Amy Makechnie's Blog, page 19

Women’s History Month: Martha Cragun Cox! (13)

Martha Cragun Cox
(1852-1932)

Our ancestors, like us, lived in uncertain times. As I’m trying to prepare our family and home, I keep thinking of them. They did hard things, and if you look at your own history, I’m sure you’ll find the same.

That’s what I’ve loved most about posting these stories for Women’s History Month. These women are so amazing. They survived. They thrived. We stand on their shoulders. I’m inspired to keep on going because of them.

Today I’d like you to meet my ancestor, Martha Cragun Cox. She is my great great grandmother on my mother’s side. She is important to not only my family, but to the history of women BECAUSE – she kept a 300-page handwritten autobiographical record (start writing, friends! Someday your story WILL be interesting to someone – they might even quote from it).

I grew up listening to stories of Martha from my mother. Martha begins her journal by saying:

“There are few lives so uneventful that a true record of them would not be of some worth, in which there are no happenings that can serve as guide or warning to those that follow. It is to be hoped that in the pages that follow there will be some things found that may be taken as good lessons to those who read.”

My mother recently reminded me of a story: Martha dreamed of being covered with chains and being told to take them off. One chain had to do with holding onto to the grief of losing her first baby at birth. She was in the habit of taking out her little shoes and dress and weeping over them. One day, a Native American woman of the Ute tribe, carrying her cold baby girl, came begging at Martha’s door. Remembering her dream and the chains she was carrying, Martha gave the woman the baby clothes.

Lessons from Martha: Unchain yourself from the past. Let go. Move forward. Have faith. It will work out.

Thank you, Martha.

Source: my mother! and Supporting Saints

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Women’s History Month: Ann M. Cannon! (12)

Ann M. Cannon (1869-1948)
(seated row, third from right)

Ann Mousley Cannon was known to be a woman of “cultural and literary discernment, as well as business acumen.”

Extremely interested in education, Cannon studied literature at the University of Deseret (University of Utah), graduating at at 17. She dedicated her life to her community, her family (she never married), and her aging parents.

She served in many visible positions within her church community, including FORTY-SIX YEARS on the Young Ladies Mutual Improvement Society.

Twice Cannon represented the board as a delegate to the National Council of Women, working directly with national women’s right leader and friend to Utah women, Susan B. Anthony.

Along with being an advocate for women, Cannon was also an incredibly spiritual woman who often spoke about prayer.

“The subject of prayer is one dear to me. I know that prayer can lift the greatest burdens and rest the weary. Nothing else can give such perfect relief. Even the falling of a tear is a prayer. There are times in the lives of all when we need extra strength and comfort. Be not discouraged in praying again and again for the same thing. God understands our needs, and he will bless us in his own way. The power in prayer seems to me much like that of electricity. As the wire is the conductor of the electric current, so, it seems to me, is prayer the channel through which inspiration comes to man.”

-Ann M. Cannon

Source: At the Pulpit, Reeder and Holbrook

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Women’s History Month: Sarah M. Kimball (11)

Sarah M. Kimball 1818–1898
Illustration by Brook Smart

“Mrs. Sarah M. Kimball said she had waited patiently a long time, and now that we were granted the right of suffrage, she would openly declare herself a woman’s rights woman” –Salt Lake Fifteenth Ward Relief Society minutes, 19 Feb.1870

Happy Women’s History Month!

Meet Sarah Kimball (1818-1898).

On a cold January in 1870, Sarah M. Kimball, Martha Hughes Cannon, and Eliza R. Snow planned an “Indignation Meeting” inviting the Relief Society sisters of Utah to attend. The Relief Society was not a political organization, but they felt they had no choice. Utah women must speak in mass “indignation” to protest the federal legislation that had repealed the right to vote.

Only women were invited to speak and attend these “Indignation” meetings with one exception: the media. Sarah and others were saavy enough to know that the press was crucial to their cause. With 5000 women in attendance, the meeting made the front page of The New York Times.

By March 1870, it was reported that 25,000 women had attended these local meetings all over the Utah territory. “Ultimately, these protests served a number of purposes. Mormon women had a chance to show the outside world that they were articulate and willing to defend their beliefs. Through indignation meetings held in local communities, Latter-day Saint women made a dramatic entry into public life…”

In the 1890s, during a national push for universal suffrage for all women, Kimball served as a delegate to the national suffrage association, and as president of the Utah Woman’s Suffrage Association (where she was later voted in as “Honorary President” for life). Contemporary Emmaline B. Wells compared Sarah to the “illustrious so called General, Susan B. Anthony.”

It is extremely interesting to see how intertwined matters of faith were with the politics of the day, and how keen these religious women were to advance women’s political rights – first in Utah – and then nationally.

Kimball’s following speech at the National Council of Women was printed in the Women’s Exponent and widely distributed. Not all appreciated the intertwining of the spiritual with the temporal. An excerpt:

“The Sixth Sense links mortal with immortal existence; it testifies in unmistakable language of the immortality of the soul. It educates, exalts, and refines those that heed its whisperings and follow its guiding influence. This sense leads to blissful heights of superior understanding; teaches the secrets of ever-existent life – our relationship to the past, present, and future – and brings us into harmony with the infinite fountain of life and intelligence…”

As president of the Utah suffrage association, Kimball wrote that many thousands of future generations of women would someday recognize those who came before them: “Their noble, emancipated daughters will rise up and call them blessed.”

Sources: Church History Press; At the Pulpit, Reeder and Holbrook, Zion’s Suffragists, utahwomenshistory.org

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Women’s History Month: Mattie Horne Tingey (10)

Martha “Mattie” Horne Tingey (1857-1938)

Happy Women’s History Month!

Meet Mattie Horne Tingey (1857-1938)

Mattie, a great leader in her church and local community, believed that women were to stand shoulder to shoulder with man, using their intellects to bless those around them.

As a child she loved learning and eavesdropping on adult conversations

Women’s History Month: Elvira S. Barney! (9)

Elvira S. Barney (1832-1889)

Happy Women’s History Month! Meet Elvira S. Barney (1832-1889)

Elvira lived during exciting times, that of the great Utah Suffrage Movement.

As a child she endured hard times.

Elvira’s father died in Nauvoo Illinois, followed by Elvira’s mother three months later (purportedly from exhaustion). Elvira proceeded to walk across the midwestern plains with her older sister, to the Salt Lake Valley, when she was 16-years-old.

Elvira was married and divorced twice (I’m curious), marrying the third time as a pleural wife (also curious, but not uncommon).

Barney taught school, attended the University of Utah (then Universtiy of Deseret), Wheaton College, and studied medicine in the east. She returned to Salt Lake to practice obstetrics and medicine, and to teach teach medical courses to young women.

Barney actively pursued politics, which included women’s rights and the suffragette movement which was raging in the west. On February 12, 1870, the Utah territory granted women the right to vote (following Wyoming’s example). 17 years later it was rescinded due to the federal government’s objection to polygamy.

Local suffrage associations began popping up everywhere with the support of Susan B. Anthony, a great friend to Mormon women, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton (who it seems was kept at a cool distant by Utah women after her disdainful speech about “so many children,” ha). Elvira was heavily involved, and deeply committed to women’s rights and religious liberty.

Barney became a chaplain in 1889 to minister to her sisters, leading all women of Utah in prayer to God “in a nondenominational manner, seeking is aid in the quest for woman suffrage.”

Here is a quote from her published prayer at the Utah Woman Suffrage Association which was open to “all women, without regard to party, sect, or creed.”

“Wilt thou be with woman as thou hast been with man, to strengthen her where she is weak that she may aid in the defense of truth and right, and where her voice is heard throughout the broad face of the earth, may it have echo in the hearts of the honest, and may she serve to smooth the wrinkles of unjust laws, as she does and has, the pillows beneath the aching heads….we pray thee that thou wilt bless thy handmaidens here in this little nook in the valleys of the mountains, that we may perform noble and grand acts that will compare with the grandeur of the mountains around. Hear us, O Father, at this time, and accept of our humble offering, for we dedicate ourselves, our meeting, and our cause unto thee…in the name of Jesus, Amen.” -Elvira S. Barney

Stay tuned for more great women…!

Source: At the Pulpit, Reeder and Holbrook

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Women’s History Month: Lillie T. Freeze! (8)

Lelia “Lillie” Tuckett Freeze (1855-1937)

Happy Women’s History Month.

Meet Lillie Tuckett Freeze. Actress, writer, mother, activist!

Lillie performed with her mother, Mercy, on stage for a theater company in Salt Lake City, but when the theater company disbanded, Mercy abandoned her family to pursue her theatrical career.

At age five or six, Lillie and her grandmother WALKED three hundred miles to Saint George, UT, and a year later, walked BACK three hundred miles to Salt Lake.

Like her mother, Lillie was an actress, and also a writer for the Deseret News, the Women’s Exponent, the Improvement Era, and the Young Woman’s Journal.

She joined the Young Ladies Retrenchment Society, an organization within the newly formed Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The society gathered twice monthly to to further women’s social causes and education.

As a counselor in her church’s Young Ladies Mutual Improvement Society, Lillie spoke from the pulpit on October 18, 1880 when few women in America were speaking from the pulpit anywhere in America. This sermon was later published in the Women’s Exponent.

Here is a gem (she doesn’t hold back):

“We scarcely stop to think seriously upon any subject but fashion. Many of our aspirations reach no further than the feather that floats over our heads. Our eyes see little but the failings of each other, and our ears are open to scandal and prejudice, while our lips are but the servants of our idle, giddy brain. We are too easily satisfied with ourselves and our labors. While the great work of life rolls on constantly, calling for earnest, busy laborers in the cause of humanity, we, in our wild mania after pleasure, rush blindfolded past every avenue of doing good…while our hungry, starved spiritual natures must stand aside and wait the time when they will be allowed to plead their just cause without being forever silenced by the harsh, unfeeling voice of our own selfish natures.”

I’m interested in Lillie’s unusual profession as an actress and writer in the 1800’s, coupled with her faith and confidence to speak so boldly about depth of character and the importance of this life.

Stay tuned for more interesting women in history…!

Source: At the Pulpit, Reeder and Holbrook

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Women’s History Month: Eliza R. Snow! (7)

Eliza R. Snow, 1804-1887

Happy Women’s History Month!

Eliza R. Snow is well known as one of “Mormonisms Founding Mothers.” She was a spiritual giant whose influence is felt today.

Dr. Jenny Reeder says: “Eliza Roxcy Snow, one of Utah’s earliest settlers, worked to empower women. She encouraged women to act independently, speak publicly, participate in civic activity, and defend religious freedom.”

Because she kept a ledger and the minutes as secretary of the Relief Society, Eliza became intimately familiar with the work of women. She carried the minutes book from Nauvoo Illinois, to Winter Quarters, Nebraska when members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints were driven out of Illinois. She carried it further while walking across the plains and arriving in the Salt Lake Valley in 1847.

A lesser-known piece of Eliza’s history (and only recently discovered through another woman’s journal) is that she was sexually assaulted by eight Missourians during 19th-century tensions between LDS settlers and their Midwestern enemies, leaving her infertile. Typical of the time, it was not openly discussed. Typical of Eliza’s indomitable spirit, she carried on; it did not define her.

“It is uphill, and if you continue you will attain to something much higher than those who go downhill.”

Eliza was a poet and would compile over 500 poems, many of which became songs in the hymnal (Oh My Father being one of my favorite). She became a leading voice for women as she traveled around Utah as General Relief Society President speaking, training Relief Society presidencies, working with bishops and congregations, and helping Utah women secure the right to vote.

In the 1850’s, Eliza was dismissive of women’s rights, but twenty years later she appeared to have had a change of heart, becoming quite the suffragette. On a cold January in 1870, Eliza, Sarah Kimball, and Martha Hughes Cannon planned an “Indignation Meeting,” using the Relief Society to band women together.

“It is our duty to vote, sisters! Let no trifling thing keep you at home.”

Always interested in education, Snow encouraged women to care for the poor, to “expand their priorities beyond domestic routines to also include…social reform, home manufacture, intellectual, and spiritual discussion.” I took note that in 1872, Eliza announced the formation of a physiology class!

“Tell the sisters to go forth and discharge their duties, in humility and faithfulness and the Spirit of God will rest upon them and they will be blest in their labors. Let them seek for wisdom instead of power and they will have all the power they have wisdom to exercise.”

Eliza’s history is so much richer than this small excerpt. Below are some sources of reading that will no doubt leave you inspired.

Thank you, Eliza!

Sources: utahwomenshistory.org, Zion’s Suffragists, sltrib, At the Pulpit by Reeder and Holbrook

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Women’s History Month: Dr. Martha Hughes Cannon! (6)

Dr. Martha Hughes Cannon. Physician, Suffragette, Mother, State Senator

Happy Women’s History Month!

Another AMAZING woman!

A Welsh immigrant, Martha “Mattie” Hughes Cannon (1857-1932) arrived in the Utah Territory in 1861 to join The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Bright and independent, Martha aspired to be a doctor when few women even went to college. “In response to Brigham Young’s encouragement to enter the medical field,” Martha enrolled at the University of Utah at age 16, studying chemistry and earning money as a typesetter for the Deseret News and Women’s Exponent. It is here she became immersed in the women’s rights movement.

She earned a medical degree from the University of Michigan, a degree in pharmaceuticals from the University of Pennsylvania (as the only female in the program,) and a degree in Elocution and Oratory. Four degrees by the age of 25!

In Salt Lake City, Martha practiced medicine at the woman-run Deseret Hospital. In 1884 she became the fourth wife to Angus M. Cannon (whom she dearly loved) and was exiled to England when anti-polygamous sentiment was high.

When she returned, the voting rights of Utah women had been repealed (after 17 years). Martha, using her exceptional oratory skills, became an ardent suffragette leader: “No privileged class either of sex, wealth, or descent should be allowed to arise or exist; all persons should have the same legal right to be the equal of every other, if they can.”

After speaking at the Women’s Congress of the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893, the Chicago Record observed: “Mrs. Dr. Martha Hughes Cannon. . .is considered one of the brightest exponents of woman’s cause in the United States.”

The next year she argued at a Salt Lake suffrage meeting: “one of the principal reasons why women should vote—is that all men and women are created free and equal.” 

In 1898, she spoke in Washington, D.C.: “The story of the struggle for woman’s suffrage in Utah is the story of all efforts for the advancement and betterment of humanity.” 

On the ballot as a Democrat, Martha was the first woman in Salt Lake to register to vote, running against friend and suffragette Emmaline B. Wells AND her own husband for the state senate!

SHE WON – becoming the FIRST WOMAN elected to a state senate.

While serving as a state senator, Martha practiced medicine, legislated women’s working class conditions, food laws, and helped establish Utah’s first state board of health. She also had her third child, Gwendolyn, while in office!

She had this to say about being a working mother: “You give me a woman who thinks about something besides cook stoves and wash tubs and baby flannels, and I’ll show you, nine times out of ten, a successful mother.”

Martha was a woman who was always striving: “[L]et us not waste our talents in the cauldron of modern nothingness, but strive to become women of intellect, and endeavor to do some little good while we live in this protracted gleam called life.” 

“There are yet many realms of silence to be made vocal, many scientific truths to be discovered, many arts to be perfected, which require the hearts and minds of women.” -Martha Hughes Cannon

Thank you, Martha.

Stay tuned for more incredible women!

Sources: Zion’s Suffragists by Dianna Douglas and utahwomenshistory.org

If you’re a teacher and would like a lesson plan on Martha Hughes Cannon, check this out from The National Women’s History Museum.

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Women’s History Month: Emma Hale Smith! (5)

Emma Hale Smith, painting by Julie Rogers

Happy Women’s History Month!

I love this woman. An ordinary woman who found herself a key player at an extraordinary time in history.

Emma Hale Smith had a happy, privileged life with her parents in Harmony, Pennsylvania, but gave it all up when she fell in love with, and married, Joseph Smith, Jr.

Disowned by her parents, constantly driven from one home to the next, Emma and Joseph would bury many children: four died at birth and two as toddlers.

Her mother-in-law, Lucy Mack Smith said: “I have never seen a woman in my life who would endure every species of fatigue and hardship, from month to month, and from year to year, with that unflinching courage, zeal, and patience, which she has always done.”

Emma was left alone and destitute when Joseph was unlawfully dragged to jail, always had a house full of people for whom she was caring for, and was in constant fear for her life, and that of her husband’s.

Emma served as a scribe for her husband while he translated scripture that would become The Book of Mormon. She compiled the first hymnal, and was ordained, to “expound scriptures and exhort the church according as it shall be given thee.” She spoke with spiritual authority, providing a pattern for women in the church to speak publicly at a time when few women did.

As the first President of the Relief Society, an all-women’s organization that ministered to, and provided spiritual, emotional, and physical relief within the church and community, Emma stood before her Relief Society sisters, and declared, “We are going to do something extraordinary.”

And they did! The Relief Society has grown into the oldest and largest women’s charitable organization in the world, with over 7.1 million members in 188 countries.

Emma did not go west with the pioneer saints, but said this of her faith: “I have not the slightest doubt of it. … I was an active participant in the scenes that transpired, and was present during the translation of the plates … and had cognizance of things as they transpired, it is marvelous to me, ‘a marvel and a wonder,’ as much as to anyone else.”

Emma and Joseph’s life was always one of scrutiny. Their marriage was never easy. And yet it is a great love story. Jospeh said she was “the wife of my youth, and the choice of my heart.” Emma would outlive Joseph by thirty years. She remarried, but it is said that it was Joseph’s name she uttered on her deathbed – Joseph!

Sources: At the Pulpit, Reeder and Holbrook, churchofjesuschrist.org

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Women’s History Month: Lucy Mack Smith (4)

Happy Women’s History Month. Today we have a tiny but mighty woman.

Lucy Mack Smith (1775-1856)

Lucy Mack Smith was the mother of nine children, including Joseph Smith Jr. and Hyrum Smith, and is known for being a strong voice in the early Church.

Considered very pious, Lucy was a frequent reader of the bible, prayed, discussed dreams and visions, and visited many denominations.

She was baptized\soon after her son Joseph organized the Church of Christ on April 6, 1830.

Because of her social standing within the church, her great piety, and natural leadership abilities, “Mother Smith” was often deferred to.

A favorite story and example of the authority she exercised is when, in May 1831, Smith was part of a company of eighty people traveling from Fayette, New York to Kirkland, Ohio, using the waterways rather than land.

Lucy later wrote, “Before leaving, I called them all around me. Now, said I, brothers and sisters, we have set out just as Father Lehi did to travel by the commandment of the Lord to a land that the Lord will show unto us if we are faithful…'”

The journey was difficult, the weather adverse. The ice was frozen and the company was stuck in Buffalo, NY, waiting for the ice to break so they could cross. Lucy and the company were told to be quiet about their religious beliefs as there was much persecution. Instead, Mother Smith stood on the deck and boldly proclaimed to the townspeople:

“Where is your confidence in God? Do you know that all things are in His hands?…raise your desires to heaven that the ice may give way before us and we be set at liberty to go on our way, as sure as the Lord live it shall be done.“

As soon as she finished, “A noise was heard like bursting thunder, and the captain cried out, ‘every man to his post!'”

Do you know what happened next? It is recorded that at that very moment, the ice parted.

I’m a bit awestruck on two accounts. One, most women at this time were not preaching publicly, certainly not to mixed-gender audiences on ship decks.

Second, the ice parted as Lucy commanded it. Now, you might not believe this story, or find the ice parting just a coincidence. But I like to think otherwise. I like to think that there is a God who inspires both men and women to not only preach, but also prophesy. The ice parts! We cross to safety.

Stay tuned for more amazing women!

Sources: At the Pulpit, Reeder and Hobrook

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