"A Utah Idyll," Chapters 1-2

File — Box: 5, Folder: 3

Identifier: III

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

Chapters I and II of Mary's life story "A Utah Idyll" consists of 129 typewritten pages. This is a fictionalized history of Mary's family. It begins:
"In the sagebrush territory of Deseret, two babies were born to four adoring parents in the year 1857. All four parents were members of the Mormon church, especially Brother and Sister Bennett of Stayville, who had obeyed the counsel of Brigham Young to embrace polygamy, the only principle which had the power to admit a man or a woman into the highest glory in the Celestial Kingdom."
All the names in this piece of writing are fictionalized, but the facts seem close to the actual accounts of Mary's parents and grandparents, perhaps embellished for effect. She writes about the Bennion brothers adding wives to their small, but fast growing families.
"The first plural wife they allowed to be chosen by their faithful companion, but the next they managed to wed with out her help. There was a calm stoicism on the occasion of the first plural marriage, which lasted until the second one was consummated, and then hysterical jealousy on the part of the first wives, from that moment onward, till old age quieted all the impulses of the mind. As the years went by many devices were adoped with varying success: marrying a group of friends, of sisters, or a mother and her daughters. Many widows and old maids joined the church, in those riotous days of freely selected husbands, partly because they were told it was the privilege of a woman to marry whom she pleased, and that Brigham Young, himself, enforced this rule."
On the subject of Brigham Young's revelations she says:
"One of these divine directives resulted in the tearing down of the nearly built Bennett cabins on a tract of land in the center of the valley, and their re-erection on the west side of the Jordan River. The land the Bennett brothers had settled on, God had remembered, after the land had been plowed and fenced and was known to be the most fertile soil in the valley, was meant to a 'church farm'. But God had been a little confused at the time, apparently, because it wasn't long until this farm was deeded to the private estate of Brigham Young."
This cynicism and bitterness pervades Mary's narration. The saddest commentary on polygamy is the following:
"Because the first wife was both so angry and influential, the younger wives were not permitted to display affection even for their children in her presence."
Mary's father told her this story:
"He could remember following his mother about the house, trying in vain to attract her attention. His father was always carrying Petsy, his half-sister of the same age, in his arms. He would ache all over to be held, and petted and kissed as she was. He would lean hard against his mother, to try to get her to pick him up, or just touch him, as everyone did so lovingly to Petsy. But she never even looked at him. Many years later, his mother told him that the place on her knee where he had leaned, would ache after he had gone outside to play."
Mary recalls the myths of her childhood:
"Don't pay a full tithing to the penny and you'll be burned in hell."
"Eat on Fast Day, and you'll be feeding the Devil."
"Don't bear your testimony and God will be ashamed of you."
"Think mean thoughts about your father after he hits you hard and you'll be dishonoring the priesthood, which is the same as insulting God."
"Disobey your parents and you won't live to be old."

Dates

1844-1949

Conditions Governing Access

Twenty-four hour advanced notice encouraged. Materials must be used on-site. Access to parts of this collection may be restricted under provisions of state or federal law.