‘Tree House’ speaks softly to readers but carries a big stick

 

This review was originally published on March 27, 2009 in the Standard-Examiner newspaper. Due to a website update, it disappeared from the site. A search of Internet Archive failed to locate it. I am grateful to Christopher Bigelow, publisher of Zarahemla Books, providing a copy they had retained. Author Douglas Thayer died in 2017 at age 88.

Zarahemla Books’ latest offering in regional, LDS culture fiction, “The Tree House,” by Brigham Young University professor Douglas Thayer, maintains a soft grip on the reader which slowly tightens like a vice. Even when you think life is getting easier for the protagonist, Provo native Harris Thatcher, a sense of dread — just a few pages away — seems out there.

Thayer’s tale, which stretches from the mid 1940s to the mid 1950s, is told in gentle prose that almost seems to sleepwalk to the reader. Nevertheless, a lot of heavy, “big stick” stuff happens to Harris. His dad, who loved him but wasn’t a spiritual role model, dies. A few years later, Harris falls in love with a pretty classmate, Abby. Before “first love” can reach a gentle conclusion, Abby, who has frail health, dies.

Those two events are very important. Harris never seems to gain — real or unreal — a “testimony” of the Mormon faith. He’s a cultural member who does everything he’s supposed to but envies his best friend Luke, who has that type of sought-after “testimony.” There are very few pages where readers experience Luke in the first person. Perhaps that is intentional. Luke represents the outward spirituality that Harris never received from his father.

Abby’s death makes her a larger figure in Harris’ eyes than she would have likely been. She is the standard by which he compares women as he becomes an adult. 

Harris is what most of us would call a “good kid.” He loves his mom and brothers, goes to church, gets good grades and works hard at a local job, earning the respect of several role-model adults, LDS and non-LDS. His life is geared toward his mission. He’s called to serve in West Germany.

At this point, Thayer’s novel shifts a bit in tone. What was a memoir of growing up becomes on the surface a faith-promoting tale of a boy becoming a man. Harris is shocked by the devastation of postwar Germany but impressed by the faith of some members and the stoicism of a non-member couple who lost sons in the war. He adopts that stoicism to resist the temptation to slack off and becomes a model missionary, enduring much rejection to find a few converts. He witnesses a lot “spiritual experiences” while still acknowledging to himself that he lacks a testimony.

Harris returns from Germany and, almost immediately, reports to the Korean War. Luke also is drafted, although they will not be together. At this point, the reader will be in for a jolt. The novel shifts from Harris’ sometimes sad, quiet Mormon life to the horror of life on a ridge in Korea trying to survive while fighting off endless hordes of invading North Korean and Chinese soldiers. Harris’ stoicism makes him a good soldier and keeps him alive against tough odds.

But what he endures, including hand-to-hand murder and witnessing death daily, destroys his fragile testimony. No longer can he accept as truth just because it is told to him. Enduring war, and its emotional aftermath, has taken all the energy Harris can muster. He has none left for religion, which now seems unimportant against trying to survive. In a very emotional scene, Harris wonders why he deserved to live when so many others died. Among the dead is his best friend, Luke.

If I have a quibble with The Tree House, it is that Thayer continues to pile tragedy upon Harris even after the war. As Harris begins to rival Job in calamity, the novel threatens to veer into parody.

Nevertheless, The Tree House is a success. I remain impressed by the quiet, soothing style of prose Thayer uses which can still impact the reader. Even a jarring transition from the serenity of the West German mission to the slow-building terror of the Korean War is handled deftly by the author.

Although most of us don’t experience war or a 1940s European mission, if we’re honest with ourselves, we can feel empathy with Thayer’s Harris Thatcher, who oftentimes goes through the motions of what’s expected of him even though he can’t feel it inside.

-- Doug Gibson

The last years of Sidney Rigdon

 

I recently re-read the late Richard S. Van Wagoner's superb biography, Sidney Rigdon: A Portrait of Religious Excess, 1994, Signature Books. In a long-ago Culture of Mormonism blog post, I mentioned the book. In the ensuing paragraphs of this blog post, my source is Van Wagoner's biography.

Re-reading the book, I was struck by the last poverty-stricken years of Rigdon's life. He lived with loyal wife, Phebe, and existed on the charities of his children and few dozen followers. Latter-day Saints are very familiar with Rigdon, but after he lost a power struggle of control of the church to Brigham Young in 1844, conventional Mormons know little of his life. He tried to start an offshoot of Mormonism in Pennsylvania and later in a rural setting but failed. He then failed again. Some of his followers lost a lot of money, and his children lost confidence and prevented "Father Rigdon" from trying to be a prophet and leader.

In fact, when a man named Stephen Post wrote to Rigdon, inquiring about starting a church, Rigdon's son, (John) Wickliffe, wrote to Post, pleading that Post stop enabling his father's religious mania.

Post stayed away for a while, but Rigdon and Phebe were determined to begin again, and Post eventually resumed correspondence with Sidney. Late in his life, Sidney and Phebe started a church, Children of Zion, more or less without the knowledge of their children. I found it fascinating that Sidney's last church was formed and operated on the sly.

He ran it from afar, calling priesthood leaders, demanding his followers provide him and his wife financial assistance. Sidney's reputation as a scholar and early LDS church likely still counted for a lot with people seeking divergent paths of the Smith-started main church, now led by Brigham Young. 

Rigdon's church had three interesting themes. I'll offer sketches in this post, but urge readers to get the above-linked Van Wagoner biography to learn more:

First, The Children of Zion church ordained women to the priesthood. Rigdon went even further, placing women in high priesthood callings. His wife Phebe was the first woman he ordained to the priesthood. There are touching passages of Phebe assigned as a Book of Mormon teacher, and her diligence in reading the Scripture, studying it, providing lesson outlines and her overall pious enthusiasm.

Second: Rigdon's animus towards the original LDS Church was deeper late in life. He believed Joseph Smith was a fallen prophet, Brigham Young a tool of Satan and predicted that the Salt Lake City saints would face the wrath of God with apocalyptic type sufferings and massacres. In fact, Rigdon taught that he was the prophet called by God to restore order after God cleansed the earth. Rigdon also referred to himself as the most important prophet of God through all eternity.

Third: Rigdon believed that God would restore his strength and that he would not suffer death but be healthy enough to restore order to the world. He fervently believed this even as he suffered a series of strokes in the last stage of his life. His wife Phebe also believed. After his death, she, perhaps grief-stricken and disillusioned, ceased much of her activity in the small church.

Rigdon's son, Wickliffe, unaware of his father's latest church, contacted Brigham Young in Utah to ask if the church leader would arrange for Sidney and Phebe to return to the main church and live in Utah. Young, who seemed to regard Rigdon at this time with wry bemusement, agreed. Surprisingly, Rigdon initially entertained the possibility. But it was not to be, as Rigdon placed delusional demands, like demanding that the Utah Saints repent to avoid being destroyed and that Young provide him and Phebe $100,000.

Wickliffe Rigdon later wrote a biography of his father's life. In his 70s, he joined the Utah-based church his father hated.

In Rigdon's biography, Van Wagoner notes that Sidney would probably be classified manic depressive. Solitude and being ignored pained him. In the years before his last, semi-secret church, after Rigdon failed at previous efforts at leadership, only Phebe believed in her husband. 

"Solitary zeal was a devastating sentence to be imposed on so vocal a prophet," writes Van Wagoner. But the aforementioned letter from Post arrived and so began Rigdon's last tenure as a prophet seer and revelator.

But despite lasting the rest of his life, the Children of Zion was a failure too. Membership dwindled to just a few dozen. The Reorganized Church poached many of his Children of Zion membership. That infuriated Rigdon, who had hoped the Joseph Smith III faction would join his church.

Rigdon's erratic behavior alienated many Children of Zion members. They grew tired of a leader from a distance who frequently changed his mind, throwing their efforts to follow him in disarray. A major rupture in the small church occurred when Stephen Post's niece, an unbalanced woman named Evva, attempted to abort her baby with charcoal. It was a failure. As strange as this seems, she prayed to God that the charcoal would not turn her baby into a negro. Evva claimed to receive a revelation from an angel that showed her it was white. She then assumed a level of church leadership.

Other members protested. Sidney turned on the protesters and backed Evva, likely because of his close friendship with Post. This further decreased church membership. Also, Rigdon alienated longtime loyalists by demanding money from them. He angrily denounced them when they demurred, arguing they had stayed loyal despite losing money from his earlier ecclesiastical efforts.

Rigdon died on July 14, 1876, in Friendship, N.Y. He is buried there. Phebe survived him by almost 10 years. She is buried in the same cemetery.

-- Doug Gibson

New biography of Joseph Smith a worthy effort but lacks passion

John G. Turner, who wrote an excellent biography of Brigham Young a decade ago, has returned with “Joseph Smith: The Rise and Fall of an American Prophet.” It’s a worthy, above-average book.

 

The George Mason University professor of religious studies and history had access to historical documents that previous biographers of Smith, Richard Bushman and Fawn Brodie did not  enjoy. Nevertheless, I place those two previous biographies of Smith a little higher than Turner's good-faith effort.

 

Turner provides new nuggets of information. However it seems an economical effort despite its 400-plus page length. It’s a fair account, but with little passion. Turner makes a deliberate attempt early to assure readers the Golden Plates, of which the church founder Joseph Smith translated The Book of Mormon, was a fantasy of Smith’s, a fabrication.

 

No one wants Turner, who is not a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, to tub-thump The Book of Mormon, or the LDS church, or even Smith. But a sheer declaration that claims are flat-out wrong non-plused me. Why not a disinterested, neutral stance where the author simply states what Smith presented during his lifetime, recording acceptance of, and opposition to; and consequences thereof?

 

I do not believe that Turner carries a grudge against Smith. I think he’s presented a generally balanced, fair account of Smith’s life. He regards Smith as a charismatic, persuasive man prone to risks that led to setbacks largely caused by his inability to foresee adverse, destructive consequences to rash decisions. Events in early church history, through Ohio, Missouri and the years in Nauvoo, are effectively presented by the author.

 

Turner appropriately notes the many mistakes made by the rash young prophet, who frequently admitted to misinterpreting situations and often behaving in a less-than prophetic manner. Turner covers his subject's polygamy life in great detail. Some was new information to me. This should put to rest current attempts to deny the practice occurred. In fact, reading the books I was amazed that Community of Christ Church members in the 19th century could deny Smith’s involvement in polygamy without laughing.

 

I enjoyed Turner’s accounts of Smith and others journeying to our nation’s Capitol to lobby on behalf the young church, unsuccessfully. Another strong history nugget was an account of a trip to Massachusetts to find some alleged treasure – unsuccessful. 

 

Turner does an effective job of detailing the tightly knit Smith family, and their mostly successful attempts to maintain solidarity despite conflict, particularly between Joseph and his brother William.

 

The final days prior to the murders of Smith and his brother Hyrum in Carthage are related in detail by Turner. The barbarity of the acts underscore how savage life was in 1844 central United States. I appreciated reading Turner’s account of murderers, such as newspaperman Thomas Sharpe, excusing his blood lust with a lame claim that he prevented more deaths. Turner’s account also reveals Illinois Gov. Thomas Ford’s behavior before and after the martyrdom as both feckless and weak.

 

A final note: A reason I think Turner lacks passion in his biography is that he never effectively shows how Joseph Smith, despite all the setbacks, managed to draw tens of thousands of followers to believe his message, follow The Book of Mormon, stay in the church, and embrace the idea of eternal life as family units. This strong faith and devotion endured many setbacks – culminating in Smith’s death – that threatened the embryonic faith's existence.

 

Some insight into Smith’s appeal comes from Bushman’s “Rough Stone Rolling,” which notes reasons why Smith’s message was so appealing to religious seekers. One, Smith didn’t allow himself to be the subject of his message. And Smith's doctrine of temples and eternal marriages and gathering of families appealed to people’s desire of a life -- and purpose -- after death beyond a stereotypical heaven or hell.

 

In fairness, perhaps no scholarly book can explain Mormonism and its followers devotion. 

You can buy Joseph Smith: The Rise and Fall of an American Prophet, Yale University Press, 2025 here on its Amazon page. Searching online, I could not find this worthy biography at Deseret Book. That’s a shame.

 

– Doug Gibson

The Blood in Their Veins provides a fascinating history of the Kimballs

 

Review by Doug Gibson

I must say, immediately, that if you are one who pursues Mormon history, particularly its first century, "The Blood in Their Veins: The Kimballs, polygamy, and the Shaping of Mormonism," by Andrew Kimball, Signature Books, 2025, is a must have. (Amazon link here.)

It encompasses the extremely large family that early Mormon leader Heber C Kimball and spouse Vilate created with their marriage, conversion, embrace of polygamy, and journey to Utah. This is not a faith-promoting let's-leave-out-the-uncomfortable-bits books of the type that used to be the norm within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 

But its honesty and candor provide a greater benefit. Readers will feel much affection and admiration for  these pioneers of the faith. We grieve with the hardships and tragedies they endured. The resilence and devotion to the early Mormon faith nearly all -- depicted in the book -- strived for is inspiring. And their weaknesses and frailities can provide empathy.

Told through diaries, journals, letters, newspaper accounts, and other historical ledgers, "The Blood in Their Veins ..." underscores how difficult times were then. Regular occurrences were infants, and mothers, dying at birth. Nature was more cruel than it is today; toddlers regularly died in accidents; injured and sick adults would linger and die from illnesses and accidents not fatal today. Both Heber and Vilate died within months of each other. Heber from the effects of a buggy accident.

His death did not lead to wealth. His large family, while possessed of an historical prominence, did not enjoy material success, or at times even comfort. Sons went into various tasks, including farming an icy section of Cache County, Utah. Others attempted to be salesmen or business entrepreneurs. Others served as writers, farmhands, scribes, municipal government employees, laborers. 

A liability of polygamy was an inability for parents to devote time to their many children, or husbands to devote time for wives. We read how Heber was respected but often away on church assignments. His death, long before anticipated, resulted in having children and wives thrust into inconvenient life situations. 

Dozens of the Kimball family members are profiled. Some of the more interesting characters are Helen Mar Whitney, married to Joseph Smith at 14. She endured near-fatal illness to marry Horace Whitney and bear 11 children. Only six survived. She was a survivor of depression and frequent poor health. Her defense of the church and polgamy made her well known and highly esteemed in Utah. Daughter Alice Kimball, another survivor, endured a criminally loathsome husband and eventually married Church President Joseph F. Smith.

The diaries and letters in the books cover other issues besides polygamy. Readers will learn more about the 19th century practice of church "adoptions" in which members would attach themselves, as part of a spiritual family, to prominent church leaders. Also is detailed accounts of kidnappings of Mormons by Native Americans. Although these conflicts invariable escalated to bloodshed at times, sometimes ransoms would be paid to release the hostages.

Kimball sons were marrying wives long past the Wilfred Woodruff era and church leaders were both aware and sometimes participants. The book later details the gradual real elimination of polygamy in the early 20th century that led to prominent excommunications.

Missions to Europe and the southern United States are in the book. The dangers for missionaries in the deep U.S. south is described. One Kimball son who presided over the U.S. southern mission was eased out of his position because he preached a too austere lifestyle for the missionaries. Requirements included no pocket money and a rule that they had to beg a place to sleep every night.

The handcart rescues in 1856 are covered. The "Dream Mine" hoax, and its temptations, is covered. Squabbles with press, including the Salt Lake Tribune, rabidly anti-Mormon back then, are part of the book. 

I enjoyed detailed sections on J. Golden Kimball, the general authority known for his wit and candor, and apostle Orson F. Whitney. J. Golden's section is a bit bittersweet as we learn he dealt with depression, a tough often contrary family, and his brother Sol, who was frankly at times a control freak who bullied family members for monies to preserve the Kimball home and the family legacy. Yet J. Golden in this book is portrayed as a survivor, one who despite his feelings of frustration and inadequacy, worked hard to fulfill his church responsibilites.

One passage interesting to readers is when apostle Wilfred Woodruff assures Kimball son Abraham that he will represent the family in temporal and spiritual matters. But Woodruff is not -- then -- the prophet. Abe isn't convinced he's the family leader until Church Prophet John Taylor decrees it.

Orson F. Whitney was for a while a believer in reincarnation. This concerned church leaders. However, after a booster of the offbeat doctrine that Orson admired suddenly died, he cooled on the subject, and eventually became a church apostle.

Alcoholism was a problem for many of the Kimball sons. It's a reminder that the Word of Wisdom, while a doctrine in that era, was not practiced by many members considered observant. Kimball son William, who was one of the leaders on the 1856 handcart rescues, struggled with alcoholism and periods of rebellion to principles he was taught.

But I want to stress to readers to not look down on these saints. They were resilient, endured much, and overcame more. God is a much more merciful deity than some portray him as. I admire the Kimball family and their rich legacy in the church. This book is a realistic tribute to the family.

Novel puts readers into the shoes of a gay Mormon teen who wants to stay worthy

 

Review by Doug Gibson

Note: I reviewed the novel, "No Going Back," by Jonathan Langford in 2009. It was published only of StandardBlogs, a feature that the Standard-Examiner newspapaer carelessly allowed to go defunct. In the most recent William Morris email of A Motley Vision, Morris remembered Langford -- who died eight years ago. He paid tribute to his sole novel, which is an excellent book. I decided to search Wayback and find my review of "No Going Back." It has comments from that time, including one from Mr. Langford. To achieve permanence for the review, I place it here on the Culture of Mormonism blog.

“I made my choice. I did the right thing and stood up for the church. But it’s just so hard. Being around people. People not liking me. People pretending I’m not even there.”

 -

Or so says teenager Paul Ficklin, a gay Latter-day Saint in freelance writer Jonathan Langford’s novel, “No Going Back.” The new Zarahemla Books offering has a premise that many haven’t contemplated before. It allows the reader to get inside the head of an active-in-the-church gay teenager who desperately wants to live the Gospel and the law of chastity even if it will deny him the instinctive, God-given need of future love, companionship and family.

In “No Going Back,” Paul rejects a gay/straight alliance club at his school because it teaches him to reject LDS doctrine and embrace his sexuality. As a result he is outed by a vindictive member.

The irony is he feels far less acceptance from his straight school and LDS Church peers — in fact he’s frequently taunted — than from the GSA former friends who he left.

Although it’s didactic at times and has too much sequence introductions with characters thinking, “No Going Back” is a powerful tale. The story revolves around Paul’s long relationship with his straight friend, Chad Mortensen, who happens to be the bishop’s son. Chad is the first person to which Paul reveals his homosexuality. Though there are a lot of bumps in the road — some of it normal best friend spats — Chad ultimately becomes Paul’s biggest defender. Another help to Paul is his single mom, Barbara. Chad’s father, Bishop Richard Mortensen, also provides potentially lifesaving encouragement to Paul, counseling Paul through his teenage years with a constant reminder to him that LDS doctrine does not regard same-sex attraction by itself as a sin and that God loves him.

But one dilemma Paul has throughout most of the novel is a constant loneliness that comes with being gay and having longings completely distinct from his role models and most friends. Pushing away from those at the GSA — who encourage him to be a gay teen — so he can live his religious beliefs comes with a price I think most straight people wouldn’t accept.

There is a scene midway in “No Going Back” where Bishop Mortensen, overworked and dealing with marital stress, chats with his kindly father in law, a former local church leader. His father in law disapproves of how Mortensen is handling Paul as too permissive. The scene is probably a microcosm of the hell many gay people experience when dealing with religious leaders. Their feelings, which they can’t control, are deemed sinful. In the LDS Church, that is not true. The irony, as Paul discovers, is that not enough of his church peers, even perhaps those in authority, have learned that.

Langford’s novel is not designed to please those who take strident positions pro and con on gay rights. It’s no coincidence that a Prop. 8-type gay marriage battle is included as a backdrop to the plot in “No Going Back.” I’ve read a lot of different viewpoints on Langford’s novel on LDS-related Web sites. It’s getting a lot of buzz, which I hope helps Zarahemla’s sales.

Many, I fear, will scorn “No Going Back” due to its protagonist choosing to stay with a religion that calls his preferred sexual practice a sin. They have a point that seems to make sense: Be who you are. But religion doesn’t always make sense. It calls for obedience. There are no doubt countless young people with same-sex attraction trying to obey a traditional Christian lifestyle. And the gay/straight alliance, which preaches tolerance, has no tolerance for Paul after he tells them he regards homosexuality as a sin.

What’s missing in the harsh criticism religion gets often in regards to issues such as gay marriage is that it is only a very small part of an entire belief system. To place too much emphasis on one aspect of the gospel can be a road to apostasy, whether it’s the Word of Wisdom or gay marriage. Paul learns that during his experiences.

In “No Going Back,” we don’t know if Paul’s going to make it long term as a faithful member. A spiritual survivor, he’s plugging away, reading his scriptures, praying and going to church.

In a poignant scene, Paul seeks out the church patriarch who gave him a blessing, asking for more insight on his future family life. His recorded blessing is vague on that. He gets sympathy and some platitudes, but no answer.

Although disillusioned, Paul remains an active Mormon, trying to do the best he can in the world God sent him to to be tested. The difference from most of us is the added burden of being gay that Paul has to deal with.

As I seem to mention every time I review a Zarahemla novel, I wish this book was on the shelves at Deseret Book. A lot of us could benefit by reading it.

Mormon folklore as diverse, tragic and humorous as other religions

 

A friend loaned me a book published in 1956, "Saints of Sage and Saddle: Folklore Among the Mormons," by Austin and Alta Fife, that turned into a treasure over the weekend I read it.

"Saints of Sage..." is a collection of Mormon folk tales and tall tales. Anecdotes abound from diverse sources that include prophets and pioneers. The prologue essay, "A Mormon from the Cradle to the Grave," is just plain outstanding. It's folksy and witty, irreverent but never disrespectful. Latter-day Saints, warts and all, are captured in this book, but there's always an affection underneath the banter.

I'd wager that any reader who has been a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for at least 40 years can recall hearing some of the folklore related in the book. One anecdote on polygamy recalls two LDS apostles on the way to Idaho to attend a church meeting passing a school with children tumbling out of the schoolhouse. A non-Mormon reverend turned to the apostle and asked him if the scene reminded him of his childhood. The apostle replied, "No, it reminds me of my father's backyard."

Long ago, when the church was more interesting (as my friend Cal Grondahl says), devils were frequently cast out of hijacked members and the Three Nephites tended not to be so publicity shy. In one anecdote, one of the Nephite trio is generous enough to show himself to an elderly lady who praised God that late in her life her prayer to see a Nephite perform a miracle had been answered. LDS folklore has it that Governor Thomas Ford of Illinois, who failed to protect the Prophet Joseph Smith, died loathsome, unpopular and in poverty. Another past anecdote involves LDS apostle and Logan Temple president Marriner W. Merrill arguing with Satan himself in his temple office, Old Scratch having visited to request that Merrill stop temple proceedings.

The LDS belief in a pre-existence is noted in the book. Allegedly the LDS Prophet Wilford Woodruff warned in his journal that there were literally trillions of Satan's army on earth doing their best to lead them astray. Woodruff's calculation of the earth holding 1 trillion people at a time seems way too high to this reviewer, though. Nevertheless, the Mormon belief in a pre-mortal existence is very personal to members, who worry that they may have lost friends and family members to Lucifer long ago. It can provide mixed emotions on how to respond to temptation of a personal nature.

No book on Mormon folklore would be any good if there wasn't a section on the legendary, cussing, LDS leader J. Golden Kimball. He has a chapter in "Saints of Sage ..." The former mule skinner once said, "Yeah, I love all of God's children, but there's some of them that I love a damn sight more than I do others."

Kimball also possessed wit: When former LDS U.S. Sen. Reed Smoot wanted to marry, he boasted to Kimball that he had just received the blessing of LDS Prophet Heber J. Grant. Kimball dead-panned, "Well now, I just don't know, Reed. I just don't know. You're a pretty old man, you know. And Sister Sheets, she's a pretty young woman. And she'll expect more from you than just the laying on of hands."

And once, during an excommunication trial for a man accused of adultery, Kimball, after hearing the man admit to being in bed with the married woman but not having sex with her, laconically said, "Brethren, I move that the brother be excommunicated. It's obvious that he doesn't have the seed of Israel in him."

The Mountain Meadows Massacre, and its aftermath, created much darker folklore. The wife of a Southern Utah Mormon, in the brief interlude where the spared young children of the slain settlers were being cared for in LDS homes, recalls a woman coming to her in her garden asking to see her child. She was led into the house. The Mormon wife followed the mysterious visitor, who disappeared the moment she reached the room where the child was.

"Saints of Sage and Saddle" is folklore history that the interested will spend hours poring over. Besides the tales, there are old LDS hymns, period photos and an index for quick reference. I choose to end this column with a song Mormons once enjoyed I encountered in this book, and once sung by Ogden's L.M. Hilton:

The Boozer
I was out upon a flicker and had had far too much liquor,
And I must admit that I was quite pie-eyed,
And my legs began to stutter, and I lay down in the gutter
And a pig arrived and lay down by my side.
As I lay there in the gutter with my heart strings all aflutter,
A lady passed and this was heard to say,
You can tell a man who boozes by the company he chooses.
And the pig got up and slowly walked away.

 

--Doug Gibson

 

Originally published at StandardBlogs

 

Review: Joseph White Musser: A Mormon Fundamentalist

 

Review by Doug Gibson

Polygamy sects in more modern times are full of negative reports. Girls being beaten by parents who want to marry much older men, young marriagable men cast out, becoming "lost boys" because the gray beards living the "principle" want young wives, murders the past couple of generations between rival groups; not to mention the more recent capture and incarceration of Warren Jeffs for multiple felonies.

It's interesting to read a short biography, Joseph White Musser: A Mormon Fundamentalist, Cristina M. Rosetti, 2024, University of Illinois Press. (Here's an Amazon link.) The book, Rosetti notes, is "For the Mormons who call Joseph W. Musser a prophet." It is a mostly favorable biography, not without good reason. Musser, born into a polygamous family in 1872, grew up well into adulthood within a church and Utah culture that considered polygamous unions as a key toward exaltation, or the highest perch in the afterlife. Musser had commuications, some personal, with apostles, stake presidents and others who fervently believed in polgamy; events that occurred well after the Manifestos that purpotedly ended polygamy. In fact, Musser claims in his autobiography that LDS Church President Lorenzo Snow invited him to marry his first plural wife in 1899, well after the First Manifesto. It's accepted today that plural marriage continued after the Woodruff Manifesto, including among apostles.

But after the second Manifesto in 1904, delivered by Church President Joseph F. Smith, Rosetti notes that a trajectory of evdents occurred that would eventually lead to Musser's excommunication and expulsion from the Utah's church's acceptance. He would lose his job and the fidelity of some of his wives. Most of his children did not embrace polygamy. But Musser stayed committed to polygamy and proudly took on the mantle of Mormon fundamentalist. He edited and wrote essays in more than one publication, primarily Truth. He achieved top ecclesiastical status as a polygamous leader, and was imprisoned for a short time after the Short Creed raid of the 1940s. That's ironic because his father, Amos, was jailed in the mid 1880s. As Rosetti notes, for the same crime as his son.

Musser never wavered from his beliefs, despite the material and familial dysfunction it caused. Rosetti notes that late in his life he had concerns about the autocratic rule of polygamous leader Leroy Johnson. This dysfunctional leadership would eventually lead to the modern evil of Warren Jeffs. But Musser is revered today by nearly all Mormon fundamentalists as a prophet, and his articles and pamphlets still read with devout interest. He also penned an autobiography.

As Rosetti notes, Musser was influenced by Lorin C. Wooley, another polygamist leader. He attended the Wooley School of the Prophets, which included teachings that Adam was our God and that he had three wives. As Musser's writing grew, he was another voice for several polygamous beliefs: that the Priesthood was more powerful than both the church and its leaders; that the conventional Mormon's belief in tithing was sinful, and did not represent a true law of consecration that would provide equally to all; and, also, that Mormonism's third prophet, John Taylor, had a received a revelation in 1886 that commanded the church never to give up polygamy.

These beliefs compiled by Rosetti in the book underscore why Mormon fundamentalism will likely never go away. It has its history. It has its revelations. It has its modern-day prophets. Musser fully believed that one day the world will be saved by a high council of polygamous leaders.

Only one chapter is dedicated to Musser's life. The rest of the books focuses on Musser's doctrinal writings and key tenants of Mormon fundamentalism. Shortly before his death, Musser was deemed "patriarch in the high priesthood" among polygamist largely lead by a chiropracter, Rulon Allred. Musser died in 1954. Rosetti appropriately notes his death as such: "In a time of significant change in the LDS Church, Mussers's life is an exemplary account of a Mormon who disagreed with the church's response to modernization."