Bushman [00:36:40] Happened like this. I had a dime and three nickels tied into the corner of my handkerchief, and I had seen a sign advertising ice cream just a little way east of the tabernacle. So I slipped away by myself and hurried to get out of sight before anyone started to check on me. I found the place and stepped inside.

Claudia Bushman [00:37:00] To my right, on tall stools by a counter, three young ladies were sipping something out of tall goblets with straws. They were beautifully dressed, these girls, with sheer white blouses and dark skirts and high heeled shoes. This almost stopped me, but gathering courage, I started to walk right in.

Claudia Bushman [00:37:21] To my surprise, a funny little funny looking girl came forward to meet me. Her hair braided, her red calico dress trimmed with white braid, her two large stogie shoes. Horrors. It was me, myself, in a full length mirror, coming to meet me. Did I look like that? I was so embarrassed I could hardly answer the clerk when she came to say, may I help you? No, not right now. Let me look around a little, I managed. But I didn't stop to look around. I fled the place for now the girls at the counter were in on it. They had seen my confusion and were laughing at me.

Claudia Bushman [00:37:59] I'm sure I heard one mention my shoes and another my purse, the soiled handkerchief with the coins in the corner outside the door. I was so weak I could hardly stand upright. This funny face with the hair Pulled back into tight braids. This calico dress gathered in at the belt and trimmed with white braid. These shoes.

Claudia Bushman [00:38:19] Ma always bought our shoes in the fall, and since we had only one pair a year, she got them large and serviceable. On my skinny legs, they looked like. Well, I couldn't think of a good comparison. Later, Con Adams gave me one. Seeing me pass, he said, shoes. Where are you taking this kid?

Claudia Bushman [00:38:39] My day was ruined. Maybe my whole life was ruined, but I had nowhere to go except back to the tabernacle to join the crowd. No matter how I felt, I'd have to keep a bold friend and remember all the encouraging lines that I knew. Like, you can't tell from the looks of a frog how high he can jump, or diamonds are often encased in the roughest stone. Or the ugly duckling becomes the swan. I was forced to be cheerful and happy, for if I didn't, I'd have to explain what was the matter and that I would never do. I'd do whatever I could to look better, like throwing my shoulders back and trying to walk tall.

Claudia Bushman [00:39:16] But I'd not reveal the suffering of these few minutes to anyone. And I didn't see dad. That's such a beautiful example of the cultural conflict between the sophisticates and the rural rubes.

Guest [00:39:36] Also an emphasis on image and appearance.

Claudia Bushman [00:39:40] Yes, that's right. She's so aware. But see, had she never looked at herself in a mirror before? Was she completely unaware of this? That seems strange to me. And maybe it's just the comparison of the moment that. Enough to give up the ice cream and to go home, to be seared for life by this experience.

Guest [00:40:03] Anyway, it's a delightful story. I mean, it's just written with so much color.

Claudia Bushman [00:40:10] Yes, that's right. She's a terrific writer. And this is from a book called. It's a memoir called Quicksand and Cactus, which tells about her life up to the time that she marries this guy, Will Brooks. And, see, Juanita Brooks is also a wonderful example for women that can do other things.

Claudia Bushman [00:40:28] She wrote a piece for the Pink Exponent, for the Pink Dialogue we did many years ago where she talked about how in all the houses, with all the children, she'd always had one little place that was hers, a closet where she could write and so on. And that the way she managed it was that she would write whenever she could. And then she always kept the ironing board up, and she always had a roll of dampened clothes, and as soon as somebody came to the door, she'd get up and close her closet, turn on the iron and start ironing. And then she could visit with whoever came and they would never know that she was actually doing all this closet work, which she did.

Guest [00:41:14] Ah, in the closet.

Claudia Bushman [00:41:16] That's right now. And so she made it work. She also used to travel to Salt Lake or to Southern California on overnight buses and then do research in the Huntington Library or in the, at the Utah State Archives. So, you know, her example is just one of the best for making something out of a life that would otherwise seem to be controlled by other forces.

Advice for Women Navigating Faith and the LDS Church Today

Guest [00:41:45] Yeah, yeah. Determination. Well, those are just remarkable stories. Thank you. And I know my listeners are going to be motivated and excited to dig in to learn more about the women of our past and of our heritage. So I think you've done a great service. Can I ask you just a few final questions just to, to kind of try and synthesize your overall perspective?

Claudia Bushman [00:42:14] Okay.

Guest [00:42:16] The first two questions are just about God and the church as a woman. When you look back on the history of women in the world and maybe even how women, well, in the Bible are treated or not treated and you know, the Book of Mormon actually only mentions I think three women by name. But when you think about how women have been treated in God's creation, what have you done to feel better about reconciling an all loving God and a compassionate and a just God and just sort of the lot that women have been dealt. Now maybe you believe the lot women have been dealt has been great or horrible or somewhere in the middle, but how do you feel right about God given the place of women in human history?

Guest [00:43:06] And then more specifically, how do you. How did you get to feel okay? And how can you encourage other women who are struggling to feel okay with the, with the treatment of women in the church? And most specifically the fact that maybe women have even become slightly less empowered as of late versus how they were previously. Help. Help the women who are struggling with some words that might help them reconcile and feel more faithful and encouraged about the whole religion and women think thing, if you can.

Claudia Bushman [00:43:40] Good grief.

Guest [00:43:42] That too overwhelming.

Claudia Bushman [00:43:43] We do with this. Well, it's pretty big. I mean, how do I feel about it? Well, of course I'm used to it. That's one thing. The other thing is that I come from a family of women, largely. That is, I have three sisters, no brothers, and my mother and my sisters was perfectly clear that we were a good unit. We could do lots of things together. Our father would come and visit us from time to time. No, that's not true. But he was very busy with business and church work.

Claudia Bushman [00:44:10] And so I got used to the fact that whatever happens and women were just very capable. And certainly we never had doubts about the church being the thing that does the job. Now there's a wonderful short story by Eileen. Probably I mentioned this the other day in that thing because I'm very fond of it. It's this sort of folklore story that tells how women in the pre existence had a choice between say so and since they could either be in charge of things or they could know what was going on. And so they decided to take the sense and leave the say so to the men.

Claudia Bushman [00:44:52] And so that they have this vision that the men are always going around making pronouncements and the women are doing whatever they want despite that. So that's a useful kind of an idea. Then I find that the whole business of what the gods are like is just incomprehensible. I don't know what they really are like. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who was one of the important thinkers of the women's suffrage movement in the United States, said that her idea of the Godhood was God the Father, God the Mother and God the Son.

Claudia Bushman [00:45:33] He said that's just perfectly obvious. That's how it really should be. Well, I don't say that necessarily, but it does make a lot more sense. How can this be otherwise? Also the scripture in Genesis where it says God created man in his own image, male and female created he them. To me that makes it possible that God is a figure that combines male and female. And that we are divided up when we come to earth. And that maybe heavenly creatures are created by parthenogenesis.

Claudia Bushman [00:46:06] But that's of course just my thought on the possibility. So I don't worry about that. What I would say for the women who feel bad and feel that they're mistreated in the church, I can certainly understand that. I know that a lot of it is not meant. It is just completely.

Claudia Bushman [00:46:33] It's just because of lack of sensitivity and so on. And I think that women just have to make real efforts to find their own way in the church. And so I think they have to get to know their leaders and make clear what they're interested in doing. So when I. I think the leaders just don't know all the women in the church. And they should, but that's too much to do. But if you make the effort, you can get to know them. And then I've had just wonderful relationships with various bishops and stake presidents. When I Go and say, you know, I think we ought to do this. They say it's a good idea, go ahead.

Guest [00:47:13] Right.

Claudia Bushman [00:47:13] So I have been able to sort of chart my own course in the church, which I have appreciated because there just are not enough good jobs for women in the church anymore. I think that women should be involved in creating their own futures, their own lives. They have to. Nobody else is going to do it for them. They have to be thinking about this all the time, what am I going to do after my children leave? Or what am I going to do if I never marry? And I think great women are certainly moving well into those directions, but they're not always encouraged to do it. But just because you're not encouraged doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. You really have to. Because nobody. My father always used to say, this is more important to me than it is to you.

Guest [00:48:01] Right. What do you say to the woman that's. And I'm reflecting, I've had conversations with women because I'm trying to understand. Sometimes there's anger out there. And I, you know, I, it has never occurred to me, and I'm embarrassed to admit this, it's never occurred to me that women would be anything other than happy in the church. And I say that. I know it's a horrible thing to say, maybe, but my mom's been happy. My sisters love the church.

Guest [00:48:27] I go to church every Sunday and the women seem happy. So I don't say this with an agenda. I say this because as I've had conversation with women who have left, I'm trying to say, what is your deal? What is your problem? Why wouldn't you love the church? I mean, yeah, it's not ideal. And yet the men have priesthood and you don't. You know, you aren't always in the decision making circles, but who wants that burden anyway? And anyway, so when I try and make the case in an insensitive way to these women who have really become frustrated, what they come back to me and they say is it's not worth the effort.

Guest [00:48:58] That's one thing they say. Tell me why it's worth the effort to try and fight against the current. So that's one question. And then the second is, how can I expose my daughter to, to a place where they're going to feel less than. Those are the two questions that I get most that I have a hard time answering. So tell us, inspire us as to how it can be worth the effort and why a woman shouldn't feel hesitant, but should instead feel Proud to have her daughter raised in the LDS Church in the 21st century.

Claudia Bushman [00:49:33] Well, I would say that leaving the church is not any kind of an answer to a better life. That's just like leaving something good for outer darkness. And it's just better to stick with the church and try to make something out of it. Just the community alone is worth such a tremendous amount.

Claudia Bushman [00:49:54] For the daughters, that is a much harder problem. I have not done all that well with my own daughters. Some of my grandchildren who have been in the church all their lives say they have never had a happy experience at church. And I can see how that could be. The church that I grew up in in the 40s and 50s was so much more a joyful, happy place where we would just live and die to go to church. We would have learned so many interesting things. We had so many good friends. We had so many dances and parties and other exciting activities. I just don't see that the young people of today have those opportunities.

Claudia Bushman [00:50:36] The church, the block is a great failure in my mind. I just don't think that. I mean, I sit through those meetings. We don't even have song practice anymore. The lessons are not exactly exciting. I mean, it's a hard, hard business. But that's why we have to use the church to create such other opportunities as we for ourselves, we can have all kinds of women's activities. I started a group called Women of a Certain Age where we just. Some of the older women have been marginalized in the church, get together and we just have some pleasant adventures anyway. Things like that. No, there are no good answers.

Claudia Bushman [00:51:21] Except when we gave up doing so many of the things in the church. Instead it was because people were just worn out and they really were. But why did we have to go so far, give up so much?

Guest [00:51:34] Right.

Claudia Bushman [00:51:35] I just feel very sorry about that.

Guest [00:51:37] The good news is there seems to be a dynamic of a pendulum within the church where sometimes the church is open with its history and then it maybe goes too far and it has to clamp down, maybe with this notion of trying to simplify and oversimplify. Maybe a pendulum will swing back to the day where there's this rich, rich experience that maybe we've moved away from a bit in trying to deal with the issues of complex modern life. So I'm hopeful. I guess I'm hopeful in that way.

Claudia Bushman [00:52:05] Yeah, maybe so. But who's going to teach us the tango? They've all forgotten how to do it. We used to learn the tango every year.

Guest [00:52:12] Well, when I watch these dance competitions, on national television. Many of the participants are Mormons. So some of these Mormons are still learning how to tango. So.

Claudia Bushman [00:52:21] So I don't know, but we used to all be able to do it. And why don't we do that again?

Guest [00:52:27] Anyway, I would love to see Richard and Claudia Bushman do the tango. That would be wonderful.

Claudia Bushman [00:52:33] It has happened, but not recently.

Guest [00:52:39] Were you going to say something else?

Claudia Bushman [00:52:41] No, I think I'm just about done. Let's see. Do I have anything else to say? Yes. I want to say one other thing to the rest women, which is that seeing as I'm telling you that you really ought to do some writing, I think you should consider a special format, which is the three generation essay, where you talk about yourself and your mother and your grandmother and how the themes and the experiences have worked out, how the education, the interests, the family, rearing style, all those sort of things, how those come down through the three generations. We frequently, almost always tell our stories through the male line, but what we have to do is rethink things for women.

Claudia Bushman [00:53:24] And I think everybody's got three generations of women before them, and those are things that we can pretty much get hold of much farther back than that. It gets harder. But if we could have a whole series of those accounts, we would really know an awful lot about the women in the church, and it would be very rich and interesting. Meanwhile, even if you're having miserable times in the church, write about it. Let's get it down so we'll have it for future generations.

Claudia Bushman [00:53:53] And I think also I could tell you 15 stories of horror stories, but I'm not going to do that. We all have pains and sufferings in the church. We're all treated inconsiderately and there are many problems and difficulties, but we don't want to be bound by those. We want to be bound by the good things. And just working with people in church on any kind of a project, it is so clear that they are the best people in the world and it would just be a shame to leave those people behind. So I say hang on. That's it.

Guest [00:54:32] Beautiful. Well, Claudia Bushman, thank you so much for coming on Mormon Stories. I think that we have a lot to digest here, but it's time for us to not only reinvestigate and learn about the women of our past, but to get writing, to get working on projects looking to transform the church in positive ways. And I think you give us a lot of hope. So thank you for that.

Claudia Bushman [00:54:57] Thank you.

Guest [00:55:00] Thank you for joining us today on Mormon Stories. Podcast. If you enjoyed these interviews with Dr. Bushman, please take a minute to to email us@mormonstoriesmail.com and we'll make sure and pass on Your thanks to Dr. Bushman for the time she's taken. Also, to help keep Mormon stories alive, please consider donating today@mormonstories.org finally, we'd like to thank again, my daughter Audreyn for providing the music for this podcast. And thanks for listening.

Claudia Bushman [00:55:33] Sam.

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