“So this lady you were talking about?”
“The lady I interviewed?”
“No, the lady this place is named after. What’d you say she did?”
“She really helped bring an end to polygamy. She went around giving lectures, telling everyone what it was really like. People all over the country went to see her, and for a while there she was as famous as, I don’t know, a rock star or someone on tv, but this was in the 1870s. Eventually she went to Congress and described polygamy and met President Grant and told him all about it. After her visit to Washington the government finally started putting some teeth into the antipolygamy laws. She got the ball rolling, and eventually the church had to give it up. She called us on it, and she won.”
“How do you know so much about her?”
“I’ve spent the last two years of my life reading everything I can about Ann Eliza Young. There’s a lot out there, she wrote this really famous book called The 19th Wife, and there are diaries and letters and all these records by people who knew her and the more I read, the more I want to know. You know what’s funny, even today a lot of members don’t like her. She fought Brigham pretty hard in their divorce, and she said lots of nasty things about the church in her book, some of which were misleading and completely biased, but she also made us see the truth about something very important. She saved the church, in her own way, you know, by forcing us to give up polygamy. There’s no way I could believe in a church that supported that, especially now that I’ve seen it for myself. I feel like I owe her so much—my faith, it’s the most important thing I have, along with my family, of course, but I love my church as much as I can love anything. I’m just really glad she put us through that, and flushed it out of our system.
“To some she was a real hero. But a lot of Saints, even today, they’re angry at her. Some people, like some of Brigham’s descendants, won’t even say her name. A few years ago they put out a book of remembrances about Brigham, you know, collecting old letters and other papers by Brigham’s children and grandchildren describing Brigham at home, what kind of father he was, and in the back there’s a list of his wives. They completely left her off. Edited out of history! Thankfully not everyone’s like that. This house, it was started by a group of LDS members who felt the need to do something about polygamy today. It wasn’t very hard to raise the money to buy it and fix it up. A lot of people wanted to help. They see it as I do, as our duty, you know, because in some ways it’s part of our legacy.”
“I know I need to talk to the director,” I said, “but can you tell me how this whole thing is going to work for Johnny?”
“Sure, first she has to meet him and make sure he’ll fit in. This is a community, and we can’t have someone destructive or violent or what have you.”
“He’s not like that.” Which wasn’t exactly true.
“Of course there are rules, which we’re real strict about. Among the many things these kids need is discipline. No drinking and drugs, no stealing, no weapons of any kind—any signs of those and you’re immediately out. It’s a no-tolerance zone. Before he’s admitted Johnny will have to sign a statement saying he won’t break the rules. It’s an important step, making a commitment and keeping it. Last but definitely not least, there’s a lot of paperwork, filing with the various agencies, but that can happen after he checks in. We try to spare the kids from the bureaucracy. How do you think he’ll feel about all that?”
“He’s a bit, I don’t know, unpredictable.”
“Usually the longer they’ve been on their own, the less they want to stay. They’re scared they’re going to be kicked out again. It’s perfectly natural. Whenever I think about what these kids have gone through”—Kelly looked up and her face darkened, as if it had been slapped—“it makes me really mad. You see, I finally understand what Ann Eliza was so outraged about. It’s the kids. These men, in their search for an unlimited supply of women, they end up destroying a lot of kids.”
“Tell me about it.”
“You know what makes me the angriest? That someone has put them through this in the name of God. That’s the saddest part, these kids come out and they’ve been robbed of everything. Their childhoods, their families, but, worst of all, they’ve been robbed of God. And most of them never find him again.”
“That’s not the worst part,” I said. “The worst part is you come out of there and it’s pretty much impossible to ever love anyone again.”
“You’re right,” she said. “But I think we’re talking about the same thing.”
I told Kelly it was fine if she had something to do, she didn’t have to wait with me, but she said she didn’t have anything else to do. “So this lady,” I said, “Ann Eliza Young? She was like wife number what?”
“It depends.”
“On?”
“Who’s counting.”
“I’m asking you.”
“Then I don’t know. She was commonly known as his nineteenth wife, but everyone agrees that she was at least his twenty-seventh. But there’s a lot of evidence that suggests Brigham married more women than that. With all the secret weddings, the numbers get pretty screwy.”
“They always are.”
“That’s one of the things I’m researching. Not what number she was, because to tell the truth I don’t think we’ll ever know for sure. I’m more interested in what it meant to a woman to not even know her position in her family. It’s one of those things that gets brushed over and a lot of scholars say, Well, what difference does it make? But I think it must’ve had a huge psychological impact on these women to not know their number.”
“My mom. She’s a nineteenth wife.”
“Come again?”
And so I told her. Everything. It just came out, and it took a long time, but I told her like I’ve just told you.
At the end of it Kelly said, “I wish there was something I could do.”
“You can help Johnny. He won’t make it if he stays with me.”
We stopped talking. There was so much to think about. I can’t tell you what Kelly was thinking, but I was thinking, Look at this girl. LDS through and through. BYU rah rah rah. Rise, all loyal Cougars and hurl your challenge to the foe. No coffee, no tea, no Diet Coke, never a drink or a smoke or a hit, temple garments as white as Wasatch snow, Relief Society chick, missionary missy—where was it she went in New York? Times Square? Blond, banged, sharp-nosed Kelly Dee bringing the word of the Restoration to New York City, bringing the news of the Prophet to 42nd Street? Two years with her companion, Sister Kimmie probably, or Sister Connie or Sister Meg or someone, the two of them always together, never apart, smiling, talking, chatting, helping, maybe handing out a book, maybe not, Sister Kelly never tiring, never giving up, never getting angry or disappointed or dispirited when someone on the street said Joseph Smith can suck my dick, just continuing firm in her belief, never once thinking, I’m better than this, never once thinking, I’m better than you. Here she was, Kelly Dee, of hearty Pioneer stock, always well loved, always loving, three years from marriage, four from motherhood, Sister Kelly, who probably plans for weeks in advance when it’s her turn to stand up in church and bear witness, Sister Kelly, who probably keeps a to-do list clipped to her fridge, who probably spends Sunday nights shampooing those waves of blond hair, so clean, so hardworking, a human honeybee, she of the chosen people, of the desert kingdom, of the Saints. Yes, here she was, sitting in a crappy office chair helping kids like me. And not just helping, because there are people who are like, Oh, you poor thing, and cluck their tongues, and maybe give you a dollar, but they don’t understand and don’t want to understand. And then there are people who are like, Oh, you poor thing, now come and meet my God, He is the only way. But not Kelly—she wasn’t just helping, assisting, offering a hand. No, she was researching, reading, learning, talking, understanding. Working hard to understand, wanting to understand, telling herself that’s the most important thing she can do. And it meant more to me than anything else. She got i
t. I could see it in her blue-as-a-Deseret-morn eyes. She got me. She knew I had been completely totally royally screwed. She knew religion had fucked me, like that nasty john who paid me fifty bucks to shove his arm up my ass. And she also understood there’s a point when you have no choice but to get up and move on. And, oh boy, there I went, more of those goddamn tears, I couldn’t believe I was cracking up in the Ann Eliza Young House. “I’m sorry,” I sobbed. “I didn’t come here for this.”
Kelly handed me a tissue. “It’s all right,” she said. “I understand. I completely understand.”
XVIII
RESTORATION
OF ALL THINGS
THE 19TH WIFE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The Stones of Nauvoo
After a brief stop at the border between Utah and Wyoming, Lorenzo and I rode on to Laramie. It was my first time in a Gentile city, and I expected the highest form of civilization. Surely any metropolis ruled by law and reason, rather than superstition and tyranny, would have organized itself into a Great City. Yet in Laramie, this proved not to be the case. We exited the station to find a frozen town of dirt, cows, and pigs. The wind whipped from all ends and the livestock used much of downtown as its huddling shed. The ranchers and cowhands walked around in the caliper-legged manner of the man molded on horseback. The women, it seemed, were as rough as the men. I asked one the direction to my hotel. She was corseted up in red and black, with a velvet ribbon about her throat. She eyed me warily. “Why? You working there too?”
I must confess my disappointment. Brigham’s city outranked this town in every way but one. Walking down the street, dodging the hogs and the sheep, I counted six steeples, spires, and bell towers. At one crossroads, Baptist and Methodist Churches faced one another in seeming harmony. Despite the rustic quality of my environs, I was grateful to be free of Orthodoxy.
Lorenzo and I had sequestered ourselves in a hotel room for two days when Major Pond arrived from Salt Lake, carrying the newspapers. The Tribune had run an article on my escape entitled, “Godspeed, Mrs. Young!” He was very excited and worn from his journey, and I urged him to rest before we got on to business. But he would not hear of it. “Everyone wants to hear from you,” he said. “Look at this telegram, they want you to speak here in Laramie.” I told him I wanted to rest for a few days and spend time with Lorenzo, who had suffered much during our flight.
“I understand, but you’ll need to be in your finest form in Denver,” the Major advised. “We’ll need money for the trip, the hotels, a new dress for you.” With my consent, he wanted to rent a lecture hall at the Wyoming Institute. “We’ll charge a dollar fifty a head, and the hall can hold four hundred.”
Reader, I was not practicing false modesty when I said, “Surely there can’t be four hundred people in all of Wyoming who want to hear from me.”
But there were! My first night of lecturing in a free land was a success. Every seat was sold, and Major Pond regretfully turned many dozen away. I have been advised by my wise editor, to whom I owe a certain amount, that a personal story such as mine will inevitably lose the reader’s attention if I go on too long about triumphs and success. (“The reader wants challenges, obstacles, and despair!” he has suggested, and perhaps once too often.) Although I do not wholly agree with this fine man’s opinion, on this and other matters, I will spare my Reader any further description of my lecturing triumphs in Laramie, and move onward with my tale.*
After my evening at the Wyoming Institute, more invitations arrived. Major Pond convinced me that en route to Denver we should stop in Cheyenne and Fort Russell. I tried to decline, worried that I had already spoken to everyone in the Teton Range who might take interest in my tale. Major Pond assured me many more would be found. Again I will spare you the details of those events, but I can assure you (and the newspapers will attest) that my success at the lectern continued in Cheyenne and Fort Russell. Interest in the harem, it seems, runs deep.
In Denver, a newspaper out of Central City greeted me with my first blast of skepticism: “We can only hope Mrs. Young does not expect the citizenry of Denver to be as easily astonished as she has become accustomed to. Our ladies and gentlemen have listened to the greatest speakers of our day, company by no means which we include her in.”
“Ignore them,” advised the Major. “You will be loved.”
As I took the lectern of Denver’s New Baptist Church, a heavy anxiety overtook me, burdening me with the sensation of walking through deep sand. Looking out into the mass of faces and the clamshell lights upon me, I recalled my days on Brigham’s stage. How easy that job was in comparison—simply spilling out someone else’s words! That evening I gave my well-practiced lecture, “My Life in Bondage.” I began nervously, I know, for many minutes I stirred no response in my audience. There is no greater silence than that of an auditorium waiting anxiously for something to happen. In the front row two young girls, each no older than ten, stared up at me. One was dark in the brow, with wide-set wondrous eyes. Her sister wore her red hair down in ringlets. They regarded me sincerely. If I had any doubt about my purpose, their lovely gaze blew it away. By the time I began recounting my mother’s conversion, I lost myself in my tale. The feeling was such that I was no longer lecturing, but re-living my ordeal. The Reformation, the hand-cart fiasco, Mr. Dee! Were someone to tap me on the shoulder and ask, Do you have the date and time? I would have regarded him blankly, unaware of where I was. My story possessed me, as that black ghost of Brigham had once possessed me. It controlled the words forming on my tongue. I have gone on to meet many great writers in my time. It was Mrs. Stowe who described the act of composition similar to this. “I become, quite simply, the vessel for the muse,” she said to me. For those of you who wonder how Joseph could put his face in a hat and dictate his Book: I offer this alternative explanation. Imagination can take command of the person. Ask the artist, the actress, the poet feverishly producing line after line of his Epic! Is it God speaking, or the mysterious mind?
Now it seemed my life’s adventure was in possession of my audience, too. Anyone who has stood before a gathering knows when he has captivated his audience, or when he has failed to do so. There is a spirit in the hall for each scenario, and they are as opposite in nature as the bright angel and the dark demon. Tonight the angel visited Denver, shining his light upon me. As I concluded my story, describing my escape through the night, my audience exploded with applause. When I left the lectern at least a hundred rushed the stage to meet me.
The lecture was such a success, even the skeptics out of Central City commended me: “There is no doubt her story, if true, holds a certain amount of interest for many.” Major Pond showed me a telegram from James Redpath, whose Lyceum Agency in Boston represented the talents of Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass, personas whose names I recognized but whose reputations, at the time, I little understood. He proposed a contract of fifty lectures for $10,000. Major Pond dismissed the offer: “We can get more.”
Major Pond concocted a plan for us to travel to Boston, where Mr. Redpath could listen to me in person. “I’m convinced once he has sat at your feet, and heard your tale, he’ll sign you on as his biggest attraction for whatever fee we demand.”
“As long as we get to Washington.”
“We will,” the Major promised. “Washington is our last stop. But tonight you’re the toast of the Rockies, the Queen of the Eastern Slopes.”
Despite my local triumphs, I felt little pleasure. My mission was not to entertain, nor to haul in high-grossing receipts, nor to serve as top-billing for Mr. Redpath, as much as Major Pond admired his roster. I took little reward from the thunder of twelve hundred hands beating in applause, or as many feet tramping upon the floorboards. The columns of newsprint praising my bravery and my orating skills, my sense of timing, and my gentle comic touch—these could not embolden me. None of this mattered except as a weapon in my larger Crusade. I had left Utah with a single purpose, and I would not rest, or find comfort, or sense
joy, or measure pride, until at last I had presented my story to the men of Congress, and President Grant, too, forcing upon them, and our nation, the Truth of so many women like myself, and the plight of our children. I had but one hope—to witness the rewriting of our laws.
From Denver we toured the middle of the country—Topeka, Lawrence, Leavenworth, St. Louis, Peoria, Quincy, Chicago. In some cities the halls were full, in others only partially so, but each night I achieved my objective of informing those gathered of this relic of Barbarism. Wherever I went many good men and women greeted me with sympathy, the newspapers reported on me understandingly, and the editorials acknowledged my purpose. Even the more prurient columns, as undignified as they were, supported my cause, for there was hardly a soul in the vast middle of our great land who was not shocked by Mormondom’s peculiar institution. “How can this go on in America?” asked many. No one denounced, contradicted, or maligned me. I should have taken comfort in this general warm reception. Instead, my enemies’ silence concerned me.
“Nonsense,” said Major Pond. “In Utah, you might have enemies, but the rest of America loves you!” If ever there was a man meant for promotion and salesmanship, it was Major Pond. In a futile effort to console, he showed me Brigham’s Salt Lake papers. Only occasionally did they report on my crusade. By now, they mostly ignored me.
In the frozen days after the New Year of 1874, I visited Burlington, Iowa, a red-brick metropolis approximately thirty miles up the Mississippi from my birthplace of Nauvoo. It was here that I encountered my first rival on the lecture circuit. On the same night I was to speak, by coincidence a second, somewhat smaller venue had booked Mrs. Victoria Woodhull, the suffragist, spiritualist, labor reformer, newspaper editoress, Wall Street broker, and unsuccessful candidate for President. Of course I did not know Mrs. Woodhull in person, but her character had long before made my acquaintance—for Brigham often invoked her as an example of Gentile depravity. Among her many beliefs, for which she was paid handsomely to discuss, Mrs. Woodhull held a deep conviction in the open sensuality of women and the female’s “right” to amorous satisfaction. Her other accomplishments included the exposure of Reverend Beecher’s compromising interlude with the wife of his dear friend, thus destroying his repute; and, I am told, a sojourn in the squalid Ludlow Street Jail. To call Mrs. Woodhull’s reputation notorious is to label the lion timid or the buffalo delicate on the foot.
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