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[00:00] Michelle: Welcome to 132 problems revisiting Mormon polygamy, where we explore the scriptural theological and historical case for plural marriage. I am excited to be able to bring this episode to you today. I was able to sit down a few weeks ago for a second conversation with historian Barbara Jones Brown this time to discuss post manifesto polygamy. And I think you’ll be excited to see the incredible amazing connections that we discovered that really made this conversation much more exciting for both of us. We actually had spent several hours on the phone the night before just going over all of the amazing ways that we found that we line up. So I’m excited for you to hear that part of it. Um I always again, want to recommend that people start at the beginning of this podcast or at least go back and understand the scriptural case that we laid out first to understand if polygamy is ever of God because I think that’s the most important question and then proceeding on to the questions about Joseph Smith. And then I realized I really have not done much yet on post manifesto polygamy other than talking about my family. And so this is kind of the first conversation I’ll have about Post Manifesto polygamy. But I think that there will be many more in the future. So I’m glad you’re here. And thank you for joining us as we take this deep dive into the very murky waters of Post Manifesto Mormon Polygamy. Welcome to this episode. I’m so excited to be here again with my new friend, Barbara Jones Brown and I think I can call you a friend at this point because we’ve had a fun little adventure together. So it’s
[01:40] Barbara: crazy. The connection we figured out. That’s right.
[01:44] Michelle: Yeah. So I have to just quickly share if that’s ok and feel free to add anything. But I actually, I’m still a little bit swollen. I had to have a big facial surgery this um this a couple of weeks ago and I’ve been recovering. You look great. Oh, thank you. I just, I a little bit more. You would never
[02:00] Barbara: know you just had
[02:01] Michelle: surgery. Thank you. But so anyway, I was going to cancel my interviews this week. I canceled my other and then I went to text Barbara and it was just this complete stupor of thought like I couldn’t. So I was like, ok, so, and, and just being me how I work. So I just prayed about it and, and I just felt like, ok, I’ll try again tomorrow and then as I went and prayed about it I just felt like no, don’t cancel. And so I was like, ok. And then so despite everything, I started to get ready for the interview and I looked up more of Barbara’s work because you’ve done a ton of work on post manifesto polygamy and lo and behold, she researched my family in depth, in huge depth. And so when I texted her last night to send her the um or yesterday evening to send her the link, I was like, and this is going to be so fun. You’ve researched my family. So I get this text back. That was like, what who are they? So needless to say, I think we spent what three hours on the phone last night until batter
[03:02] Barbara: family history, which I studied um for years and wrote about for years. So that’s a crazy connection, crazy small world. So yeah, so this
[03:12] Michelle: is actually
[03:12] Barbara: like polygamy. You know, we’re going to be talking about Post Manifesto polygamy today. But it was so interesting to find out that polygamy including post Manifesto polygamy was practiced so recently in your in your family line. So it’s it’s closer for you.
[03:29] Michelle: It is, it is, it’s close. My mother’s mother was raised in in polygamy, Post Manifesto Mormon, friendly polygamy like they weren’t FLT
[03:41] Barbara: they were sanctioned,
[03:43] Michelle: sanctioned, right? And we need a term for it because I call it post post manifesto because we, we should tell. Well, anyway, first of all, welcome, welcome. And thank you for being here and I’m so excited to talk to you officially on the record as well as how much fun we had talking last night and more today as she’s been sharing sources with me and I got on the phone with my mom and tried to find out all kinds of history. But um so those of you who, who didn’t watch our last episode, Barbara co-wrote Vengeance’s Mind, which is the second book that she was involved with on the Mountain Meadows Massacre. So I just, so you have to know like this lady is tough as nails Mountain Meadows Massacre. And Post Manifesto polygamy are her two specialties
[04:27] Barbara: which I just, I know I always joke about, I just kind of fell into both. I was hired by both to start working on these subjects. I wasn’t out looking for these subjects. They just both kind of fell into my lap. So I say, yeah, I write probably about the two most controversial topics in Mormon history, the massacre and Post Manifesto polygamy. So go figure
[04:52] Michelle: those are for sure, the hardest topic. So I, so this is amazing to talk to you. And um and so yeah, so we spoke last time about mountain meadows and and didn’t have very much time. So you, so we’re, we’re now talking about Post Manifesto polygamy, her other area of expertise, which she got into by studying my post post manifest polygamy ancestors. So this is real. I like, I think, I don’t know you and I, we, we geeked out, we really geeked out last night for several hours. So hopefully this will be as fun and interesting to the audience as it is to both of us. So do you want to explain how you got into post manifesto polygamy? You said you were hired but like, sure.
[05:33] Barbara: Yes. So I um am a former editor for the Ensign Magazine. Um I, my undergraduate major was journalism and English. And so I worked for many years as a professional editor, including from the Ensign Magazine. And while working there, I started editing church history articles. So I started getting interested in church history, um which led to both projects that, that will, that the Mount Meadows Project and then Post Manifesto polygamy. Anyways, I um after I had my first baby, I resigned from full time work at the Einstein. So I could spend more time at home with her. But I was still involved with freelance work. And uh two men came to me and asked me to write the biography of their mother. Her name was Lorna K Alder and she was born um into an L DS sanctioned polygamous marriage.
[06:30] Michelle: She’s my great aunt. That’s
[06:33] Barbara: right. That’s
[06:34] Michelle: right. My great half aunt, we have, we’re from different
[06:37] Barbara: mothers, same great, great grandfather or her father
[06:44] Michelle: was grandfather,
[06:46] Barbara: grandfather. So Anson Bowen call was his name. She was still alive. She was 98 years old at the time and she died when she was 100 and seven. So I was fortunate enough to be able to do 38 oral history interviews with her as part of this project. And then I started just delving into doing all the research on her family history and life in what was colloquial called the Mormon colonies of Northern Mexico, Chihuahua Mexico. And that’s where I learned all about post manifesto polygamy. Um So that’s why I came to that project. And then after I completed that project, um I was hired to edit a book called Massacre at Mount Meadows for Richard Turley, Ron Walker and Glenn Leonard who wrote that book. Um I was working for the church history department full time again then, um and then later, I co-authored, as you mentioned, Vengeance is Mine, the Mount Middles Massacre and its aftermath with Richard Turley. So those have been my two big projects that I’ve I’ve worked on in, in Mormon history.
[07:54] Michelle: OK. So that’s good to get the timeline. So you were hired to do the to do Lorna’s biography before you started Mountain Meadows. And then do you know why they came to you?
[08:06] Barbara: Um So they had gone to um someone at the Ensign Magazine, they were looking for someone, you know, that would be a good writer and editor. And um and then someone referred them to me. They said, oh, well, Barbara Jones Brown, is great and she’s looking for freelance work. And so they refer me to that and they actually, um, had me do some editing first on, uh, I’ll hold it up this biography on an, and bow and call your ancestor. Let’s see. There we go. Which was actually being written by Lorna K Alder and actually wrote the introductory chapter for that book. So that’s, that’s in that book. Um, and then after that, they asked me to write her biography.
[08:50] Michelle: OK. Can we talk really quickly about her? Because I didn’t even know about her really? Until I saw that you had worked on her and looked her
[08:59] Barbara: because she was an amazing woman, really a remarkable woman. Yeah.
[09:03] Michelle: So that book as kind of the final thing of her life, she wrote that. What was it, was it published when she was 100 3? Was she 100 and three when that was published? 100 and two?
[09:13] Barbara: She was an award winner, co-author Bill Hartley who William Hartley, who was a BYU uh professor. They won the Mormon History Association best biography award that year. And so when she, I was there at the ceremony when she received that award and everybody, when they announced, you know, told about her and said she’d been born in 1906 as she’s walking up to receive her award, like there was just a gasp in the room and everybody was like 1906. No, I
[09:42] Michelle: believe she is in history.
[09:45] Barbara: Yeah. The oldest author ever to win a history award at 100 and two from my magic. Pretty cool moment. So
[09:53] Michelle: obviously perfectly sharp and mobile and still
[09:56] Barbara: super sharp up until the end of her life, incredibly sharp. Mind still. Yeah.
[10:01] Michelle: So, so maybe we can start by talking about her because I think it’s so interesting because so she in a day she was, her mother was a polygamist. She was like, right. She’s, and so, um, yeah, I should say she was raised in polygamy herself. And, um, and they weren’t the, let’s see, that was Anson Bowen and Thresa, but her mother was Julia the fourth wife,
[10:24] Barbara: right? Yeah. Her parents were the call and Julia Abe call.
[10:30] Michelle: Ok. And so she was the younger wife that was Anson Bowen close to 40 she was a
[10:38] Barbara: Anson is, well, he went by Bowen. So let’s just call him Bowen. Bowen was 39 when he married her mother, Julia who was 17 and she was his fourth wife. Yeah, one other wife had passed away. So Bowen at that time had two living wives, Theresa, who was your ancestor. And then Dottie Pratt and Dottie was Parley p Pratt’s granddaughter. Ok. Uh Dottie passed away a few years later but make a long story short when, when Bowen and Julia were married, he was, he’s, he had two living wives at the time, Teresa and Dottie.
[11:23] Michelle: Ok. And that was a hard, so, so one thing I loved talking to Barbara, I don’t want to speak for you. So you can say, but like if you’re going to live polygamy do it like the calls did, right? Like they were one of the best families you can find
[11:38] Barbara: if you’re going to live it. Um I would recommend it. They were, they were good people. They were living a principle that they believed that their church leaders had started and taught and what they were taught you had to do in order to reach the highest degree of the celestial kingdom or the Mormon heaven, the latter day Saint heaven, if you will. So they were, they were living, they made great sacrifices to live this incredibly difficult and hard principle, but they made the most of it. And uh they were good people. I was, I was always impressed with how good these people were.
[12:20] Michelle: That’s what I guess what I’m saying is like they made, they did it about as well as it could be done is how it looks to me like for the most part with Thresa and, and Bowen. But, but even they, it was a struggle with Julia because so Julia was so much younger and Bowen kind of decided on his own to like, like he had a revelation and, and informed Thresa and dottie that he was marrying, that God wanted him to marry Julia who was 17. And so that was always tricky. They had Children that age. Right. So, so Julia
[12:58] Barbara: was still quite a bit younger than I think. Bone and Theresa’s youngest but not a ton. Like, maybe I can’t give you the exact number 17 or 18 years younger. So they weren’t the same age. But, but yes, she was significantly younger
[13:16] Michelle: than me. I mean, I mean, she was the age of thresa Children. She was close to the age of their Children. She
[13:21] Barbara: was, she was like 15 or 17 years younger than Theres and Bowen’s youngest child. I can look at it right now if you want me to.
[13:30] Michelle: I, ok. Yeah, we, we’ll figure that out. Maybe I’m just confused.
[13:33] Barbara: So she was still significantly. Yeah. Um,
[13:39] Michelle: I was trying to say she was, she was the age of about the age of their Children is what it seems like it would normally be in those situations. Maybe. Let’s see. I
[13:47] Barbara: just wanna make sure I’m giving accurate information here. So Julia
[13:51] Michelle: says this was born in 86. Yeah. So
[13:54] Barbara: Julia was born in 1885. So, yes, she was the same age at her oldest. You’re right.
[14:02] Michelle: I mean, she was literally her daughters and she was in between those first two daughters. The second daughter is my great grandmother.
[14:10] Barbara: She was older than Theresa Bowen’s youngest child. She was the same as their oldest daughter. Yeah. Yeah, it’s,
[14:20] Michelle: it’s pretty tough. Yeah. So it is. Um, and so Lorna was the oldest daughter of Julia, that teenage wife and she was a spitfire. She, in that generation went not only got her undergraduate degree but went to was it Columbia and got her master’s degree.
[14:37] Barbara: She, she earned a, he, she earned a degree four year degree at BYU starting in 1926. And not when, when not a lot of women L DS or just American women in general were not going to college and getting college degrees very often at that age. In fact, not even just women, just people in general weren’t getting a lot of college, not a lot of people were getting college degrees in that era. Um that came about later over time. But so she earned that degree in 1926 and, and or excuse me in the 19 twenties and then she goes off later to Columbia University to earn a master’s degree in education. So she was, she was remarkable for her time whether being polygamous or L DS or not. That was really remarkable for women to do that was
[15:25] Michelle: um for sure. And then she was, she was a BYU professor or BYA, I guess Brigham Young Academy.
[15:31] Barbara: Yeah. Later she becomes a professor at BYU and she taught education for many, many years at Brigham Young University.
[15:39] Michelle: Ok. And so because I called my mom to ask about her. So I’ve done episodes in the past with my mom, people that know Janine Brady that’s my mom and she lived with Lorna in Provo, her first semester at, by a, so she knew Lorna and her husband and the two little boys when, you know, because my mom’s older than Lorna’s two sons. So
[16:01] Barbara: that hired me to write your book.
[16:04] Michelle: Isn’t that fun? And this was interesting. This was an insight, like my mom kind of had culture shock going from her very, very obedient polygamous, raised mother to going into Lorna’s home where Lorna and her husband were more equals. You know, I called my mom back and I was like, you were so used to the very, very submissive wife that to see a wife who wasn’t equal to her husband for as Lorna would have been more than my mom was used to do. You know what I mean? It was culture shock to her because my mom really was raised like you don’t, you don’t disagree with your husband. You don’t raise your, you don’t argue back. Like it’s very much like, is there a fork and one of the mother or one of the daughters gets up and gets a fork for the husband or one of the sons? That was the
[16:53] Barbara: culture? I will say that Lorna was absolutely equal with her husband and of course they were in a monogamous marriage. But yeah, she was very well educated. She had her own career. Um she herself didn’t marry until she was 39 had her first baby at 41 and her second baby at 46. Um So, yeah, she was very much a strong well educated woman who would have considered herself very much equal with her husband,
[17:22] Michelle: right? I think that’s profound. And um yeah, so, so a story that I got, I called my cousin this morning. Well, my mother’s cousin, I’m a generation below. But she, did you get the little black eyed girl story in Lorna’s biography? Do you remember about
[17:37] Barbara: Maria? So I read
[17:41] Michelle: about one thing that everyone remembers about Lorna is she would say come sit on the lap that sat on the lap, that of Joseph Smith, come sit on the lap. No, she, she said sit on the lap that sat on the lap of the out of a lap. So maybe I’m missing three generations back. So, so just really quickly, Anne Mariah Bowen, my ancestor that I’ve talked about before. She was the one that was orphaned. She was 15 and drove a team across the plains. Her sister’s team say them from going down the river like like she was a this amazing woman. Then at 17 when she was in the valley, she was given away to Mary Anson call as his young teenager by nobody’s consent, like Brigham Young just assigned that in conference and then she was sent away. She was divorced and her Children were kept and they went back and got the baby. I told this story before. It’s a tragic story. But as a little girl, there’s this beautiful story. I wonder if I should take time to read it really quickly. The black eyed girl, do you care if I ask? This is
[18:48] Barbara: Lorna’s grandmother, Mariah?
[18:51] Michelle: Ok. Ok. That’s so it’s her grandmother. So yeah, so I’ll explain and this is, this is Mariah. So Mariah is that 15 year old and then the 17 year old wife who was her Children were taken away and she was divorced. This is about her when she was a little girl and it’s her mother that wrote it. So this is um, Mariah’s mother’s story. Her name was Charlotte Louisa Dur Durham. And she said, while sewing a quilt with my dear friend Emma. One lovely spring day, her husband Joseph Smith. The it came through the open door and straight away greeted his beloved wife with a kiss saying it’s, it is good to be home dear. She happily nodded in agreement. Then turning toward me. He exclaimed, what a pleasure to see you mother Bowen and cheerfully shook my hand. You as well. Brother Joseph. I replied, thank you. He stated and then asked, and who is this young lady? He crouched down to get a good look at my quiet little girl standing next to me. Her name is Mariah. The prophet kindly asked. Hello, Mariah, may I tell you a story? She shyly nodded. Then sitting in a large wooden rocking chair. The prophet gently lifted up, lifted her up on his lap and began many long years ago, there was a faith filled group of 2000 young men who marched into war to defend freedom. After fighting in a fierce battle. The boys were wounded but miraculously, none of them died. Now, my young friend, do you know the reason why Mariah shook her head and softly said no, because he instructed their mothers taught them that if they did not doubt God would deliver them, then the prophet paused, looked directly into her deep dark eyes and asked some day Mariah, do you think you could teach your Children to have faith in Jesus Christ? Like the Stripling warriors? Yes, I think I can. She promised making him smile. Brother Joseph warmly set her down and agreed. That’s right. My little black eyed girl, surely you shall. And so that’s family lore II, I don’t know if you came across that, but that was written by Mariah’s mother, which I thought was just a wonderful, charming little story. So you came across that in your
[20:47] Barbara: work. I can’t remember whether I did or not. It’s not ringing any bells right now. But I think, I think I do remember and I’m so sorry I did all this work like 20 years ago. Um But I think I do remember something about um Lorna’s Joseph Smith calling Lorna’s grandmother’s little black eye girl. I think I remember just that, that’s what he called her. I don’t remember the family story that was passed down necessarily.
[21:14] Michelle: But right, I was trying to do the math because I could say the same thing. But I’d have to say come sit on the lap that sat on the lap that sat on the lap that sat on the lap of, of the prophet Joseph Smith. Maybe there’s anyway, it’s a fun, it’s a fun story. So I like that one. I have to very quickly jump into the discussion at this point to explain something that story that I just read to Barbara Jones Brown is not true. So my cousin had made this darling little book of all of her family history. It has both sides of her family, but one of those sides is my family history too. So it’s this darling book that she um worked so hard on, compiled all of the pictures and stories about all of our ancestors. And after I read this story from it, I got a little bit concerned because I was like, wow, that’s a really well worded story that’s very complete and didn’t seem, you know, like, II I kind of started wondering where it had come from. So I started to try to look for it and couldn’t find it anywhere. So I called her and after a bit of a conversation, she told me that she really wanted the Children, her grandchildren who she was primarily writing this book for by all of the other Children to not just have a name and maybe a picture. She wanted them to feel some emotional connection to her ancestors. So she thought that it would be helpful to make up to write little stories about her ancestors. So she, you know, she was prayerful about it and, and did and I thought, thought it was a darling story, but she made it up and if you look at it, I’ll, I’ll go all this back to the stage. You can see that it says um let me get over here where I can change the screen. That is the little black eyed girl. Now, that part of the story is true. That’s the part that’s come down in family history is that Joseph Smith called Anne Mariah Bowen, his little black eyed girl. That part is true. But you can see what this says here at the top of the story as told by Charlotte Louisa Durham Bowen, her mother. And I think that’s the part that really confused me. I just read it and assumed it was true and didn’t think, oh, I need to check this out as carefully as I try to check out other sources. I was so embarrassed after that. I actually texted Barbara and was like, oh my gosh, this totally is not a true story. And she was so sweet and gracious and said, I thought it was just family lore. It was just fine and I was tempted to erase it from the, from the conversation, but I actually thought it was very instructive. It certainly was to me and probably to all of us about how history often gets done. How like sometimes a very well meaning family member for, for sweet and um good reasons, makes up stories and then passes them on and all of the Children who grow up reading this are going to think that’s a true story about their ancestor and pass that on, right. It also can happen sometimes for a little bit more nefarious purposes when you’re trying to prove something or trying to claim something that’s not necessarily true. But I just thought this was a great experience to see how tricky history can be for a huge variety of reasons. Now, back to the conversation anyway. So, so that’s Lorna and then um from there, did you write your, so I know you’ve done several papers or chapters and books about Post Manifesto polygamy. Were those before or after mountain meadows or in between? This was, this
[24:39] Barbara: was before. Well, actually, I think it was actually during because Rick and I wrote um Vengeance’s Mind over, it took uh 14 years that we were on that book. And so, yeah, um so, and, and part of the reason it took so long is we were also working on other projects. It wasn’t like we were both just full time on one book. But also, but just the, the research was exhaustive and we were, I mean, we did really, really thorough deep research. So that’s part of the reason. And the other part of the reason was we’re, you know, always involved in other projects as well. And so I was kind of simultaneously uh working on this project. But um uh
[25:22] Michelle: do you want to show that I wanted
[25:24] Barbara: to share just two chapters? I wrote in two books on the subject if people want to read more about it. So there is this one, it’s called Just South of Zion, The Mormons in Mexico and the Borderlands. And I have a chapter in here about post manifesto polygamy as it was practiced in Chihuahua Mexico. And the reason why Latter Day Saints colonizers came from uh Utah and Arizona and Wyoming and why they went down to Mexico to start these colonies. So
[25:58] Michelle: do you know where I looked for that book? And I couldn’t, I’m sure I didn’t look enough, but it was
[26:03] Barbara: published by the University of New Mexico Press.
[26:08] Michelle: And so I’ll have to see if I can find it. I couldn’t find it
[26:12] Barbara: published in 2015. Yeah. So I was definitely working on this simultaneously with working on mountain meadows. Um The other chapter and this one is more thorough, thorough. This one goes more into post manifesto polygamy and the, the policy and the politics behind it and how it fell out of practice in mainstream Mormonism Um So there’s a chapter in this book as well. It’s called The Persistence Of Polygamy, three fundamentalist Mormon Polygamy from 1890 to the present. And so I also talk about your family members as well in here. But then again, more into the church policy and all of the history and so forth. But this book was also published in 2015. Um The chapter in this book won the Mormon History Association’s best article award on International History. Oh, wow. OK.
[27:10] Michelle: So, so if we read, so the persistence of polygamy is available. And so I do, I do have that one. But if I read that one, do I need to read the other one too? Is there a lot of overlap, do they?
[27:22] Barbara: Yeah, there is some overlap. Um as I mentioned. So the one that’s just South of Zion is more about it includes more Mexican history, Mexican so that it brings that more into the story and the persistence of polygamy. One goes more into more into church policy and, and L Ds church headquarters, history and the political history of why, how it ended in mainstream latter Day Saint practice.
[27:52] Michelle: OK. And, and I told Barbara, I really, like, I, I wanted to read that I went out of my way to make sure I had that article before our interview today, but I instead spent the whole evening talking on the phone, so I haven’t read it yet. So I’m really excited to but um but from what I did read, it looks phenomenal. And so now we can dig into post manifesto polygamy. I guess. I first want to ask when you started studying, I guess for Lorna, what were you surprised?
[28:26] Barbara: Very surprised because I was not yet a professional historian. I had not had any formal training in history yet. I should mention that. I um uh after I started and I think I pretty much finished my biography of Lorna. Um I went back to graduate school and earned a master’s degree in American History from the University of Utah. So, yeah, so I was not super well versed in um church history, Mormon history. Um And so when I started reading this family story, and I found out that they were sealed in marriage after the 1890 manifesto. And I guess for readers or listeners who don’t know what that is, we had to explain that. But in 1890 the president of the church at the time, Wilfred Woodruff, he issued a manifesto saying that the church is no longer encouraging um plural marriage or um contracting new plural marriages. So when I found out that that they were, um
[29:36] Michelle: and that’s included in our doctrine and covenants, that’s the first manifesto still canonized in our doctrine. If you look
[29:42] Barbara: at that manifesto, it’s very carefully worded, it says anywhere in the territory. So that was true, but it’s, it’s kind of misleading because they were contracting new and encouraging new plural marriages outside of the United States. So that’s why you have all these folks moving to Mexico who already were polygamous. And so they wanted to live without free of persecution in their polygamous families. So they went to Mexico to live free of that and, or to Canada. And I should point out though that um polygamy was illegal in Mexico. That’s a, a misconception that sometimes people have. They think it was legal. But what it was um leaders in Mexico wanted that colonization. They wanted to encourage um farmers, Mormon farmers to come in and help develop the Mexican economy by living there. So they kind of agreed to just look the other way and say, if you don’t say anything about it, if you don’t make a big deal about the fact that you’re still practicing polygamy, we will just kind of look the other way. And again, I, I go into detail in this, in, in these articles. If people want to delve into that.
[30:51] Michelle: Oh, that’ll be fun. OK.
[30:52] Barbara: Yeah. So I I to learn that actually new, new plural marriages were being contracted. OK.
[31:01] Michelle: So, so in a way, the colonies thrived because of the manifesto, right? Like, oh, absolutely. The reason for being is,
[31:11] Barbara: yeah, absolutely. So, um so a couple of, and I can’t remember off the top of my head. I’m so sorry. This research is, no,
[31:19] Michelle: you’re great.
[31:20] Barbara: A couple of church leaders, I think it was Heli and Pratt who was partly p Pratt’s son and another apostle. Again, it’s in the article, but they go south in the 18 eighties. Um, because anti polygamy legislation is ramping up, it’s heating up in the United States. And so they start exploring places where these polygamous families can live in peace without being, um, you know, having their, the, the fathers put into prison
[31:49] Michelle: in their striped pajamas because of the like the Edmonds Act. The
[31:54] Barbara: act. Exactly. So they start looking for place where families can live in peace from this. So that’s why they start going south border into Mexico and then they, they purchase land and then a lot more particular after the manifesto, a lot more polygamous families start moving there in earnest or people who want to live the principle of polygamy start moving there in earnest. So there were several uh latter day saint colonies in Chihuahua and Sonora Mexico.
[32:27] Michelle: OK. So Anson Bowen call, he was, as I’ve said, Mariah, his mother when she was sent away, he was either three or four, he was the youngest other than the baby that she took. So he moved down there and he ended up, he was the bishop. I, I believe it was colonial Dublon is where my grandmother was born. And so he was the bishop there for something like 30 years,
[32:48] Barbara: 30 years. Yeah.
[32:50] Michelle: OK. And so he was, he was the polygamous bishop. In one of
[32:56] Barbara: them, one of them named Colonia Juarez, to which still exists as a Mormon community today, not polygamous in mainstream latter day saint practice, but the academy is in Colonia Juarez. Um So, yeah, so there were other communities where there were bishops
[33:21] Michelle: and you said you’ve even been to my great grandparents’ home. It’s, that’s incredible. It was
[33:28] Barbara: surreal to write this whole story, write all about the home, write all these stories about their lives there and then to go down there and visit the home and walk inside the home that I had. It was like getting in a time machine and writing about the tithing office that’s still standing there and um various buildings and structures that are still there. That was, that was surreal. It was really neat, really powerful experience to go.
[33:57] Michelle: That’s incredible. So is it still there? Is colonial Duplo still there as well as colonial water? It’s been
[34:02] Barbara: absorbed by like I, I can’t remember the other community, but it’s just kind of grown. Of course, many over the last 100 plus years. So other communities have kind of grown and absorbed it. So really the the the only community that still has quite a bit of a latter day saint population is Colonia Juarez where the Juarez Steak Academy is and there’s a temple there. Now there’s Melds temple there.
[34:29] Michelle: OK. So I just, I, I want to make a caveat here and you can correct if I get anything wrong. So Barbara and I did talk for a long time both about our points of agreement and our points of very strong disagreement. But um it was interesting. So, so most people that are my listeners will know what we’re talking about. But um it was interesting to hear that. Like, like I have found it interesting, Joseph F Smith just was telling one story and doing something very different. We we know that, right? But I think he justified that because he thought that’s what Joseph Smith did. It, it seems to me and for people that see them being of the same character, right? It seems to a lot of people like it doesn’t matter me if Joseph denied polygamy because I read Joseph F Smith denying polygamy and it feels the same. Yeah, not
[35:19] Barbara: just Joseph F Smith, but all of the leaders denying after the 1890 manifesto denying that it was being practiced anymore when in fact, it is, is very much being practiced still. And so not just Joseph Smith, but many leaders. And so that’s why, yeah, I mean, you know, we respectfully disagree. II I firmly believe that Joseph Smith instituted polygamy, but, but again, we respectfully disagree on for another different interpretations. But um so yeah, seeing how church leaders very much were publicly denying the practice of polygamy. Long after Postman, I have no problem believing uh that Joseph Smith and Hiram Smith were also publicly denying that they were practicing it while privately practicing it. But anyway, that’s
[36:13] Michelle: for another day. Yeah, those, those discussions will be had at a different time. But um there was something I wanted to say, oh, so I don’t know if this came up in your research. But this, so the story I was raised on because it was very, I didn’t understand all the implications as a little girl. I just thought. So one of the things Barbara and I talked about, so I’m going in a bunch of different directions. You have to remind me if I lose my train of thought. Again, I’m talking about Joseph F Smith and my grandfather, my great grandfather. But one thing we talked about is our extremely different views of polygamy growing up because I grew up very close to
[36:50] Barbara: polygamy.
[36:51] Michelle: And I, I genuinely thought that polygamy and the law of consecration are the laws of Zion and of heaven. And as soon as we’re righteous enough and worthy to live those laws, then Jesus can come. And like, like that was my perspective, which I think shocked a lot and I didn’t even know it was, I didn’t know that wasn’t just objectively true for any Mormon. I
[37:15] Barbara: Yeah. And I think it’s fascinating. So, so I come from polygamy, polygamous ancestors as well. But much further back in, in my family, I have no instances of post manifesto polygamy in my, in my family lines. 1818 90. Yeah. Um And so, so yeah. So polygamy in your family is much closer to you than it is for me. So for me, I was taught about my ancestors practicing polygamy. Probably my most famous polygamous ancestor was Willard Richards who was um you know Apostle and in the first presidency and was with Joseph and Hiram when they were assassinated and he was there when polygamy was starting in Nabu. he was there. Um
[38:04] Michelle: but he was a Nabu polygamist. Yes, he
[38:07] Barbara: was. Yes. Um Another famous polygamous I have is Christopher Leighton, whom Leighton Utah is named after he had 10 wives and 65 Children. The most recorded in L DS church history. That that’s the most Children that anyone is recorded as having. So those are kind of my two most ancestors.
[38:26] Michelle: What was the number? How many Children? Five
[38:29] Barbara: 65 and John D Lee had 64. So,
[38:33] Michelle: wow.
[38:34] Barbara: Yeah. So my dad grew up just telling me about these polygamous ancestors. But for me, what he, the way he would say it to me, it was just like, oh, well, that’s something they did in the past. You know, we haven’t done that for a long, long, long, long time. And that was just an old. And so in my mind as a kid growing up, I thought it was just, oh, it’s just this old marriage system that doesn’t exist anymore rather than I was never taught by by my family that it was like, oh, is this principle and we, it has to be done and we’re gonna have in the celestial kingdom and all that. I never grew up hearing that from my ancestors. So it’s interesting to compare like different ways of, of how we were told about our polygamous ancestors.
[39:14] Michelle: Definitely. And I think that both groups still exist within the church. I think, I think that’s probably the, like the majority of church members I would think are like uh weird, gross. Yeah, that’s gone. Goodbye. We don’t want to think about it, right? Kind of. And then I think there is a group of church members that haven’t gone on the same journey I’ve gone on that are um very like, like Brigham Young said, the only men who will be gods or sons of gods are those who are polygamists. And then going on later, he says at least polygamous in their heart, right? And I think there are a lot of people that are like, I’m a polygamist in my heart. So I qualify for those blessings in the church. And then we have the whole interesting fundamental situation. The first time I met, I met some lovely girls from the all red group that I became somewhat friends with. I was in their home a few times and they told me the stories of their ancestors and I was like, works for me, you know, like they were told they were told that their ancestors were told by the president of the church that they were called to be separate from the church and to keep the principal alive until the day that the church and the principal could come back together. So they, and I was like, that makes sense because so this is the story I was going to tell you my, our family history and of course, it’s not written down anywhere. So, you know, because it’s
[40:32] Barbara: legend or family lore.
[40:34] Michelle: Well, I shouldn’t say there’s not a, there’s not a documentation you can find from Joseph F Smith because there wouldn’t be right. But it is in our histories is that um that, that Joseph F Smith called my grandfather to go to Mexico to take a second wife. So, so again, for anyone that hasn’t. So um will my um William Gy Sayers was married to um Aggie and um Agne met Min. She was the daughter of a, of a general authority of some sort. Anyway, they were unable to have Children. And my great grandfather had a dream that he had a family. So I believe he went and talked to Joseph F Smith and Joseph F Smith called him to go to Mexico to take another wife so that he could have his family. And my grandfather said, but I thought we weren’t doing that anymore. And Joseph F Smith said, I’m not calling you as the president of the church. I’m calling you as the president of the priesthood and, and sent him to Mexico. And that really rings true in terms of what Joseph F Smith believed and did. And the fact that my mom, they moved back to Utah, my um grandfather worked in the church office building, served in high callings. He was a mission president several times. And, you know, I had a big Mormon funeral, the general authorities spoke and so he was in very, very good standing and he was married in 1906 to his second wife. And so anyway, so it’s interesting,
[42:02] Barbara: Anderson was Bowen call and Theresa call’s daughter.
[42:08] Michelle: Mhm. Yeah. So Bowen was the bishop and then my great grandmother was 16 and was the belle of the ball. What was it called? The queen of the May? She was like,
[42:17] Barbara: yeah, she was in the May 5th parade down there in Mexico. And that’s where William Sears and his wife saw her and said, oh, so maybe she’s the one that we should ask to join our family by being William’s polygamous wife so that we can have Children. William can have Children through her. Yeah, that’s the story that’s, that is in, it’s documented in this book um at the back. Yeah, as I mentioned before, uh bad at movie. OK. In the back of this book, it has a life sketches of all of Anson Bowen calls Children. And that life sketch again, which was edited but this book was edited by Lorna called Alder. So her sister. So that’s inaccurate um story about how that. Yeah.
[43:03] Michelle: And then just to go on, oh,
[43:05] Barbara: Agnes, I should say Agnes’s maiden name was mcmurrin. Agnes’s father was Joseph mcmurrin who was a general authority at the time. So it’s hard to believe that Agnes and William would have contracted polygamist. It might have been a marriage without his approval. He
[43:26] Michelle: was a general, might have even been him. It might have been him that, that set up to go speak to Joseph F Smith who, because he, you know,
[43:34] Barbara: I mean, it’s just speculation because it’s not documented but it could have been. But yeah, it is interesting that her, that Agnes this polygamist who became the first of this polygamous relationship that her father was a general authority was a
[43:46] Michelle: general authority. That is interesting and Thresa, this is just a point of interest. Um Thresa, her grandfather was Isaac Isaac Barlow, Isaac Barlow. And
[43:57] Barbara: so she was a Barlow. That’s right.
[44:01] Michelle: I’m like which polygamous name was it? It was the Barlows. Yeah. And so, so that’s really, it’s like all in there. It’s really interesting. So anyway, so we were talking about Joseph F Smith. That’s why I wanted to tell that story because there was this, this conflict of feeling like all of the previous presidents said this was absolutely essential and it could not be taken from the earth and this principle needs to be. It’s the restoration of all things never to be taken away.
[44:29] Barbara: And I go into that in this in, in my chapter as well. Yeah, John Taylor was saying it, it cannot, it was basically at the time they were saying this is the church, this is our gospel, this is who we are, this is essential to who we are. And if you end polygamy, then you would end the church, which of course proved not to be true, right? But
[44:51] Michelle: they didn’t even, they didn’t even at that point really have um temple work as like temple work wasn’t part of the church at that point because they didn’t even have like it wasn’t until the Saint George temple, which was right, just a little while before the manifesto, but the Salt Lake Temple wasn’t done until after the first manifesto. So the theology was very different. It was very much polygamy is the way to receive exaltation
[45:19] Barbara: that right? I mean, they were doing temple work though, starting in Navoo. But then you’re right. And until the um the Saint George temple was dedicated in the late 19th century in southern Utah. Um They were doing what uh temple work in what was called the endowment house. And so that’s where people use their endowments and to be sealed. And also this is one thing I also didn’t realize when I started studying this, this family story was I didn’t realize that ceilings back then were commonly, regularly, frequently, normally, um, conducted, the ceilings were conducted outside of temples. I, I assume that ceilings always were only done in temples or the endowment house, but ceilings could be done as long as it was somebody who was given that priesthood authority ceilings were performed anywhere. So that was
[46:10] Michelle: ok. So it wasn’t, I didn’t know it was the person, not the place that it was the
[46:15] Barbara: authority. It was the priest of authority um who was authorized to, to conduct the ceilings, not the place. I didn’t know that before.
[46:27] Michelle: Yeah, but apparently, um well, we need to talk more about Joseph Smith, but apparently at least in our family records, we like um that that 16 year old wife Ophelia and will the 39 year old, they, they were married in 1906, they weren’t sealed. So it was the understanding of, you know, I should say. I said that’s, that’s what my family believes because it was understood that they weren’t born in. Those Children weren’t born in the covenant is what the people now, in any case. So that’s the generation above me did the temple work for them.
[47:02] Barbara: So it’s interesting that that’s like the interpretation now. But I just want to caution like, so before we started talking, I told you about this source that d Michael Quinn historian working for the church history archives back in the 19 seventies, he identified a book. It was called temple ceilings performed outside of Temple’s book B. Um So, so we know there are and, and then I’ve also peruse records at the Utah State Historical Society archives that um I think it was Anthony Ivan’s papers were not donated to the L DS Church history department, but to the, the state history archives and Anthony Ivan’s records shows countless ceilings that took place uh polygamous and just first marriages that took place in the uh Mexican L DS Colum. So there, there are ones about ceilings. So there may be, you know, and again, it would take further research, but it may be that they in fact, were actually sealed and they’re just not in the official records of the church. Does that make sense? Right.
[48:11] Michelle: Absolutely. I, I think it’s, it’s an interesting question that that’s the point I was making the generation older than my thought that they weren’t sealed and couldn’t find Sealy records. So it’s good to know where to go hunt and see how that works. But yeah. So do you want to talk about Joseph F Smith? Like I want to talk about really post manifesto polygamy. It’s a tragic story. I mean, polygamy in general is a tragic story. But the post the, the Like starting, it was horrible living. It was horrible ending. It was horrible. Right. Every side of it had huge problems. Yeah, I pay for different people.
[48:51] Barbara: Yeah. So, so horrible with that. That would be like you know, our modern day interpretation. So people who actually lived it, some would say it was horrible, some would say, no, we made it work, it was God’s commandment. So it’s like there’s a wide spectrum of how people would characterize it. So what I observed in my personal um observations of studying is, is it tended to lead to poverty. Um With some exceptions, I mean, some polygamous men were wealthy. Brigham young, for example, was wealthy and was able to provide better for his many, many wives. Um So there were some cases where there were wealthy polygamous men that they were able to provide well,
[49:36] Michelle: but and they tend to be the common people,
[49:39] Barbara: the common people I observed like your ancestors um to have just one breadwinner. And again, this is 19th, early 20th century. So women were, they were working but not so much outside the home anyways, what I observed was a lot of poverty and a lot of hard times. And in fact, these women, the polygamous women would have to work harder than their monogamous counterparts to provide for their own families. Um And then their Children as their Children became of an age where they could work, their Children worked hard to help provide for their families because just having one man as the breadwinner just to provide for over 20 Children in many cases and several different households, I think
[50:29] Michelle: my great grandfather had 25 Children, didn’t you say it was. Yeah, I think my cousin told me 25
[50:34] Barbara: 25. Yeah. Yeah. So, so a lot of poverty, to be honest. Um I also observed inequality among the women. And um uh for example, I, I shared an example with you when, when Bowen and Theresa um the the latter day saints of the Mexican colonies were driven out of, of northern Mexico by revolutionary violence in 1912. So they leave and they flee into the United States. And then they had a really hard decision to make whether to stay in the United States where polygamy was illegal and where their latter day saint counterparts had not been practicing it for a long time. They’re monogamous. So they’re not even, well, they’re kind of like Paris in their own communities. Um They could go and face that and not be able to live together anymore as polygamous families. And uh the the man would have to choose which wife he was going to live with. And it was always the legally married one, the first one who is legally married to. And so the other families would just be left to fend for themselves. I mean, it was a horrible situation. It was tragic. I mean, these stories are heartbreaking. So many of these families who were told by ch church leaders, they were the cream of the crop. They were the most faithful because they were continuing the principle and keeping it going the principle of polygamy. And then they go back into the United States and again, their monogamous counterparts don’t know. They, they’ve been encouraged by church leaders to do this down in Mexico. So their monogamous counterparts are co religionists are looking at them saying you have violated the manifesto, you have broken this and they’re, they’re looked down on, they’re not given callings. Uh It’s, it’s so sad. Those stories are so sad. So they had the choice to those kinds of choices if they stayed in the United States or face the uh also very difficult decision to try and go back into Mexico where they could continue to live in peace and accepted as polygamous families. But they’re facing revolutionary violence and loss and you know, the, the Pancho Villa, the legendary Pancho Villa and these revolutionary armies would come into towns and take animals, horses, wagons, food that was in their orchards and, and farms and just constantly this happened over
[53:04] Michelle: my cousin that I talked to who she’s, she’s done a ton of family. She wrote our little our family history books, you know, for um and, and she has stories of them actually taking their home, they kicked them out of their homes and they um so, so it was that was, that did contribute greatly to the poverty and the reason they had to come to like go to Texas, leave Mexico. So, yeah, anyway, I was just trying to add to that sorry, I wasn’t trying to interrupt you. Yeah.
[53:34] Barbara: No, that’s ok. I, I don’t recall anyone like them being kicked out of their homes but just they, what the reason why they finally decide? Ok, we’ve got to leave in 1912 is they come and they say we want your guns, we want your, your guns and ammunition. And then the colonists felt like, wow, there is zero way to defend ourselves in this war in Mexico if we stay. So that’s why they left. So they weren’t necessarily coming into homes and moving because they were, they were, they were migrants. These were traveling armies if that makes sense. So they were just passing through. So they weren’t, they were in the streets and then a lot of these colonists, these latter day ST colonists never went back into Mexico. And so a lot of Mexican families would move into these abandoned homes. So anyways, ok. But that’s, that’s kind of getting into the weeds there. But um, so anyway, so they, so Lana’s family, your family, um they, they decided to come back Anson Bone call and Theresa who were living in one part of the United States after they, they’re driven out, they decide to go back and they don’t consult with Julia who’s the much younger fourth wife and they just say we’re going back. So come on is, is this letter that Bowen writes to her and she, she is desperately, she’s writing all these letters to Bowen saying all the great things about that. She’s in Tucson with her mother, living with her elderly, older mother and saying all these wonderful things about Tucson and we can make this work on in Tucson. And it’s OK if I don’t live with you, you know, I can just be, you know, we, we don’t have to live as a polygamous family, but we could at least live in the same town and she’s just begging Boeing to stay. She does not want to go back into revolutionary Mexico. And Bowen just says, Carissa and I decided support to keep the family together. And that’s where all our property is, we’re going back. So, come on. So again, like I, I observed that and Julia was not treated as an equal partner in this marriage, you know, so just so just seeing things like that with, with polygamy. Yeah, I came to as, as we talked about before, these were good people that made the best of it and they firmly believed they were doing what God wanted them to do. Um But it led to so much hardship and I it convinced me that. I mean, I was always already convinced I didn’t need to be convinced, but it just reaffirmed like monogamy is, is always the best anyway,
[56:18] Michelle: maybe
[56:19] Barbara: who might be watching this and they might disagree and that’s their own experiences. But just as a historian, what I observed in history not just in this family, but looking at countless other stories, I was, yeah, it was just got wretch to see what polygamy did to people. And also looking at records of polygamous marriages. How many of these were teenage girls, older teenage girls being married, oftentimes to much older men just really troubling things like that.
[56:49] Michelle: Right. And then seeing that carry on that they never really were equals because they were always the age of their Children. Right? So, so it’s, it is, it is
[57:00] Barbara: many of these families they never like with the the later wives, they never the first wife was the one who, you know, they could afford to have the nice home for the first wife. But then by the time the third or fourth wife comes along, there’s, there’s no more, there’s not enough money. And so they would live in house is not nearly as nice kind of, it’s in poverty until their own Children would grow up and start working. And then their Children would provide a decent, you know, a nice home for them. So that was the case with Lorna. Lorna starts working and she goes home and she’s the one who provides for her mother and she provides her mother this beautiful, really nice home which her dad thought was great. And it wasn’t like Bowen was trying to say, well, she doesn’t deserve a nice home. They’re just, they literally didn’t have the resources to have a second, nice home for Julia. It took her Children growing up and starting to work before she finally had a, as nice a home as Theresa
[57:59] Michelle: had. Right. And we should clarify when we’re saying a nice home. We don’t want to think of modern standards. We just mean a decent place to live
[58:08] Barbara: and, yeah, just a, just a comfort.
[58:12] Michelle: Not basically either a little fort or, you know, kind of a bungalow or like, like sometimes a dugout that, I mean, the, the ways that some of these people had to live was really
[58:22] Barbara: hard. Yeah. And, and some, some people who are monogamous lived that way too. But, but definitely polygamy exacerbated that problem for, for most. So it was a hard moment and they all acknowledged that it was a huge sacrifice to live this. But again, I admire them in that they made those sacrifices because they believe that they believe that’s what their God wanted them to do.
[58:51] Michelle: Right. They were people of an incredible faith.
[58:53] Barbara: They made the most. They, they tried to live it as, as faithfully as they could and, and tried to be kind, um, to each other. Some wives, there’s great stories of some wives who are super close and had a great friendship and then there’s others where they just make the best of it. Right. Not, I do it, it’s not a beautiful thing.
[59:16] Michelle: Yeah. I think in general polygamy does not anyway, from what I’ve seen. And I don’t, you don’t need to, to chime in on this because I know you need to stay very professional. Right. And not just give personal opinions, but from what I, I’ve seen, like, people who could make polygamy work were just such good people that they could have made monogamy work beautifully. Right. Yeah. Absolutely. So, it’s not like, it’s not like polygamy improved anything. It’s not like people think that
[59:45] Barbara: polygamy taught how to be incredibly selfless. You just had
[59:54] Michelle: to, but there’s also a small selfishness
[59:58] Barbara: to not care about yourself. You had to,
[1:00:02] Michelle: I guess, I guess you could say that poverty for poverty can do the same thing.
[1:00:07] Barbara: Sure. Yeah, exactly. And polygamy is not the only way to learn to become selfless. I’m not saying that at all. But, but it could teach because you had to sacrifice so much to make it work. It, it could teach selflessness. But there are so many other more healthy ways in my opinion, to learn selflessness. Right?
[1:00:24] Michelle: I think the reason I push back on that is because when, when I engage with people so often people will use the things they see of polygamy that weren’t terrible to justify it or to say, see, look at the, and I always feel like, do you know what I can be? I can have a best friend and not sharing a husband and resources and life with
[1:00:44] Barbara: them.
[1:00:46] Michelle: Right? Like I could, I could have even a woman, we can share car for the Children responsibilities if we want to. So one of us can go have a profession. Like they say, it gave the women more independence and like, you know, it gave the women less support. So they were forced to like one of the women would have to stay in 10, all of the Children. So another one could work. It wasn’t necessarily, it
[1:01:05] Barbara: gave some women, it gave a very small fraction of women more independence. But yeah, so we hear the stories about like, you know, the sister wife that would stay back and watch the kids. So the other wife could go off to the east and go to medical school and do all these amazing things. Those stories are the rare, rare exception. That’s, that’s not the case for most women who live
[1:01:29] Michelle: polygamy and we ignore the woman staying home, taking care of two or three times as many Children. That’s not fun. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I shouldn’t say that’s not fun. I just mean,
[1:01:42] Barbara: that’s another post manifesto polygamist woman. And that’s Martha Hugh Cannon. Uh She married Angus Cannon. I believe she was his third or fourth wife. I don’t remember off the top of my head. But anyway, she was his plural wife and what she sacrificed what she lost. She um was a physician. She was super well accomplished. She chose to marry him and she runs, she was the first woman in the nation elected to be a state senator. She’s famous for that. And this is in 1896 25 in Utah, 25 years before most women in the United States can even vote. So she’s holding office. But what happens? She’s married polygamous le and she becomes pregnant by her polygamous husband. And she asked, she goes into exile rather than testify against him, um which would have sent him to prison. And so she goes into exile instead, and the
[1:02:49] Michelle: women and Children are being forced to test their
[1:02:51] Barbara: careers ended. And she lives in exile twice. And I mean, she would say, well, I chose him, I chose that. But you look at, you, look at what it cost her, what she lost. And yeah, it was her choice. But I, if that’s, that’s just one more an example of the tragic story of an accomplished, very accomplished polygamous woman. But polygamy ruined her career and really her life, she never got to live with Angus. She was always, she goes to England and then she goes to California and she, she never had a happy family
[1:03:31] Michelle: relationship. Uh And I think of Annie Clark Tanner, her book is just wonderful. She was brilliant and the, it was the same story like her, like I from reading Annie Clark Tanner’s book. I kind of, that’s where I started to get the impression that like these could have been really good people like, like these men might have been wonderful monogamous husbands, but polygamy turned them into something just out of necessity. It, it almost can create more selfishness or less empathy because you just can’t, you can’t take care of, you can’t solve the problem. So you just have to start calling the women whiners like Brigham said, the incessant whining, you know, like women who are living with. I think
[1:04:13] Barbara: that would be the case for some. And I think it’s like, you know, we have to be careful not to paint all poly men with the, you know, because I would also say that, you know what I observed with, with Bowen being the father of 25 Children was so hard. And again, he did, he made the most of it. He, he did the best he could with 25 Children. And I do think it made Bowen more selfless because he had to, he did, he did his best to keep both what became both of his wives because his third wife died too, but both wives happy. Um and did his best to be a father to 25 Children. So it did create selflessness in him. So I think it did different things for different people. I think, I think bow and k was an extremely good man, but he could have been an extremely good man. He would have been an extremely good man without polygamy. That’s just who he was. You know what I mean? It’s not that the only way and that, or we can’t say that polygamy has the same effect on every people. But, yeah, it did have negative effect on a lot of men. And again, these women were just kind of, a lot of men would have a wife throughout various different towns and she’d see him occasionally. She and her kids, their Children would see him occasionally when he happened to come into town. You know, it’s, it was not an ideal family, any
[1:05:40] Michelle: means. Yeah, that’s what I’ve seen as well as in addition to really exacerbating poverty. It also seemed to really exacerbate neglect. There are many stories
[1:05:51] Barbara: of my father’s
[1:05:53] Michelle: lap. They just didn’t, it was like a bunch of single moms who kept getting pregnant every year or every other year because their husband would visit, but he wasn’t a part of so, so, you know, is single motherhood ideal, especially with zero support. Like if a mom is on her own, trying to raise Children and provide and this was in front of you Utah. When there was no support, there was no, um, you know, social safety net and there wasn’t even like a nice little grocery store most likely where you could buy affordable food at all. Like, like it was really, really hard for a lot of these families and so, or a lot of these people. And I think, I mean, to me, um, you know, just every time when people bring up Jacob two. It’s like, don’t just read verse 30 because I think that’s a misinterpretation which again, we can talk about another time when, but, but all of the verses talk about what it does to the women and Children. Like that’s why polygamy God considers it an abomination and forbidden is because of what it always does to the women. Well, I shouldn’t say always, I don’t wanna overs speak but, but that is the reason for the prohibition and for calling it an abomination and it’s like, look at our history. It’s right there. It happened like it was hard on a lot of. So anyway, I don’t want to put words in your mouth or, you know, make you.
[1:07:07] Barbara: No, you’re not at all. So, yeah, so like, yeah, so there’s like different ways. It’s polygamy is so varied. There’s different ways people practice it. So for your ancestors with Anson and Theresa and Julia, the two houses were right next to each other with a garden in between. So in that case, the families did live right there together.
[1:07:25] Michelle: Right. But, and that is interesting. Let me just throw in. That’s exactly how will. And um, Ophelia will and Aggie and Ophelia had exactly the same situation, an orchard in between their two homes in Salt Lake.
[1:07:38] Barbara: And that’s what I say. They made the most of they made the best of it. That was the best scenario. Um But then, yeah, there’s, there’s lots of cases in, in, in Utah history. Mormon history that I’ve, I’ve read about and observed where there would be like a polygamous wife in Salt Lake Provo. I’m thinking of George, a Smith who was an Apostle Provo, Parowan Southern. You know, and they would just kind of drop in and visit occasionally. So it’s not like it’s not like the way that, that your ancestors and others were practicing were actually living all together. So, yeah, it’s not family situation by any means.
[1:08:17] Michelle: Did you in your research? See um sort of the lost boy um predicament. Um So I did
[1:08:26] Barbara: not, I did not observe that in my research, I never came across that. Of course, we know that that exists in, in modern um you know, very much so I’m aware of that just, you know, just from watching documentaries and reading and so forth. But I, I did not observe it. It doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. I’m just saying, I never came across that in my research where where boys were kicked out, where boys were kicked out of a community. So what what happens? So what gradually happens with, with Mexico is so you have, you know, the first manifesto in 1890 then what’s called the colloquial second manifesto in 1904. And just gradually fewer and fewer people, young people enter into polygamy. So for example, most of Anson and Bowen’s or Anson Bowen calls Children his 25 Children, I think. Two. Anyway, I think maybe we end up in polygamy. Is it three,
[1:09:30] Michelle: one in 1906, 1 in 1907 and one in 1913 that we can talk about. So that’s,
[1:09:36] Barbara: um, um, but most of them marry monogamously and most of them leave and go to the United States and marry. So it kind of just gradually fades out of practice. So there’s never a need to, like, kick any young man out of the community.
[1:09:51] Michelle: Um, it didn’t last long enough. I guess
[1:09:54] Barbara: they all just become monogamous naturally. If that makes sense.
[1:09:58] Michelle: It does. Yeah. It’s just interesting because in my family history, the oldest, uh, like, I think Othella and will’s oldest son left and I don’t know that they always were kicked out, but just kind of, it, it just looked like, oh, that’s interesting that there was sometimes a dynamic where, you know, where the boys would leave or maybe, I don’t know anyway. And it could be all.
[1:10:20] Barbara: So this is something I admire about your ancestors to, like, education was very, very, very important to them. They were all very well educated. So they all went to the war steak Academy, which was an excellent, um, high school education. And then they all go on to college and to go to college, they all go up to, um, Utah to go to school and get an education. Ok. And I actually blessing and encouragement Yeah. Ok.
[1:10:48] Michelle: And maybe I’ll play this at the end. My, um, cousin that put these histories together. She has recordings of an, of Bowen, um, reciting poetry as, as an old man. Did you listen to those recordings? Were you able to hear?
[1:11:01] Barbara: There’s a CD in the back of the Anem Bowen call biography. Yeah. And it’s him, I think his 90th birthday, citing some poetry. Yeah. So, I have heard
[1:11:12] Michelle: that. So you have heard that? Ok. It’s really fun. So, yeah. OK, good. So can you talk about so, so the first manifesto that from what I understand was originally given like um Wilfred was speaking at a state conference where he gave that message and it was given interview with it.
[1:11:32] Barbara: It’s a general conference where it issues the manifesto the 1890 manifesto.
[1:11:37] Michelle: OK. I thought it was made up from kind of a conglomeration of different speeches he had given throughout the territory. But then, but
[1:11:43] Barbara: he actually like reads it and issues it at general conference. But he had been like there had been talks about where this was going. Ok.
[1:11:54] Michelle: And so that was given in general conference in Salt Lake. So the 1904 manifesto was that given in general conference in Salt Lake because it’s, it’s confusing because issuing it acknowledges that they were dishonest in the first one or that they were duplicitous. So it, it’s, it’s a tricky situation for the church back then. Still today. Right. So, so go ahead.
[1:12:19] Barbara: So it was on. Um So I should back up and explain that what the context, the historical context of what’s going on. So in 1904, an apostle of the L DS church named um Reed Smoot is elected to the US Senate from the State of Utah. And um smoot is monogamous himself, but a lot of um non L Ds leaders in the Salt Lake City community, they write Congress and they say, look, the latter day saints are still practicing poly me and it’s still being taught by church leaders, which was true. And so they asked Congress Congress not to seat Senator Smoot even though he himself is monogamous. So these smoot hearings take place from 1904 to 1907 in which Joseph F Smith as president of the church and others are testifying and they are testifying that they’re not, they’re no longer practicing polygamy. But in fact, there’s strong evidence of course, that they are. Um So did those
[1:13:25] Michelle: start in 1903? Did you say 1903 is when they started
[1:13:30] Barbara: the Senate hearing started in 1904 and they lasted for more than three years. My chapter here people, I trust
[1:13:41] Michelle: you.
[1:13:41] Barbara: No, no, no. I mean, I know you trust me. But I mean, if people want to dig into what I’m reading from, that’s
[1:13:47] Michelle: great. So where was it issued? Was it issued at conference? So
[1:13:52] Barbara: in that context. Um, the church realizes they’ve got to do something to address their damaged reputation because they’re still practicing polygamy even after the 1890 manifesto when they said they weren’t. So, um, on April 6th, 1904, Smith issues, what became colloquially known as the second Manifesto. And I’ll just read the, I’ll read from it right here inasmuch as there are numerous reports in circulation that plural marriages have been entered into. Contrary to the official declaration of President Woodruff the 1891 I Joseph F Smith, president of the Church of Jesus Christ of latter day Saints hereby affirm and declare that no such marriages have been solemnized with the sanction consent or knowledge of the church. That’s absolutely not true. Um And then, um and close quote that uh this statement added that quote, if any officer or member of the church shall assume to solemnize or enter into any such marriage, he will be deemed in transgression against the church and will be liable to be dealt with according to the rules and regulations thereof and excommunicated. So that’s what’s new about this second manifesto is um that it, it would, it mentions excommunication for anyone who does enter or um teach continued plural marriage. So that was again, April 6th, 1904 in general conference. And it resulted in a dramatic reduction if not a cessation of New L DS plural marriages, even outside of the United States in Canada and Mexico where these colonies existed. Um
[1:15:49] Michelle: OK. So can I ask you so my understanding is the 1890 manifesto already decreased plural marriage quite a bit like you tore down the endowment house. And so that already minimized it a lot.
[1:16:05] Barbara: It started to decrease it. Absolutely. But it was still and particularly in Mexico and Canada.
[1:16:11] Michelle: Right. Right. And so the 1904 1, I’m just curious if there were a
[1:16:17] Barbara: decrease you doing even more,
[1:16:19] Michelle: even more. And I think there were probably a lot of members in Salt Lake or Utah that were like what it’s still happening. You know, I wonder if a lot of them genuinely did and that’s
[1:16:29] Barbara: what that’s what’s going on is you have these um most mainstream Latter Day Saints at the time. They think the manifesto, that’s it. And they are just only entering into monogamous marriages. After the, that, that point, most mainstream Latter Day saints did not know that church leaders were encouraging some people to move to Mexico and to Canada to continue to practice, to keep the principal alive if you will.
[1:16:57] Michelle: Right. So that was
[1:16:59] Barbara: the Mexican revolution that drove all these families, polygamous families out of Mexico back in the United States that the mainstream monogamous latter, these saints who don’t know that church leaders have been encouraged, they’re like you people have been violating the manifesto.
[1:17:17] Michelle: They considered them like the fl like, yeah. Right. OK.
[1:17:22] Barbara: So anyway, so what happens is um after this um uh Joseph Smith, after issuing this manifesto, he goes to Mexico in September 1905 and he um goes to the Mexican colonies to reinforce that 1904 manifesto. And he says, quote, there are no plural marriages being performed at present in the church in Mexico or anywhere else. Smith told the men of the colonies in a Juarez state priesthood meeting continuing, oh, be true to your wives and your Children that God has given you for God will hold you responsible, but men cannot marry plural wives at present. He says, with my consent nor the consent of the church. The church is upon trial before the government of the United States. And we must be very careful referring to the smoot trials, the smoot hearings.
[1:18:30] Michelle: So, OK, so he’s saying again, we believe this principle, we, you know, are not abounding the principle, but right now is not a good time to be doing. It is kind of the message,
[1:18:43] Barbara: you know, that can be an interpretation at present twice. That is my interpretation. And I explained in my article, but that’s how I interpret it that uh Joseph F Smith was thinking, OK, for now, just to get the government off our back at present, we’re not going to do this anymore. But what happens is gradually more and more young people. Again, this, we’re now in the 20th century. So we’re moving into more modern times. More and more young latter day saints are like, mm I don’t want to practice polygamy, particularly women. Nah, not for me. So as more and more mainstream Latter Day Saints start marrying monogamously, it just kind of naturally dies out in mainstream latter day saint practice. Um And I say mainstream because some splinter groups um start and are continuing today where they say no, we’re going to continue to keep this principle alive.
[1:19:46] Michelle: Mhm And OK, so this gets into the really sticky problem. Uh like, I mean, like we talked about polygamy is just like the gift that keeps on giving the problem that never goes away, right? Because if we, so for a long time, my, my um percept perception is that the church really tried to minimize the statements by Brigham Young and John Taylor and, you know, even Wilford Woodruff and Joseph, like, like really tried to say no. And, and we’re still doing this today, like they never said it was necessary for exultation that like polygamy was just like, like even the statement is like the norm, like, like monogamy is the norm. And there are rare exceptions when so we’ve really reinterpreted it, but we’ve not been very forthright about what was actually taught, which I think causes a problem because then what
[1:20:45] Barbara: happens? I think what happens Michelle is, is this history just kind of fades from over time. It just kind of fades from latter day Saint memory and until um historians. Um I’m thinking of de Michael Quinn whose memoir I just edited and, and he wrote all about his, he discovers as a teenager, um a book by Samuel W Taylor that it’s about and he realizes, wait, no Latter day Saints, mainstream, latter day saints were proud of saint polygamy after 1890. So he, he does a ton of research on, on the subject. Um and we have his work, but I think it just kind of falls out of general memory and then until, and unless historians and now there are lots of us um who come and write about this and talk about this. It’s, it’s just kind of forgotten. I don’t, I, yeah. Mhm.
[1:21:41] Michelle: Well, you know what I should, I should go back, we should back up before we go on to this and talk about sort of the colloquially called by some people the Third Manifesto because even after so the first Manifesto is 1890 that minimizes that reduces polygamy, but it’s still very present and it’s still believed in by 1904. The second Manifesto which again reduced, it didn’t eliminate it and it’s still believed in. And my understanding is it’s in the 19 twenties that they actually start excommunicating people for real. And that, like, I think it was Heber J Grant, that was the president that started actually enforcing it with more heavy hand. And that’s when the break than
[1:22:19] Barbara: that because Anthony Ivans who incidentally had lived in Colonial Juarez but he was, um, monogamous. He is, he starts after the second. Um, and I, I’m not, I’m fuzzy on my research. Sorry. It’s in my chapter but he starts, um, going after people and excommunicating people who are still entering into new polygamous marriages. But, yeah, I’d have to look at the dates for that, but I, I know that becomes his, he is charged with, with doing that with kind of like trying to stamp it out.
[1:22:52] Michelle: Ok, so maybe it’s like coming from the actual top where there aren’t kind of any more winks and nods and tatic approvals because like my grandfather was my great grandfather. It was 1906, but he was always in perfect standing with the church and, you know, I, I can’t remember. Oh, I’m gonna get in trouble. I don’t know if it was Joseph F Smith that spoke at his funeral, but it was somebody spoke his funeral. It, it wouldn’t have been, you know, so I can, I can find out who that was. But, um,
[1:23:22] Barbara: so can I read, I read the, the, the next couple of paragraphs because it, it touches exactly on what, what you’re bringing up. Yes, in this chapter. So, um, so these are, this is my, these are my words now. So several weeks later. So several weeks after September 1905, when Joseph asked, goes to um, the colonies to and shares this message in Mexico. Several weeks later, Smith, Joseph F. Smith secured the resignations of John W Taylor and Mathias Caley from the quorum of the 12 apostles for performing post manifesto marriages. Taylor and Callie maintained that they had been authorized to do so since the late 18 eighties, obfuscation of and disagreement over plural marriage policy by members of the first presidency and quorum of the 12 had created a general confusion among church members growing numbers of monogamous Mormons in the United States did not know that church leaders had authorized some plural marriages after 1890. Even among those who did know perplexity set in as to who exactly had the authority to perform plural marriages after the 1890 18 9 and, and 1904 manifesto. So that’s kind of that mass confusion you’re talking about that I was talking about and it’s, it just, and it just gradually fades from collective latter day saint memory,
[1:24:53] Michelle: right? And the FL Ds because that confusion still exists today. There are the FL DS stories. There are the like Mormons going, is this our doctrine or is it not? And you know, so, so I think I see what you’re saying that it faded from memory because the FL Ds really were apart and not really known until Short Creek, right? And then it was kind of like, oh those are the weird guys. Uh you, you know the, the FL Ds and anyway, so it’s been an interesting journey. But what I have seen happen, I’ve seen this myself is someone finds those old teachings in that, I don’t know that book by Samuel W Taylor. But I know that there are books that are passed around with speeches from either the journal of discourses or other polygamous speeches that people find and go oh, this is the real Mormon doctrine. We’re doing it wrong and kind of convert to fundamentalism. It’s still an ongoing problem because the reason for post manifesto polygamy is belief in the doctrine, right, which we have never resolved. So it still is a danger for, I
[1:25:56] Barbara: mean, it’s still canonized in doctrine. Covenants 132 when it talks about the law of celestial marriage, celestial marriage uh at the time of the 19th century meant polygamy. Um and it’s also um part of our, our temple ceiling policy. And again, when I say, I say, I mean, mainstream latter church of Jesus Christ of latter day Saints that a man can be sealed to more than one woman, but a woman cannot be sealed to more than one man, not for this life, but for, you know, the next life. Again, it’s very much part still existing in, in, in our doctrine today, even though even though you would be excommunicated for practicing polygamy, you know, actively in this life, it’s, it’s, it’s there.
[1:26:52] Michelle: I guess this is what I want to say that the attitude I grew up with the perspective that I grew up with or that I, you know, thinking when polygamy, when we’re worthy, we’ll be living polygamy again. That is very in line with the story that we, you know, and when I met those FL DS people who said we’re supposed to, our ancestors were called to keep the principal alive until that makeup. Like I’m like, OK, I can’t say you nay and Right. And so I think it does, I, I guess it does put the church in this impossible position of like very
[1:27:26] Barbara: difficult. It’s very difficult
[1:27:28] Michelle: because talking openly about it could convert more people to polygamy if they don’t do it, if we don’t do the work. Well, the work I’m trying to do to say look polygamy was never right. It was never right. The scriptures make that so clear that, you know, that’s like anyway, it’s really interesting because because if we listen to those first presidents of the church, it sounds like you have to live polygamy to receive the blessings of exultation.
[1:27:56] Barbara: So my role as a historian is to just research the history document. It put it out there and people can do it, do what
[1:28:08] Michelle: it’s gonna do. But yeah,
[1:28:10] Barbara: but, but yeah, I, you know, I, I put it out there, confirm its accuracy. I will talk about it, talk about what, what I found, talk about my interpretations and then, and then people just have to do what they want about it. But yeah, I personally just observing it, I, I observed a lot of negative effects from this and, and, and a lot of negative effects for the um church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints as well because this is a really tough, a tough part of its history to grapple with and I don’t know what the answers or solutions.
[1:28:45] Michelle: Right. Right. Well, I, I’m obviously very opinionated about this point, but that’s the purpose of my podcast. So, but let me ask you this. Did you, what, what did you experience as you were digging out this post manifesto information and finding out what the teachings were and what the doctrines were. Did you ever go oh, shoot, we’re not doing the church, right? Or did you ever think? Oh, no, if I release this, could it convert more people to fundamentalism or? I mean, did you have any moments of what does this mean? How like, like, and I’m asking you, I guess a personal question, not necessarily.
[1:29:20] Barbara: Yeah. So my, me personally, I think polygamy was wrong. OK. It was wrong today and I think it was wrong. Um Just because I’ve, I’ve just seen so much of the heartache, not just post manifesto, believe me, but starting in abu even though my ancestors practiced it. Um I, I’ve just seen all of the, the negative problems it created. So, so my personal feeling is it was wrong.
[1:29:45] Michelle: I just want to pause and say how lovely it is that we agree on that. I think that’s a wonderful thing. So we have to look at the agreements too. So. Ok. Continue.
[1:29:54] Barbara: Sure. Um Yeah, it was disturbing. I mean, I think it’s always disturbing for any historian to just start digging into history, whether it’s American history, church history or whatever and, and find the, the primary sources, the incontrovertible primary sources that you have to face and that contradict the, the legends. Um And, but so that was, that was troubling for me to find out. No, actually, the church leaders were encouraging, continue to encourage me it just in more refined ways after 1890. And to see Joseph Smith lying frankly in that second manifesto saying we have never encouraged it or we don’t eat. We, we don’t, if anyone’s entered in poli marriage, it’s been without our knowledge or consent when it’s undeniable, it’s all, it’s all in there that they knew. So, yeah, that was very, very disturbing to, to see that they were lying about it. Absolutely.
[1:30:59] Michelle: And did you read the teachings of Brigham Young and John Taylor and others about that? This is absolutely essential or the church is an apostasy basically. So did that did like what did you think of that? How did you think you
[1:31:14] Barbara: were wrong? I think you’re right and this is what you and I agree with or disagree on. Um I do believe that Joseph Smith instigated polygamy and I think he was wrong. I think it’s ok.
[1:31:26] Michelle: And see, actually we agree on that because when I started my podcast, I was like, Joseph Smith, the history is a mess. I have no idea. It looks to me like he was involved to some extent and it was wrong. It like, like I didn’t like that the argument was, was Joseph or wasn’t Joseph and that would mean it was right or wrong. I was like, it doesn’t matter what he did, it was wrong. And
[1:31:46] Barbara: I started, you know, I’ve made that conclusion about, I think it was wrong based on my observed study of all the sources of the countless, countless sources. It’s, I don’t think it was a good thing.
[1:31:59] Michelle: So where to live. OK. That’s interesting that we came to it in different directions. Yeah. No, II I, you came to it through the actual historical um experiences, right? The record of lived experience and I came through it to it through the scripture, the study of the scriptures. Anyway, I just think it’s interesting that there are different ways to arrive at this, what I consider truth. Right. Absolutely. And so did you have any um thoughts about if we, I mean, it seems to me that the, it’s a tricky situation. If we make it known that there was all of this post manifesto polygamy, it could validate the polygamist ideas, did that. So, so
[1:32:42] Barbara: for me as a historian. Oh, yeah. So that’s what you were asking. So, how did I feel about putting that information out there for me again, as a historian? That’s not my call. My, my job as a professional historian is to just say, here is the research, here is the documentation for it. Here is the sourcing and put it out there and let the chips fall where they may. It’s, it’s, you know, so it’s not my call to say, oh, this is, this could be damaging. It’s not going to publish this. Like that’s not being a professional historian,
[1:33:14] Michelle: right? Yeah. Yeah. I’m glad that way. I just wondered if there’s ever, I think that people struggle with, I think, and maybe this is a question more for church leaders. Like I think that probably is a what’s the best way to handle this? We wish it would just go away and be invisible. That’s not gonna happen. So like, like I think if you,
[1:33:35] Barbara: yeah, so I think what, what I’ve learned Michelle with writing about mountain meadows is it is what it is, it happened. And the best you can do is just gather all the information, you can put it all out there, shine all the sunshine you can on it saying this is what happened, own it, not trying to deny it, not try to sugar coat it. Um And so, so I’ve learned that with mountain meadows, right? I feel the same way about post manifesto po. I feel the same way about our nation’s history, about enslavement of, of Africans of, of black people. It happened. It’s horrific. It’s hard to face but it happened, you know, and, but we can face it, we can do it, we can face it and just own it. Apologize for it where we can and, and move on. I mean, that’s, that’s learned from
[1:34:34] Michelle: it or we can learn from it.
[1:34:37] Barbara: Genocide in our nation of, of American Indians of native peoples. It’s horrific. It’s horrible. It’s hard to face, especially if you’re a descendant of a colonizer. Like I am like you are like we are as, as, as white European Americans. It’s hard to face the truth of what our ancestors did, but it happened.
[1:35:01] Michelle: It’s almost hard. Like, like with all of the focus on mountain meadows, I posted something about our interview talking about mountain meadows and one of my good friends who is um descended from, I think she’s mostly um Polynesian from the, from the islands. And I don’t know if, if I’m using any terms that are incorrect. I apologize, you know, but I want to be sensitive, but she responded and her comment was so heartfelt. It was like, I just have to say that mountain meadows gets all this attention. But is it called the Bear Creek massacre? I don’t even know the name of it. She’s like that happened too. And, and I was like
[1:35:38] Barbara: a message a message I frequent, frequently share is this is just one massacre that I wrote about my co-author. But there are and I talk about it and we actually have information, for example about the Bear River massacre of more than 400 Shoshone people in what is today’s southern Idaho. And yeah, so it’s important to, to not just talk about one massacre or one horrific thing that happened in our history. It’s important to talk about all these things. And so I’m really glad that your listener brought that up because it is important to talk about the, the massacre of the many massacres of, of native Americans and others that colonizers throughout our history, perpetrator
[1:36:25] Michelle: people or just people. It’s just, I think, I don’t think there’s necessarily guilty groups. It’s like we, that’s why it’s so important to dig it out so we can learn from it so we can recognize these are people like we’re people and how, what can we learn to not repeat errors of the past and
[1:36:44] Barbara: the past? And yeah, and that’s why it’s important to, to delve into history even very, very difficult, challenging, painful history. It’s so we can learn from it and be aware of it and sometimes it’s really hard to face, it’s hard to face, but it happens. And that’s a historian’s job is just to get there and let people do what they will with it, not to um try and hide it or obfuscate it, it’s not our right. Correctly. Right.
[1:37:15] Michelle: That’s what I do think. I do think it is, it is important to, I don’t want to say expose it, but to reveal it, it’s important to let it be out on the table so that we can talk about it. And that’s what I do think. I’m like the, we can’t repent but, and I know we use different words for that, you know. But for me, it’s like if we can see what polygamy actually did and what post manifesto polygamy did and what these teachings were and what they led to, then we can really analyze them, you know, spiritually and logically and in every way and say is this of God, right? And I think the first step to that is being is putting it out on the table, right? So I appreciate the work you do. I think, man, I mean, it’s like here’s this really kind awesome brilliant woman that is the match for Massacre and post Manifesto polygamy like that is, that’s an amazing resume. So I just, I want to thank you
[1:38:11] Barbara: and that’s nice of you to say Michelle. I appreciate that.
[1:38:15] Michelle: And I guess we won’t have time. We wanted to talk a little bit about my um ancestor. Well, well aunt, she’s the younger sister who got married in 18, in 1913, polygamous, but we’ll probably have to get into that another time. But that’s an interesting story. And so anyway, is there anything else that you would want to bring up that we left out? But it
[1:38:36] Barbara: covers, we’ve covered it a lot and I look forward to future conversations with you.
[1:38:44] Michelle: I do have to say, let me just give a shout out because Barbara was exceptionally patient with me last night. Letting me, we
[1:38:55] Barbara: had a great debate. We had a great debate about when poli me started and who started it. But, but frankly, that’s what I love about history. I love, I love talking about the sources. And yeah, it’s, it’s always in respect. Whenever I debate anyone about any aspect of history, it’s always with respect and just um with the feeling that uh through debate and discussing things and sharing sources, we teach each other and we, we, we learn from each other. So
[1:39:29] Michelle: that’s fabulous. So I anyway, I really want to, I want to thank you for that because I really, sometimes that feels like it’s missing in the discussions is can we look at the sources? So anyway, so I want everyone to like buy Barbara’s books. Give her a big shout out and just tons of respect and appreciation for what you’ve done and just who you are as a person. Thank you so much. Thank
[1:39:49] Barbara: you Michelle. And it was so fun to get to know you better and to find out I had written all about your family history. That was, that was nuts last night. So anyways. That was
[1:39:59] Michelle: fun. Ok, thank you and I will talk to you again
[1:40:02] Barbara: soon. Thanks. Bye bye.
[1:40:04] Michelle: Thank you again to all of those who have stuck through for this entire conversation. I thought it got better and better as we went along. Another huge thank you to Barbara for dedicating so much time to this or letting us have so much of her time and for willingness to engage in these important conversations. I’m really looking forward to continued engagement. I just think that the more information that we can all share together, the more that we can all learn. So I, I so greatly respect Barbara’s willingness to engage and to hold, hold to her guns. I just think she’s wonderful and I’m very thankful to have spent this time with her. So thank you so much and I will see you next time.
