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Composer Janeen Brady (I Lived in Heaven, I’m a Mormon, When I Grow Up I Want to be a Mother) has written hundreds of songs for children, sold over 15 million albums, and raised a large family. She is also only two generations removed from LDS polygamy. In this fascinating interview she shares her history, insights, wisdom and experiences. We also discuss some of the painful stories from her polygamist ancestors, particularly that of Ann Mariah Bowen Call. You won’t want to miss this one.

Summary

In this episode, Michelle Stone conducts a deeply personal interview with her mother, Janine Brady, to explore their family’s history with Mormon polygamy and how it has shaped their lives. The conversation dives into multi-generational stories of polygamy, faith crises, cultural shifts in LDS teachings, and the struggle to reconcile tradition with modern belief.

Key Themes:

  1. Janine Brady’s Background and Music Career
    • Janine Brady is a beloved composer of LDS children’s music, with songs featured in Primary hymnbooks and over 15 million albums sold.
    • She and her husband built a successful business creating uplifting music for children, despite financial struggles and raising nine children.
    • She discusses gender roles in her marriage, crediting her success to the unwavering support of her husband.
  2. The Cultural Expectations of Large Families in LDS History
    • Janine was raised believing that having many children was essential for celestial glory.
    • Her faith crisis began when she realized that unlimited childbearing was unsustainable, leading her to make the difficult decision to use birth control—a major personal and spiritual struggle.
    • She shares the pressure women faced in her generation to bear as many children as possible, with birth control seen as sinful.
  3. Janine’s Polygamist Ancestry
    • Her grandparents were post-Manifesto polygamists, showing how polygamy persisted in mainstream LDS culture even after the church officially abandoned it.
    • William Gay Sears, her grandfather, sought permission to take a second wife in Mexico, despite the LDS Church’s claim that it ended polygamy.
    • Othelia Violleal, her grandmother, was married at 16 to a man nearly 40 years old, highlighting the exploitation of young women in polygamous unions.
  4. Polygamy’s Lasting Emotional and Psychological Effects
    • Janine’s mother was raised in a polygamous household, where she was taught to never claim her children as solely her own—everything was “ours,” reinforcing communal ownership over family identity.
    • Heartbreaking stories of mothers giving up their children to sister wives illustrate the emotional toll of plural marriage.
    • Janine only discovered later in life that her grandfather wasn’t commanded to practice polygamy but actively sought it out, contradicting the family’s belief that it was divinely required.
  5. The Treatment of Women in Polygamous Marriages
    • Janine recounts stories of polygamous women suffering financial hardship, including working at military bases while raising large families alone.
    • Sister wives competed for resources and attention, creating jealousy and division rather than unity.
    • Her great-grandmother was forced to give up her children after being divorced in a polygamous marriage, reinforcing the power imbalance in patriarchal families.
  6. The “Lost Boys” of Polygamy
    • Janine discusses how her uncle Joe was quietly pushed out of the family at a young age, a common trend in polygamous cultures where young men were seen as competition for wives.
    • The conversation highlights how boys in polygamous families often left home early and struggled to find their place in society.
  7. Breaking the Cycle: A Shift Away from Polygamy’s Influence
    • Janine reflects on how she broke free from generational teachings about large families, choosing to raise her children with agency rather than pressure.
    • Her daughter Michelle acknowledges that she was never pressured to have a large family, demonstrating a cultural shift away from LDS fertility expectations.
    • They emphasize the importance of faith, personal revelation, and rejecting harmful traditions that no longer serve spiritual growth.

Transcript

[00:01] Michelle: Welcome to a very special edition of 132 Problems revisiting Mormon Polygamy. My name is Michelle Stone, and this is my sweet mother Janine Brady, who has very kindly agreed to come and be interviewed and tell us a bit of her story. So thank you for joining us today as we take this somewhat personal deep dive into Mormon plural marriage. Those of you who grew up in the church and attended primary, most of you might know Janine Brady and you very well, and you, and you certainly know at least one of her songs. So she is a composer who submitted, I think only one. Songs the primary songbook, is that right?

[00:52] Janine Brady: I don’t remember no more than one, OK,

[00:55] Michelle: but one that’s really famous. What was your, what’s your really famous song in a long time ago. It is true. So those of you that know that song that you sing in primary. Janine Brady wrote that song. She also wrote, um, in her own business that she and my, that my dad started and ran, and my mom was the main composer and he was the businessman and together they sold, I think, over 15 million albums of children’s music.

[01:22] Janine Brady: I know there were over 30 albums,

[01:24] Michelle: but, well, there were over 30 separate albums, but they sold over 1515 million units, which is pretty impressive for. Uh, a

[01:33] Janine Brady: house, a housewife in Salt Lake.

[01:35] Michelle: Yep, yep, they did. So they raised 9 children and I think while you were expecting, I’m the youngest of 9. Here I will show you a picture. That’s me on my mom’s lap and I’m surrounded by 9, well, all 9 of the children, including Janae, who your 3rd had cerebral palsy, and we’ll talk about her a little bit. So, um, Anyway, raising 9 children, she was pregnant with her youngest when they set up their very first book of music with a program that my dad invented because this was before printing, this was before anything was easy. And so anyway, there’s, there’s a partial introduction. What do you want to share with us about your career?

[02:23] Janine Brady: Oh, just that. It it was just a learned thing as you go. Can I tell that little story about my program? I was, I had some teenagers because I worked mostly in the church with young people, and they were musical. Three sisters who sang together and one day I got up my courage and said, Do you wanna hear what I’ve been doing? And so I Showed them some of the songs and they got really excited, went home and told their mother. And her sister was a relief society president and asked me to come and do a banquet, a program for a banquet they were having for relief society sisters and their husbands. Now I was everybody’s accompanist. I had accompanied all over all my life. Starting in elementary school and. I was not used to facing an audience because you can hide when you’re playing the piano. Not only did I have to face the audience, but I, my next door neighbor was a member of the Tabernacle Choir. So I said, I’ll get Mary to come and sing it. And this lady said, oh no, we don’t want anyone. The charm of it is for you to do it. So I said, OK, and scared

[03:40] Michelle: to death. And my whole life you have told me I’m not a singer. I’m not

[03:44] Janine Brady: a singer. I think maybe I could have been, but I played for so many good singers that I knew a good singer. And I wasn’t and so. I went to do that program. My dear husband, who had his masters in music. And so I was in his field. I was up doing stuff in the field that he graduated in.

[04:10] Michelle: She had so much talent and he had so much education. So it was a balanced marriage.

[04:18] Janine Brady: And so,

[04:20] Michelle: I don’t want to imply that dad wasn’t talented, just my mom had an extreme amount of talent.

[04:25] Janine Brady: Anyway, so when we were, and I was pregnant with you. And very obviously showing. And as we left, and I was still shaking, I’d done about a 45 minute program. And I said What, what he was telling me how good it was and I said, what should I have done to improve upon it. And he just put his arm around me and squeezed me and said, how could I possibly improve on perfection? And that was the kind of support I had, not only in my music, but in my life was this man who was so Wonderful.

[05:09] Michelle: That really is the secret to how a Mormon housewife in Salt Lake City of 9 children became, uh. Famous composer was because, because of him, because she had so much support and he worked his tail off marketing and building a business and building a platform for your music. That’s, that’s a beautiful story. I, I wanna, um, back up to a couple of things. We failed to mention some of the songs that many of you might know. I think you started out writing music for LDS Children.

[05:45] Janine Brady: I went outside and my little kids, probably from 6 or 7 on down were out playing. Singing I love

[05:51] Michelle: trash from Sesame Street.

[05:54] Janine Brady: I love trash. There’s gotta be better songs to sing than that, but the primary songs don’t bounce. They’re reverent. They’re reverent. And so I thought I’m gonna write songs that bounce that maybe they’ll sing during the week and since then over the years, I thought, if and when I ever do. My biography, when you grow up, when I grow up, yeah. And so The name of my book is going to be the other 6 Days because that’s what I wrote for so my children would have something to sing. They wouldn’t have to sing. I love trash. So I wrote, uh, teaching the gospel, teaching the good life, all the things we want our kids to know. But I didn’t make them reverent very intentionally.

[06:44] Michelle: So it started out LDS, one of your first songs, or I’m a VIP in my family. Some of you will know that. And then many of you will know I’m a Mormon. Yes, I am. So if you’d like to study a Mormon, I am a living

[06:58] Janine Brady: festival for the change. Oh

[07:01] Michelle: yeah, that’s always been outlawed. And then I think one of your best known that maybe it’s somewhat controversial now because I don’t think people know where it came from for you was. When I grow up, I want to be a mother. That’s,

[07:13] Janine Brady: oh, I love that one. Oh yeah, but the the original let’s not do that. I counted up to 12 kids.

[07:21] Michelle: There was some scuttle but when she does it because it repeats 4 times, 1 little 2 little 3 little, and her last one was. 10 little 11 little 12 little and the first time it was, it was performed, people did well, little 2 little 3 it was it was dad that changed it,

[07:37] Janine Brady: but I want to tell you about my mother always saying if you want, every time your husband says come and go with me. Go with him, and no matter what you have to do, go with him or he’ll stop asking.

[07:53] Michelle: That’s so interesting with the polygamist mindset we’re talking about, isn’t it? So continue. I’m sorry I had to

[07:59] Janine Brady: so that one day I had the laundry and the dishes, and I taught piano all those years and piano students and children, and he said, come downtown with me. I’ve gotta go do some work down there. And I said, I’ve got so much to do, and he says, please come. And I thought, what did my mother teach me? So I said, OK, so we went downtown. We went to the Prudential building. And he said, I’ll just be a few minutes and then I’ll be back, and he was gone for Maybe 2 hours. He was gone a long, long time, and I was sitting in the car with a pile of stuff at home to do. And I got madder and madder and madder. And I wrote a song called I’m the IPM. It turned out to be the most. Lovely song I ever wrote, um, a very important person, a very important person. So it’s a very important person, that’s me and I’m sitting in that car.

[09:06] Michelle: I love that. Even when dad was like neglecting you, he was helping you, right? Your best son. So that’s great. And I think you went from From writing specifically for LDS audiences to writing the, the stand and Tall series, a series of 12 values that obedience, honesty,

[09:24] Janine Brady: not LDS that we’re using our music. Yeah.

[09:27] Michelle: In fact, I think there were a couple of scandals because it got quite big in the Christian world, and then when people would find out she was LDS, they would have book burnings and preachers would come out against. Against buying bright music. So anyway, so that’s, that’s a fun story. I wanted you to talk a little bit about raising your kids too, because you were raising kids in cloth diapers with no money.

[09:52] Janine Brady: We were really poor. Um,

[09:58] Michelle: And I don’t think that our in our day we do poor quite like what you did in your day and

[10:03] Janine Brady: know you could get a loan. I don’t, I don’t know, but when I was raising my children, we didn’t have a dime. Ted was. Excuse me, teaching piano. You can’t make a lot of money teaching piano. And I was teaching a little bit until I had my 6th baby, and then I said the end time. And so my Janay, my 3rd baby, had cerebral palsy and we had to carry her till she was 7.

[10:34] Michelle: She was in diapers and couldn’t walk

[10:36] Janine Brady: and couldn’t walk. She could crawl. She ruined her knees crawling because knees aren’t made for crawling. But Anyway, and then I was pregnant. I had my 1st 4 babies in 4 years. She was the 3rd 1, and so I was carrying one in my tummy and the one in my arms and, and

[10:55] Michelle: not a baby, a big

[10:56] Janine Brady: girl, a big girl. And we wised up and waited for 3 more years before we had our next baby.

[11:03] Michelle: You can’t gloss over that though, because we need to go into that story a little bit because what were you taught when you were raised?

[11:10] Janine Brady: I was taught to have babies. By example, my parents had 11 and I was taught that was our road to celestial glory. Your,

[11:20] Michelle: your, your, your parents had 11 and your mother got married at 27,

[11:24] Janine Brady: right? And they were all single birth,

[11:27] Michelle: yeah. And you were taught that if you limit your posterity, you limit your exaltation and that birth control was of.

[11:35] Janine Brady: That’s what I was taught. And That’s a hard teaching in this world. Maybe it was a good teaching when so many of the babies died, then they had children, but now when they all live, it’s a real houseful. And I was at the grocery store one day when I had 7. And trying to find food I could afford, and I’d been there a lot, and the manager came out and said, You me Let me help you, let’s go back here, and he took me out back in the. Produce department. And he said you can have anything you want, a boxful for 50 cents of the overripe produce that the right, the, the produce they’d had to take off the shelves because they couldn’t sell it. And boy, we lived on that for 3 or 4 years. I learned to like rutabagas and all kinds of things. I never tasted. We had a wonderful diet.

[12:36] Michelle: That’s amazing. I love that and.

[12:39] Janine Brady: They don’t do that anymore. They have to throw that away by legally. They can’t give it to people or sell it cheap.

[12:46] Michelle: I want to back up and go over this just a little bit again. So 4 babies in 4 years, and the third one was you call her multiple handicapped both physically and mentally and And you’re, you now have scoliosis from carrying,

[13:01] Janine Brady: oh, I do,

[13:02] Michelle: Janae,

[13:03] Janine Brady: so I’m pretty crooked.

[13:07] Michelle: And um I want you to talk a little bit about sort of your, they now use the words faith crisis or cognitive dissonance about having to decide to use birth control that you kind of glossed over that. I don’t think that was a little thing for you.

[13:21] Janine Brady: That was a big thing for me. And Oh, well, well, it brings back a lot of memories, but I was taught that the only way to limit your family. was total abstinence, even in marriage, even in marriage, and my dad said. And I’m not prepared to say how much you’ll be forgiven for that either. Wow, so that’s pretty hard teaching, and that’s what they used to teach. And So you had to be.

[13:58] Michelle: Yeah, my mom told me that she just realized she was going to die, literally she was going to die, and you said, God knows my heart that I want children cause you still he to that, but that I have to slow down.

[14:14] Janine Brady: And I had to, you know, and my, my dear husband was the baby of 4, and he wasn’t used to children. But he was a good sport. And he was a wonderful father. And he died 16+ years ago with Alzheimer’s. But, so I’ve been alone for a long time.

[14:36] Michelle: Just under 16 years she was 15.

[14:39] Janine Brady: Yeah. Anyway, yeah,

[14:41] Michelle: so I, anyway, that was a, that was a tough scenario for you. So, but still went on to have 9. And, and I do want to clarify because I mentioned before that I have a large family, and I did grow up singing. When I grow up, I want to be a mother, but I think that my mom, you went out of your way to not pass that teaching on. I have several sisters with 2 or 1 and And never have any of us felt, at least I certainly haven’t superior or inferior or like we were being more or less obedient. I, I purely have as many children. I have the most children of my siblings and I do completely because that’s what I felt I was supposed to do personally. Those were my that was my inspiration and my desire, not in any way pressured by that song or by my parents. So you were a chain breaker in a good way of that bad teaching.

[15:32] Janine Brady: Yeah, the Lord knows I want a family, but I can’t have one every year, and I came to that decision after 4 years.

[15:38] Michelle: Yeah, and so we can get into this now because I think this is a good segue because that is, I think, a relic of The way your parents were raised. So, OK, so let me just break into this. So, Mom, you’re the oldest of 11, correct? What year were you born? 34. OK, 1934. So she had me when she was 41. I had my youngest living when I was 41. So she told me when my little Asher was born that she was the only 82 year old she knew still having grandchildren, not just great grandchildren. Then I went on to have two more after that. But, um, So you were the oldest daughter, and your mother was the oldest daughter of polygamists. Right,

[16:24] Janine Brady: yes, my mother was, yes.

[16:26] Michelle: So, so can we back up and tell that story? Is there anything that I left off from your life that if anything comes back up then, and you know, and I will help my mom. She doesn’t do technology well. I don’t do technology well and my mom do it at all. But if anyone has any questions. Please feel free if you have questions for Janine Brady or anything you’d like to ask, please feel free to put them in the comments, and I will be sure and get her answers and be the go-between so that you can answer any questions that come in. And also, oh, for anyone that did, that was raised on that music, I loved it cause it was, it was gone and unavailable for quite a while or hard to get. And it now is on. All of the platforms you can say Alexa play music

[17:06] Janine Brady: all of it is if I knew more I’d get it all on there. I’m trying to get all the

[17:11] Michelle: most, almost all of it is, so we’re still working on some of it, but you can Alexa, Spotify, iTunes, anywhere that you get music, you can tell them to play any of your favorite Janine Brady songs, so you will bounce. That’s fun. That’s really fun. Yeah, there’s an album called Watch Me Sing, Watch Me Sing, which was such a clever title that starts with See Meununun music. So it’s, I actually still use it all the time because it’s not screens and I love having my kids entertained without screens. So, so it’s a fun, it’s a fun thing to, to know. So there’s that little plug, not that it does you any good, but now they know it’ll do, it’ll do all of you so good. But so, um, sorry, I’m working with your papers. So we were going to go to your parents because this is what I think is so applicable and fascinating to our topic. So do you want to tell about your grandparents or do you want me to? You? OK. OK, so we’ll put up a picture so you can see William Gay Sears, your grandfather, was married to Agnes McMurran. They were married at 24. They were the same age, born in 1873, and after, I think, 78 years of marriage, realized that they were not going to have children because no children had come. And so this was after, well, yeah, we’ll get to that, we’ll get to that, so. So we’d already had the 1890 manifesto and the 1904 manifesto. So this was post, post manifesto because they married your grandmother in 1906.

[18:50] Janine Brady: So, my grandfather, I was always taught. That he was called by either the president of the church or one of the leaders to go to Mexico and take a plural wife because he was supposed to have a family. I just found out very recently, just the

[19:10] Michelle: last few years

[19:11] Janine Brady: later than that in the last year that he was not called that he went to seek permission to go down to Mexico and get a plural wife. That’s quite a bit different,

[19:24] Michelle: yeah, but I think still, so it’s interesting to look at how things get passed along, how family lore and church lore grows like we talked about in the last episode, the angel with the sword. And um oh you haven’t seen that one yet. She’s behind, but um, but the things tend to grow, so it was handed down to you and to me that it was, I, I was certain it was the president of the church that had called him in and told him to take a wife. And then I think the clarification was that he had had a dream that he had children. And then went to OK that’s OK and then but but in any case it was approved he did go seek approval from the leadership and they told him to go to Mexico because I think in their minds still the manifesto was to comply with US law but in Mexico and Canada they could still live the principle and so. So they were both almost 40 because they were the same age, William and Agnes, and they went to Mexico, where they met the bishop’s daughter. And she was 16 and her name was Othelia Violleal, your grandmother, and since she was 16, they waited a few years and,

[20:40] Janine Brady: and they were the folklore, the family folklore, I don’t know, is that they were never alone together ever they courted her as a couple. They were never alone until after they were married.

[20:54] Michelle: Isn’t it interesting that that’s the important thing that they had to make sure you knew they weren’t, I mean, she’s, they’re engaged. It’s a fiance, but they are never allowed to be alone. That’s almost like, don’t worry, they were never alone. That’s not really the thing I was worried about, you know. But anyway, so, OK, so I will put a picture here. This is a picture of um this family, you’ll see William Gay sitting and well I’m gonna, I’m gonna attach it. William Gay sitting. Um, the grandfather and then Agnes sitting and the mother of all of the children Athelia, the second wife standing with the children. Yeah, so there’s definitely the hierarchy. This is the oldest daughter, Agnes, my mother’s mother, and you’ll note she’s named Agnes after the first wife. It’s not fascinating. And this is only what did they have 10 children or 11? 10 and 9 lived, yeah, so they had, so they had 10 children. So, um, the youngest are missing here because I think the youngest daughter is still alive. So one is still. Yeah, the, the, the youngest few are missing and the youngest daughter is, she’s 99 now, but still alive. So this is fascinating to me because in my own family shows how recent polygamy was. I knew my grandmother, she didn’t die until I was in high school, and she died quite young, and you were raised with polygamist grandparents,

[22:22] Janine Brady: and I didn’t know they were polygamists because I didn’t know there was such a, I didn’t know anything about it. And there were no other children because we called her Aunt Aggie. She couldn’t have children. That’s

[22:32] Michelle: why they the first wife. So you knew Aunt Aggie, the first

[22:35] Janine Brady: there were no other grandchildren except just my, my mother’s family, you know, so

[22:43] Michelle: it’s so interesting, isn’t it? It’s fascinating. So a couple of things that we wanted to touch on, um. Well, first of all, the relationship between these two, well, I guess these three is fascinating. So I want you to tell the story of when your mother was born, the first baby. And, and so Othelia was still a young teenager when they got married. I think they waited till she was 18.

[23:08] Janine Brady: I believe I think she was 19 when my mother was born, so that would have been, um, I don’t know what story you’re referring to.

[23:15] Michelle: Well, as soon as she was old enough to be away from her mother,

[23:18] Janine Brady: she was, and Grandma got pregnant with Uncle Joe, so I’m sure that was the reason, but when as soon as they could, they were living down either in Arizona at that time or still in Mexico. Like grandpa and. And Maggie came up to Salt Lake to show off their baby and left my grandma home. There may be named after my grandma. Yeah I mean that named after Aunt Aggie. So my grandmother really did serve a purpose. She provided a baby and. That’s it’s a heartbreaking story. It’s,

[23:57] Michelle: um, again, we would did episodes on Sarah and Hagar and on um. The, the, um, oh, I can’t I think of the word, the concubines of Jacob and

[24:10] Janine Brady: in a way your grandmother almost sounds like that, although she I’m sure have much higher status than that, but.

[24:20] Michelle: But she was, they took her baby. She was 19. They took her baby and came on a trip to show off the new baby and left the mother of the baby home. That story when I learned that because I that’s not one of the stories I was told growing up

[24:35] Janine Brady: I didn’t know that for a long time.

[24:38] Michelle: That about that was a hard one. And so um there there are some beautiful stories as well. Do you want to tell.

[24:46] Janine Brady: Yeah, when, when Grandpa died. He died 1st of the 3 of them. They were living in Salt Lake then, and my grandmother was living in Sugar House. And

[24:58] Michelle: can I just throw something in to clarify? Just this was post post manifesto polygamy, but my great grandfather, your grandfather went on, he served as the mission president in Samoa. He, he, what I’m saying is he was not only active and accepted in the church, he had very many high callings and he worked for the church. And and so he had two wives openly polygamous,

[25:22] Janine Brady: and the first time he was a single elder, the second time he was married but had when

[25:28] Michelle: he was called the Samoa

[25:30] Janine Brady: and then he was called back again and he took in Aggie

[25:33] Michelle: both times he took out Aggie.

[25:35] Janine Brady: Yeah, and he took in Aggie on the 2nd mission, and I just want to throw in that he translated the Book of Mormon into someone. That was a big deal. But then,

[25:46] Michelle: well, so he, he was called as the mission president and he said, well, and they told him you can only bring one wife because we don’t want to confuse the members. And

[25:54] Janine Brady: he said, which wife should I bring? And they said, we’ll bring the first wife because we don’t want to upset the.

[26:01] Michelle: So that was another story where my great grandmother, Othelia was left home with a house full of children and

[26:08] Janine Brady: no means of support. I don’t know about the support on the first mission because there were children, but I know on the second mission, my mother worked. She didn’t get married till she was 26 because she was the oldest daughter, and I think that she was partly, well, I know she was helping provide for that family. he was gone.

[26:34] Michelle: Now go back to your story. I

[26:35] Janine Brady: apologize. Well, Grandpa, we were, she was living in Salt Lake and Grandpa had Who would live with grandmas 2 or 3 days. Well, let me go back to. The 5th baby.

[26:50] Michelle: OK. Oh yes, OK, my Aunt Viola. I remember Aunt. Yeah,

[26:55] Janine Brady: I love that.

[26:57] Michelle: Um,

[26:59] Janine Brady: So

[27:00] Michelle: she was the 5th daughter. She was your grandmother’s 5th,

[27:02] Janine Brady: Agnes and Aggie. They say he should adopt a baby. You should adopt baby. She’s would say, Oh, I’d just rather have one of yours. And so when my aunt Vo was born. By then they had an orchard. They were in battle. And they had a big house on one side of the orchard and a small house on the other orchard, and Grandpa spent his nights at alternating. And Mother told me more than once about Grandma getting all the baby clothes washed, putting them in the basket while she was crying, crying. Wouldn’t let any of the children go with her. Walking through the orchard to Aunt Aggie’s carrying the baby and the basket, and gave the baby to Aunt. But she said, you always said you’d like to have one of my children, so I’m giving you this baby. And And Aggie kept her for 6 months, I think it was 6 months, and then she brought her back and she said, She misses her family too much. But we’ll still call her my little girl, but then I had a cousin say to me,

[28:19] Michelle: Well, well, first of all, so we thought forever that this was this like unbelievable act of giving from these two women, which, which I think from Grandma it absolutely was, and then now you can tell what you found out later or

[28:34] Janine Brady: what I don’t know, but my cousins, I think it was just too much work and was older. She never had children. It probably upset her. lifestyle, so she just,

[28:47] Michelle: I’ll call her if she took her over a few months, by that time she’d be crawling. It’d be a lot of work.

[28:52] Janine Brady: They are a lot of work. OK, now we can move on. OK.

[28:57] Michelle: Well, and then at the funeral you were talking about the funeral when he died and the chapel was full because he was a leader in the church and well known, and he, and then a few years later.

[29:07] Janine Brady: And then and he died. And

[29:11] Michelle: the chapel was empty,

[29:13] Janine Brady: yeah,

[29:14] Michelle: because it was just a woman.

[29:16] Janine Brady: Well, sorry, and the grandma said, Where is everybody? Don’t they know I loved her as much as I loved him. That’s unbelievable to me.

[29:28] Michelle: And it’s an amazing story. And there have been some hard things that had happened. I think that we’ve kind of been discussing this and one thing that I think we’ve come, I think that we both feel is that incredible people are incredible people and refiners fires make them more incredible. And so that’s, that’s one of the reasons that’s been used to say polygamy is a good thing, but we’re going to share some other stories that show. I just think that my grandmother Othelia was my great grandmother was an amazing, amazing person. I never knew her. My grandmother, your grandmother. Everything you say about her was just that she was dripping with love and goodness.

[30:07] Janine Brady: She was, and I didn’t tell you ever, but he never really supported her, I think. And he died when she was still had her youngest 1 or 2 at home,

[30:20] Michelle: cause he was almost 20 years older

[30:22] Janine Brady: and He I lost my train of thought, Michelle, help me, he didn’t

[30:26] Michelle: really provide.

[30:28] Janine Brady: Oh, and so Grandma. Worked out at the Hill Air Force Base. It was a hill or Kerns or someplace during World War II was a cook, which was very, very hard work. And she still had a family to take care of to provide for. And then I want to talk about my uncle Joe.

[30:49] Michelle: Oh yes, this is, this is important because you brought this to me without knowing that this was part of the culture, which I think is fascinating.

[30:59] Janine Brady: But my uncle Joe was never, he

[31:02] Michelle: was, he’s your, your mother’s next,

[31:05] Janine Brady: next to the 2nd oldest, uh-huh, and he wasn’t around very much, hardly ever came to the family parties. He had two children that I loved. And we were not close, the rest of us were so close. And he didn’t embrace the gospel. He left home when he was, I think 15 or 16 or something around there.

[31:32] Michelle: You know, let me show this really fast because this is interesting. You’ll see in this picture, this is Grandma, my grandmother Agnes, and this is Joe, and these are all girls. So he was the only boy. I think another boy was born later on, but up to this point, he was the only boy, which is really interesting,

[31:51] Janine Brady: and I have heard that. That young boys are not welcome in most families after because they need to save those girls from the older man, I guess that’s why so and so that that just occurred to me. Very, very recently, I wonder if that’s why Uncle Joe left home, cause wasn’t he 15? He was not very old. I have heard he joined the railroad. I’ve also heard he joined the military, whatever it was, he wasn’t around very much, and And there wasn’t the same feeling between him and his wife as there was between all those sisters who were so thick. The younger boy who was only 10 years older than I am. Didn’t grow up in that culture, I think it was the same thing there and the house wasn’t full of girls.

[32:48] Michelle: I just find that fascinating that even though, I mean, even in this family, even though it was post manifesto or post post manifesto, still the lost boy dynamic was there, which I find,

[33:01] Janine Brady: you know, when I put that to you after I heard about that, I thought that happened in my mother’s family too. It breaks my heart.

[33:10] Michelle: So, yeah, so these are some of the stories of just my mother’s grandparents. That is how recent this is, so we can’t expect it to be out of our culture and out of our systems. Another thing that you told me cause I was raised on all of the good stories, and then when I started to have my awakening about polygamy and I asked you again and you were willing to share more stories with me which are where the first time I heard these other stories, will you tell two other things, the one about, well, first of all, you talked about that it was just closed lipped, nothing was allowed to be talked

[33:44] Janine Brady: about. Yeah, they didn’t discuss things at all. At all.

[33:50] Michelle: So there was nothing that my grandmother, my mom says she never said the word pregnant. She was the mother of 11 babies, but she only would say that way,

[34:01] Janine Brady: she’s that way. And the night before I got married, I was in my,

[34:07] Michelle: we have to hear

[34:08] Janine Brady: this. I was in my room and he said, have you heard this? No, my dad came up to my bedroom to ask me if there was anything that I needed to do. And he said, I know your mother can’t talk to you or won’t talk to you. I don’t remember what he said, but so do you have any questions? And that was the night he said, That Birth control was not acceptable, and that was the night I was given those that.

[34:38] Michelle: That was your

[34:39] Janine Brady: pre-marriage.

[34:41] Michelle: So I do have to again give my mom credit because she’s gone the other direction to just say we are talking about things. I think you’ve done a marvelous job of having all of your

[34:51] Janine Brady: dogs more. I’ll tell you that.

[34:56] Michelle: So now I want you to talk about and, and so these stories you’re sharing, most of them were just overheard like you would hear your mother in whispers because you were the oldest daughter. And um there are two more I want you to tell about the bananas or I’ll tell that one. I’ll tell about the bananas. And then, so since my grand, my great grandfather was in Tonga and Samoa. Um, someone brought back a big case of bananas and after he was home, after he was home, and then this would have still been 1800s Utah, right, or early 1900s, that was a treat. Like they would have never had a banana before and my great grandmother, your grandmother was expecting and had a baby. And she wasn’t allowed to have any of the bananas, and Aggie said, Oh, I feel you, that will hurt the baby and took them all and didn’t share. That was sad. And then this is a story that breaks my heart that you talked about your mom telling about her rocking in the chair at night because I want to preface this really fast. Oh, she did tell you this one. So I, I, again, you can feel the dynamics because really in this story, just like in Just like with um Rachel and Sarah, it was the childlessness that was the tragedy. I don’t think that they would have sought out a plural wife if they hadn’t been childless. I think that was the motivator. And so I, I like that, and I think that Grandpa tried to be sensitive to the hearts of both of these women, but it seems that the first wife was definitely his priority.

[36:36] Janine Brady: And so she had been the only wife for

[36:38] Michelle: right she was his peers. She was then, and then they married a little girl.

[36:43] Janine Brady: He was so proud of his kids. Oh, he loved his kids.

[36:49] Michelle: Oh yes, I’m, I’m not, and I just want to talk about whose feelings he seemed to be more aware of and more looking out for like taking baby Agnes around town.

[37:00] Janine Brady: But anyway, mother said that she Would rock her babies at night and oh and the. OK, she would rock her babies at night and say, mine, mine, mine. She rubbed her babies. The only time they could be hers because they were never allowed to write a note at school to Grandma. That they didn’t write one for Aunt Aggie. They could never draw a picture that they didn’t draw one for Aunt Aggie. She was never allowed to have a picture with her family without an Aggie in it. And so

[37:41] Michelle: and she wasn’t allowed to say my baby. Everything was ours, always ours. And so

[37:51] Janine Brady: that

[37:51] Michelle: was the

[37:53] Janine Brady: heartbreaking to hear that. Yeah,

[37:58] Michelle: and I think that. You know, as we’ve talked about doing this and, and prayed because we wanted to accurately tell these stories of our ancestors that we really honor and I do think the greatness of these people to come through this. And be good people is amazing. I am, I think the system is bad, but I think the people were often very, very good. And so is there anything else you wanted to share about grandma? OK. The reason I think this is so interesting because Still Alive today is the youngest daughter of this family. Who there is at least one woman alive today who grew up with polygamist parents faithfully in the LDS Church, not as FLDS. And so I wanted to go on and just tell a little bit of the stories that I learned more about while we were. Preparing for this because I knew we were going to talk about your mother. So, so my mom’s mom, Agnes, and her mother, Othelia Viola call, that the second wife that got married as a, as a teenager, her parents were Anson Bowen Call, who’s quite famous, and Mary Thompson. But I want to say one thing. I looked at, I looked at Grandma’s ancestry, and you know, Every single one of her great, great, let’s see, grandparent, every single one of her great great grandparents was an original member of the church. No one joined the church after about, well, they were all within the 1830s. The latest was in Scotland in 1840 because that was the first missionaries that went there. So that’s amazing. She had like legit family lineage with the church, and one of her great great grandfathers is Israel Barlow, who is of the Barlows. That that’s the ancestor of all of the Barlows that are the polygamist groups. And so this is really interesting, and there are so many interesting stories that we have a grandmother who died of starvation in a dugout in Lehigh in 1859. We have really hard, hard stories, but there’s one in particular that I want to tell. So Cyril Call was a bodyguard of Joseph Smith. He, he and his, his son Anson was also they were there in Governor Boggs’s office. They were close associates with Joseph Smith and um came, Anson Call and his wife came across the plains and I want to say it was 48 that they were able to come here in the second train. And he had been given a in call had been given a blessing by Joseph Smith that he would settle many areas throughout the West, which he did. So he was at general conference in Salt Lake. He traveled up from southern Utah, sitting in general conference. So this is my grandmother’s great grandfather was Anson call. All right. So he was sitting in general conference. He was 41 years old. His oldest child was 17. And Brigham Young. I don’t know if he, I, it’s, it’s a little hard to understand. I don’t know if he just thought he was darling and, you know, it didn’t and he just had the gift of prophecy or if he or if some arrangement had been made previously. I know it didn’t involve either of these people, but Brigham Young over the pulpit said, Ans and call. Have you found a wife to take back back with you to southern Utah? And he said, No, brother Brigham, I haven’t. And Brigham Young said, There’s Mariah Bowen. Take her. Anson was 41, his oldest son was 17. And Mariah Bowen was 17. She was 17 years old, sitting there by her mother. So her parents, Israel Bowen and Charlotte Louisa Durham, I think she went by Louisa. Um, they had been in Navvo, kicked out. They were trying to make arrangements to come. Her husband Israel had gone to try to get some oxen, fell in the river, and died of pneumonia a few days later. So Louisa Durham, I think she had, I don’t know, 7 children, and she married a widower, and they made their way across the plains together and then divorced. It wasn’t a good match, but so she was unmarried and I’ve, I’ve heard as I’ve studied this that it was. It could be the unprotected girls that didn’t have a father, you know, so, um, her mother had married that were that that that were more vulnerable, I guess. So this story just kills me. So I want to tell about um Mariah. Her name is Mariah, the girl, and she’s my grandmother, yeah, she is your great grandmother. Great, great, great grandmother, so she, um. She at 15 didn’t cross with her mother, who was a widow. She went with her pregnant sister and took care of her family. She had never, um, handled livestock or a wagon, you know, she was a girl at 15, having never driven a team of oxen, she drove a team of oxen. She drove a wagon across the plains, taking care of her pregnant sister. There is a story of they were crossing a river and the front oxen tripped and that whole thing started to go over, go down the river, and that little 15 year old, sorry, I have a 15 year old climbed down on notice the tongue of the wagon. And unhooked it, climbed on the back of the oxen and unharnessed them and saved the entire team of oxen and that wagon at 15 when her life was in danger. So she does the history of her people that talked about her say that she could ride and shoot like any man, so. I grew up always having my mom talk about how I beat all the boys. I was always a fast runner and an athlete, and that, so I kind of relate to this indomitable, you know, this indomitable girl who was just tough and, um, and physical and liked to do things. So she made her way to the valley and then at 17, and you know, I don’t, I can’t imagine what her mom’s feelings were or what her feelings were, but it was publicly announced and the next morning, She was taken to southern Utah by Anson call. She, he was called to settle many places. They settled Carl’s Fort, which was 7 miles north of Brigham City, and it just says very briefly in the history that Giving, being pregnant, giving birth, and raising children with no supplies and no comforts was very difficult. And, um, so she had 3 children in what was called Casport, just a little shack that they build a cabin of some sort, 7 miles north of Brigham City. And Anson, she had a 1 year old, a 3-year-old, and a 5-year-old, and Anson left. And you know, there was never a love match, I’m sure. But it, it said that she really was, was tough, and she was pretty, she was outgoing, she was vivacious. She had those 3 children and a and didn’t come back, and the wind, the snow started to fall, so she took those 3 children, a 1 year old, a 3 year old and a 5 year old. The 5 year old and a 1 year old were little girls and the 3 year old was a little boy, and she herded all of their livestock.

[45:12] Janine Brady: Now I’ve heard that part of the story that she brought them back in the snow

[45:16] Michelle: from 7 miles north of Brigham City to bountiful. And that she didn’t lose 11 animal and she had her 3 children. Do you know any of the details? How many animals did she have? Did she wagon? How

[45:29] Janine Brady: did she know, but I was never told the rest of the story that you told me.

[45:33] Michelle: OK, so, so anyway, so that was, that was this grandmother. She went on to have 6 children.

[45:40] Janine Brady: Oh yes, I did.

[45:41] Michelle: I did this so we’re getting to it gets worse, so. Um, she was the mistress of the she did the she was the male lady, I guess is what it was. And then she also her personality was an outdoors woman. She says that she was always more comfortable, like she would take care of the livestock and keep the farmhands going in. So, so she did that rather than the women’s work.

[46:07] Janine Brady: I think had a restaurant of sorts or something she fed people.

[46:12] Michelle: So yes, yes, she was, and so her husband was called to go rescue the Willie Martin Hancart company auntsants and call, so he did that. And I guess either as his, I, I don’t know exactly how it worked, but he ended up marrying two of the women that he rescued from the Hancock Company. So he ended up with 6 wives, and those I think were 3 and 4. And um anyway, so in ’62 when her those two little daughters that had been the two that she brought with her on that trek. She had two little girls die within two months of each other, her 10 year old and her 6-year-old, and she experienced that tragedy in 2, 1862. And then in 1867, I, there are some conflicting reports she was not approved of by those other women, maybe the ones coming from England. I know that the first wife may have had a hard time with her, who knows, you know. But because she was outdoorsy and um also really outgoing, really pretty from all of the reports. So in 1867 out of the blue, Anson call, her husband, our grandfather, presented her with a bill of divorcement. There were no official accusations that I know of, but even if there were it wouldn’t have mattered. So she had lost two little girls just a few years before, and now she had 4 children. That she was not allowed to take with her.

[47:40] Janine Brady: Yeah, she was, and I’ve heard that that she was. Kicked out or left abandoned or something kicked out and they took her and he took their children too.

[47:50] Michelle: She had a 5 month old who she was allowed to take, so she had to make her way again on her own from bountiful to, I think it was Salem, where her or Springville, where her mother was living. Who she probably hadn’t seen that whole time, so she lost all 5 of her children and only got to keep her 5 month old. She made her way back and was again married polygamously and had 2 more children that both died. And it wasn’t until she was an old woman, her mother died, her other husband died, and destitute not having anyone else to go, she was allowed to go back. To live with again, live out her days with those women who had taken her children. And Our grandfather, so this is your great grandfather Anson Bowen call, was her 3 year old. Was her 3 year old when she was kicked out

[48:47] Janine Brady: and it was taken away

[48:49] Michelle: from that was taken away from her and raised, um, it says of the first wife Anson call’s first wife bragging in her life sketch. It says that she raised 8 children that weren’t her own. Well, I know who some of those children were and um. And Sibo and call ended up being called to Mexico, Colonial um Dulon. Colonial Dulon is where your mother was born and where, um, he, he was there and he was the bishop in colonial Dublon for 25 years. I think he was in the bishopc for 49 years. He was involved in the Mexican civil wars. He lived really an adventurous life and he had many wives and um he. Had gone to Mexico before his mother came back, so she never got to see her children again. And um that is one story and my personal family history is Anne Mariah Bowen and um

[49:46] Janine Brady: I’ve heard that story a bit. Um, I have to tell you one thing about Grandpa call’s children. His baby son. Dated my roommate when I was going to the Y. And I say you dated who? You went out with who? Not by

[50:05] Michelle: your not by your your grandmother. It was a different wife.

[50:08] Janine Brady: Yeah, a different wife,

[50:09] Michelle: the

[50:09] Janine Brady: youngest

[50:10] Michelle: wife,

[50:10] Janine Brady: because my grandmother is probably dead, but I don’t know. But anyway, she dated my My great grandfather’s son, because we were the same age kind of,

[50:21] Michelle: wow, that’s, yeah, I told one of my daughters that if I had known this story, her name would undoubtedly have been Mariah, so my girls are assigned one of them needs to have a Mariah cause this woman has my heart and so. Anyway, there’s a little bit of our family history. Um, I hope that this was interesting to you. It certainly was to me. I, I think I’m kind of, I’ve never, neither of us have had much time for family history work. It’s not been a priority of either of ours, but I am all of a sudden extremely grateful for whichever aunt it was that wrote all of the life sketches in our family history because

[50:57] Janine Brady: there was more than one.

[50:58] Michelle: It is fascinating. But anyway, so I, I guess I really appreciated Linda Lindsay Hanson’s Park’s Year of Polygamy where she talked about the wives of Joseph Smith, and I think, man, there are a lot of wives that deserve to be known. I am she talked about the people that were claimed to be Joseph Smith’s wives and in her series Year of Polygamy, and I, I don’t know, I guess I just really wanted to talk about Anne Mariah Bowen because I think she’s amazing. Amazing and did not, was not treated well by polygamy. And so when we talk about, I tend to be, I don’t know. I mean, her children were taken away from her. She had no say. She was kicked out and had to make her own way back and that was allowed to happen. And you know

[51:46] Janine Brady: I don’t think it was just in polygamous families. I think it was probably a national thing. Women didn’t have much to say. No,

[51:53] Michelle: they didn’t, which is why polygamy is so bad, because when you had one wife, you would have to value her a little bit more. You can’t just kick her out and let the other wives raise her children. And you know, it reminds me, we’ll go into this in another episode, but when I just read the Brigham Young quote again, he made, he has a couple of quotes about wives you can go ahead and leave, and defenders of polygamy used that to say, see, he wasn’t keeping anyone captive. He would let them leave, yeah, without their children with no means of support in Frontier Utah, thousands of miles from any civilization wasn’t really a very generous offer and so. So I think it’s important to recognize these stories. If any of you have stories, I would love to hear them. In fact, doing this has made me think it might be fun to invite different people on to tell a little, you know, have just even a recording of sharing. One of your interesting um ancestors stories. And so anyway, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for being willing to come. Is there anything else you wanted to share or

[52:56] Janine Brady: say everything

[52:58] Michelle: before we wrap it up?

[53:00] Janine Brady: Just that I’m Grateful I had my family. I have my family, and I had one to love the a husband that I absolutely adored and loved, and he, I was the only one he loved.

[53:13] Michelle: Oh, isn’t that wonderful? That’s a great way to wrap it up, and I do want to say that my mom. Raised 9 children and someone, one of my sisters, I think, asked you once, don’t you wish you hadn’t had your children and had just done your music? And

[53:28] Janine Brady: I’ve been asked that a few times

[53:29] Michelle: and I think she said no, because my children gave me the music I wanted to write. We didn’t tell. Oh, this has already gone too long, but I have to tell really quickly when Grandma was expecting Mom. Mom was the oldest. Oh, and we didn’t tell that story. You want to hear that? Yeah, we have to tell it quickly because we’re way over.

[53:49] Janine Brady: OK. Mother was having terrible female problems.

[53:53] Michelle: Well,

[53:54] Janine Brady: she had,

[53:55] Michelle: you may think so she had a really, really hard pregnancy,

[53:58] Janine Brady: and she’d had, she’d had them before, OK. And so the week before I was born, uh, Elder Hubie Brown’s father was the state patriarch, and he invited them over, my parents and said, I have a blessing to give you before your baby’s born.

[54:16] Michelle: One of the stories we tell is that when the missionaries knocked on the door to meet with Grandpa, they asked, Grandma, can we talk? Is your son here? They thought it was his mother because she was so poorly looking. The hard

[54:29] Janine Brady: preg pregnancy, all of them were hard, but that one was really hard and. So anyway. They got this blessing, the elder Brown gave the blessing to my mother

[54:43] Michelle: just before she was ready to deliver

[54:44] Janine Brady: you, ready to deliver and. He told her the baby would be fine and all the things you wanna hear, and then he said. And your child will be a child of, I think you said I was told of great talent or something, you know, I was always

[55:00] Michelle: she’s too humble to tell. She was told that she was told that her child, her baby would be a person of great talent who had a mission to accomplish in this life, an important mission

[55:10] Janine Brady: and to see that the child. She knew that she was to that not able to serve the church

[55:18] Michelle: that the talent was given for a purpose and that they needed to develop that talent

[55:22] Janine Brady: they needed. So when I was born, mothers said they were astounded that I was a girl because they didn’t think that blessing can be.

[55:32] Michelle: It was a it was a boy’s blessing,

[55:34] Janine Brady: a boy’s blessing. So at the age of 4 they started me on the piano. They were both musical and so they were able to help, and I love the part where my first piano teacher was the girl that waited for my dad while he was on his mission.

[55:52] Michelle: That’s who

[55:52] Janine Brady: they started with. So funny.

[55:55] Michelle: So and you said that to them in their world talent meant music.

[55:59] Janine Brady: it was a synonymous word. If you had talent, you were musical. If it was anything else, they didn’t call it talent. That wasn’t just that

[56:08] Michelle: that was your family culture,

[56:10] Janine Brady: yeah, so. They started me at the age of 4 on piano. By the time I was 6, I was reading pretty fluently. And

[56:20] Michelle: when she says reading, she means sight reading piano.

[56:23] Janine Brady: Well, yeah, piano music. First grade and I can tell this because I don’t remember it, but apparently I went up to toddled up to the teacher who was playing for singing and said, would you like me to play that for you because she was struggling and she said, yes, and she slid over

[56:42] Michelle: probably giggling at this little six year old.

[56:44] Janine Brady: And I sat down and played it and ended up playing for all the singing classes in the 6th year, 6th grades that were in them, but

[56:51] Michelle: she became the official school accompanist. So when I was starting at 6 years old,

[56:56] Janine Brady: when I said I’ve accompanied all my life, I wasn’t kidding. And I remember when I was 6 or 7. Mother, Daddy was a cowboy, uh, a cowboy he was, but right then he had a dairy farm and he built me one of those stools like the farmer sit on to milk to put my feet on so I wouldn’t kick the piano. He put 4 legs on instead of one, but anyway, so I wouldn’t kick the piano were too little because I was so little. Now where was I going?

[57:27] Michelle: I don’t know. My mom called me on her way home from the interview, sad that she had forgotten this part of the story that she wanted to tell. One of the music books that they used only had the single note of the melody line written in, but my mom was playing full chords with both hands. This was when she was 6 and 7 years old. She said that her mom asked her why she was playing so many more notes when only one note was written, and my mom’s little. year old answer was, I thought they couldn’t afford the rest of the notes. And so she wanted to help by filling them all in. She loved that story because it was right in the heart of the Great Depression, and this was their life. And so she already was very budget conscious, conscious and knew about doing without and getting by and making the most you could with what you had. So she thought that that applied to the notes on the page just as well as everything else.

[58:22] Janine Brady: Uh, by then I was improvising and playing by ear, which is what I love to do the most.

[58:28] Michelle: So yeah, I didn’t know that everyone didn’t wake up every morning hearing music being composed right above their bedroom. So anyway, so I, I consider myself lucky to be to be their daughter,

[58:41] Janine Brady: any of you that lasted for this.

[58:45] Michelle: Yeah, and next time we were going to dive right into the heart of 132 and really get in and dissect. We have so many more things to talk about. So thanks for sticking around with us and we will get back to it next week.