Abigail Abbott’s life in 1847 was not unfolding as she had probably expected it to be.
Author: Ardis E. Parshall
Ardis loved her time here with Times and Seasons, and invites you to visit her at Keepapitchinin.
Dressing the Dead
From the day she learned it was part of her Relief Society calling, my mother lived in dread that she would need to prepare the body of a ward member for burial.
The Surgeon and Brigham Young
The westbound stagecoach upset near Gold, Colorado, in October 1866, tossing its passengers violently to the ground.
Separation Anxiety
Feminist Mormon Housewives is having another one of those unexpected conversations that seem to appear only on that blog.
Malinda Carroll Hudson Conder: Mother of Martyrs
Near the end of her life, Malinda Conder was described as “steadfast and happy in the faith.†That faith had been tried by one of the most horrendous events in late 19th century church history.
A “Gathering” Storm: The U.S. State Department’s Worldwide War on Mormonism (3 of 3)
Events affecting Mormon proselyting abroad can be traced directly to the 1879 State Department circular of William M. Evarts
A “Gathering” Storm: The U.S. State Department’s Worldwide War on Mormonism (2 of 3)
Secretary of State William M. Evarts informed American diplomatic officers overseas of the Hayes Administration’s policy to discourage Mormon emigration from Europe to the United States.
A “Gathering” Storm: The U.S. State Department’s Worldwide War on Mormonism (1 of 3)
The bulk of federal action against Mormon polygamy took place in Congress and in the courts where it was subject to public scrutiny, won public support, and permitted the Mormons an opportunity to defend their rights within the constitutional system.
Gohar Yeghiayan Davidian: A Latter-day Saint in Syria
For half a millennium, ending with World War I, the Ottoman Empire dominated eastern Europe, Asia Minor, and the Middle East.
Ned Desaules and the United Order – 2 of 2
Ned also records the risks faced by children in that time and place: “Edwin King[’s] smallest boy accidentally fell in my well yesterday, & had a narrow escape at drowning. Bro. Hammond fished him out.â€
Ned Desaules and the United Order – 1 of 2
On a day when TV news programs carry images of 170 million Americans storming shopping malls in a frenzy of consumerism, here’s an account of a different kind of economic system
I Don’t Know It All, But I Know Some Things
I once spent an uncomfortable few hours wedged in economy class on a flight from Boston to Salt Lake City.
Ellen Briggs Douglas Parker: Where Her Treasure Was
Nauvoo, June 12, 1842 Dear father and mother, I am at a loss what I can say to you. I feel so thankful for what the Lord has done for me and my family, for truly all things have worked together for our good. …
Johanna Tippett Porter: In Active Service to the End
LDS missionaries working on the Isle of Wight, off the coast of England, found the Tippett family in 1859.
Words for Life
I was 15 when the American POWs came home from Vietnam.
Annie Griffith Burbank: Amongst the Gentiles
Annie Griffith was born on August 27, 1837, in Georgetown, Essex Co., Massachusetts, on the Merrimack River near the New Hampshire state line. She lived in that county all her life.
Venus Robinson Rossiter: Learning to Serve
Venus Rossiter, serving in Tahiti with her husband, Mission President Ernest C. Rossiter, wrote to the Relief Society General Board early in 1919 with her report for 1918.
Murder in the Metropolis: Part the Fourth (Conclusion)
Hooper Young was arrested in Connecticut three days after the discovery of Mrs. Pulitzer’s body.
Murder in the Metropolis: Part the Third
Hooper never told the full story of his association with Mrs. Pulitzer; such accounts as he did give were conflicting and incomplete.
Murder in the Metropolis: Part the Second
William Hooper Young, known as Hooper, was born in 1871 in Philadelphia, where his mother, Libbie Canfield, was visiting, while his father, John W. Young, was in Utah.
Murder in the Metropolis: Part the First
As the ebbing tide of September 18, 1902, lowered the level of the barge canals near Jersey City, New Jersey, a passing trolley engineer spotted the nude and mutilated body of a woman lying in the mud.
Charlotte Owens Sackett: Teaching the Sisters to Sing
Lottie Owens was born in 1877 in Willard, Box Elder County, Utah. Her mother’s family were early Church members in Nauvoo; her father had emigrated to Utah as a convert from Wales.
Retiring Toscanini
We are a storytelling people. Our Sunday lessons are as often built around a scriptural episode as around an abstract principle. Our General Conference talks and magazine articles are brightened by stories. Our family reunions are celebrations of family stories. We want stories from our returning missionaries, not exhortations on repentance and baptism.
Sarah Day Hall: Southern Mother in Israel
American Southerners have been joining the Church since the 1830s. The Southern States Mission became the most successful mission field in the Church in the last generation of the 1800s. During those years when southern LDS meeting halls were burned and elders and even members were murdered, many thousands of Southerners responded to the gospel. Two elders knocked on a farmhouse door in Lowndes County, Alabama, on a spring day in 1896. The door was opened by Sarah Day Hall, holding her
Our Crown Jewels: The Church Archives
In the fall of 1983, Dialogue published Davis Bitton’s personal memoir of Leonard Arrington’s tenure as Church Historian, “Ten Years in Camelot.� That essay conveyed the excitement of discovering, writing, and publishing Mormon history on a scale never before known. The essay also records disappointment with changes then underway, betraying the uncertainty, even fearfulness, that comes with change.
Geertruida Lodder Zippro: The Extra Mile
Much of the attention of the Relief Society Conference of October, 1945, was devoted to efforts to assist surviving members of the Church in the former war zones of Europe. Contact had been reestablished with some of the European branches, and reports of their experiences and especially of their needs were read to the sisters assembled in Salt Lake City:
Christina Olsen Rockwell: Visiting Teacher
Christina Olsen was a Norwegian convert to the Church who emigrated to Zion before the arrival of the railroad. She was in her early 30s when she married the legendary Orrin Porter Rockwell, a man more than 20 years older than she was. Christina began her short married life by dividing her time between an isolated ranch in Rush Valley, Tooele County, and a home in Salt Lake City.
Secrets from the Research Library
My Utah history columns for the Salt Lake Tribune have a limit of 650 words; the Relief Society articles need to fit a single page. The brevity of these accounts may mask the complexity of the work behind them, so put on your deerstalker caps and I’ll recreate the process, using Frances Swan Clark as the example.
Frances Swan Clark: A Kindness Remembered
Many of Utah’s early pioneers did not remain long in the Valley. In defiance of counsel, some rushed to the California gold fields. A few went to California as missionaries, and the two apostles who founded a ranching colony in San Bernardino found no shortage of volunteers to accompany them there.
Catherine Garber Laine: The Role of Her Lifetime
This story and the other women’s stories to follow were written for my ward’s Relief Society newsletter, as a formal calling for which I was set apart. The assignment was to write about a faith-promoting incident involving a woman; I added the detail “… whom no one has ever heard about.”