Review: Juanita Brooks: Mormon Woman Historian

Originally published at StandardBlogs/Currents

In his book, “Juanita Brooks: Mormon Woman Historian,” Levi S. Peterson describes a woman who lived two distinct lives. In one, she was the Bunkerville, Nev., native one or two generations away from early-Mormon pioneer life, bred to be a farmer’s wife and live a life similar to her mother and grandmother.

But there were life changes in store for Brooks (1898-1989), a remarkable individual who experienced most of the 20th century. Left a young widow with a baby, she entered academia. As middle age approached, she made another life change. She married a sheriff, Will Brooks, and quickly had four more babies. Had she stayed single, opines biographer Peterson, she likely would have had a distinguished academic career, editing and writing literary criticism.

Instead, her return to a domestic life signaled the career of Mormonism’s most tenacious historian. Brooks’ achievements brought much-needed candor to Utah and Mormon history. Her signature work, “The Mountain Meadows Massacre,” brought sunshine to events that, through their secrecy, had long infected lives and a church’s reputation.

Long before she recounted the massacre, Brooks was at the deathbed of patriarch Nephi Johnson, who had participated at Mountain Meadows. His last words were “blood, blood, blood!”

According to Peterson’s account, Brooks long regretted that she had ignored Peterson’s earlier requests to discuss what he called a matter of great importance with her.
Brooks wrote, published and edited hundreds of works. Besides “Mountain Meadows Massacre,” she wrote a biography of John D. Lee, the main scapegoat of the crime. She also wrote biographies of early Utah/Nevada pioneers, including Dudley Leavitt. She wrote an autobiography of her early years and even finished a fond tribute to her husband, Will.

She was a faithful member of the Mormon church. A persistent historian, she discovered and saved many journals and old accounts, some left in the rooms of the St. George temple, which she had access to as stake Relief Society president. Brooks would frequent old attics and basements to find early Southern Utah journals. One she discovered had been re-used as a scrapbook. Working with her family, she painstakingly pried glue off pages to access the diaries.

As her reputation as a historian grew, her correspondence with colleagues, including Fawn Brodie and Dale Morgan, makes for interesting reading. She would both fiercely defend her Latter-day-Saint faith to detractors, such as Morgan and Brodie, and just as fiercely debate the need for historical openness with the most powerful Mormon apostles.

She requested Mountain Meadows documents from President David O McKay, who wouldn’t even see her. Most apostles refused to read her book. Elder LeGrand Richards did read it, and later contended with her as to its importance. From Peterson’s book it doesn’t seem that Brooks was ever in danger of serious church discipline, although she certainly was ostracized for a time in Southern Utah after “Mountain Meadows Massacre” was published. If there was one time she came close to trouble it was her insistence that a second edition of her biography of John D. Lee include an afternote that the LDS had restored Lee’s membership posthumously.

According to Peterson, President McKay threatened to rescind Lee’s unexcommunication and both an apostle, Delbert L. Stapley, and the Lee family were recruited to argue with Brooks. But she kept to her word and won, as the next edition included the afternote and Lee’s renewed church status remained.

Peterson;s biography is maybe too thorough — parts are tedious. This may be due to Peterson’s style, which is chronological to a fault. But there are valuable nuggets of information that describe life as a woman historian. Her adventures took place in locating old histories. Brooks scoured temple rooms, dusty rural towns and old attics for decaying diaries and journals. While immersed in researching and writing, Brooks would keep a clothes iron hot. Housework, Peterson explains,  was a reason to get rid of unwanted visitors. Writing was not deemed as important — at least for a woman.

Although she gained fame by middle age, Brooks was not immune to rejection. Her books and articles were routinely rejected by publishers. In fact, “Mountain Meadows Massacre,” was rejected several times, was finally published by Stanford University Press after a guarantee that descendants of John D. Lee would purchase a significant block of copies. Some early career breaks for her were landing articles in prestigious magazine such as The Atlantic, and her relationship with the Henry Huntington Library in California.

A lifelong Democrat, Brooks became a bit of a mild LDS rebel as her career progressed. She would routinely downgrade information from The Deseret News and Brigham Young University, believing it was unduly influenced by LDS leaders. She deplored what she regarded as the church’s penchant for secrecy as a means of maintaining harmony. She believed that the accomplishments of the LDS Church since its inception could stand without hiding details that it could not control, such as the massacre.

The reader witnesses Brooks gain confidence gradually and become an advocate for issues such as granting blacks the priesthood. The trauma of her first husband’s death solidified her belief in God and an afterlife, but made her more skeptical of man’s promises. She had a early LDS folklore-like belief in the Gospel that includes personal manifestations and Three Nephites-like visits of mercy.

She was an honest, persistent, thorough historian who kept dogma away from a search for truth. Peterson’s book captures that unique and enviable personality.

--- Doug Gibson