An Englishwoman in Utah: The Story of a Life's Experience in Mormonism

by Mrs. T. B. H. Stenhouse

To face p. 148.

The weather was now growing very cold and wintry, and it was absolutely necessary that we should have some better shelter than the waggons afforded. One day my husband told me, when he came home, that he had been offered a house which belonged to the Church. It was in a very dilapidated condition, he said, but that if I would go and look at it with him, we could then decide about taking it. No time was to be lost, for companies of emigrants were coming in almost daily, and if we neglected this chance we might not find another.

When we arrived at the house I was much discouraged at seeing the condition it was in: the window-panes were all cracked or broken out, the floors and walls looked as if they had never known soap or paint, and the upper rooms had no ceilings; in fact it was not fit for any civilized Christian to live in. In point of size there was nothing to complain of, but of comfort or convenience there was none—the wind whistled through every door and every cracked window; and altogether it presented anything but a cheering prospect for winter.

My husband told me that Daniel H. Wells, who was superintendent of Church property and also one of the First Presidency of the Church, had promised him that if we took the house it should be repaired and made fit for living in before winter fully set in; and under the circumstances we thought we could do no better than accept his offer.

Thus we began housekeeping in Utah, and we unpacked our trunks and tried to give the place as home-like an appearance as we possibly could. I had known what it was to be in a strange country and destitute; and, therefore, benefiting by experience, when I left New York, regardless of the teachings of the Elders and of my own husband’s directions to the contrary, I had secretly stowed away many little necessaries towards housekeeping. Indeed had I not done so, we should have been as badly off when we reached Zion as when we arrived in New York. Besides which, I have no doubt that our waggons would have been filled with the trunks of those very brethren who counselled us not to take more than was absolutely necessary. The brethren who gave this counsel were, I noticed, constantly purchasing while they advised every one else to sell, and I thought it wiser to follow their example than their precepts.

Among my treasures was some carpet, and when that was laid down and the stove put up we began to feel almost at home. The wind, however, soon drove away all thoughts of comfort, for it came whistling in through a thousand undetected crevices, and the tallow candles which we were obliged to burn presented a woeful spectacle. Even the most wealthy, then, had no other light but candles, and every family had to make their own: I have often seen people burning a little melted grease with a bit of cotton-rag stuck in the middle for a wick—how pleasant the smell, and how brilliant the light thus produced can be imagined. Everything was upon the same scale—and to keep house in any fashion was really a formidable undertaking, especially to those who had been accustomed to the conveniences of large towns. I believe that many women consented to their husbands taking other wives for the sake of getting some assistance in their home duties.

We spent nearly all the first evening in our new house in trying to discover some means of keeping out the storm, but to little purpose. Nearly a fortnight passed before any one came to see about repairing the house, but as it belonged to the Church my husband seemed to think it must be all right. The Mormon men are always very lenient towards “the Church”—very much more so than the Mormon women, for the latter have somehow got mixed up in their minds the idea that Brigham Young and “the Church” are synonymous terms. I remember one day a good young sister—a daughter of one of the twelve Apostles—saying to me, “I have just seen the Church,” and when I asked her what she meant, she said, “I have just met Brigham Young and Hyram Clawson, and are they not the Church?” It was evident to me that others besides myself sometimes gave way to wicked thoughts. Nevertheless I was still of opinion that “the Church” had plenty of money and ought to have repaired the house.

One day a man whom I had never seen before, called upon me and asked what repairs I should like done. I was not feeling very well, and had been annoyed at the delay, and I answered rather ungraciously that I should like anything done, if it were only done at once, for I thought we had waited long enough. He answered me very politely, and said that he would see to it immediately. When Mr. Stenhouse returned home in the evening, he said, “So you have had a visit from President Wells.” “No,” I said, “there has been no one here but a carpenter—an ugly man with a cast in his eye, and I told him that I wanted the house fixed right away.”

“Why, that was President Wells,” he said, very much shocked, and I think I felt as bad as he did when I realized that I had treated one of the “First Presidency” so unceremoniously.

This Daniel H. Wells, besides being an Apostle, a Counsellor of Brigham Young, and one of the three “Presidents” who share with Brigham the first position in the Church, and are associated with him in all his official acts, was Lieutenant-General of the Nauvoo Legion, and at the present time and for some years past Mayor of Salt Lake City. It was a shocking indiscretion, to say the least, to speak slightingly of such a high and mighty personage.