Juanita BrooksReseñas

Good story about LDS historian. She was the first one to write about Mountain Meadows. I only read parts of her book about the massacre.

Good biography of man blamed entirely for Mountain Meadows massacre.

Ugh. So even the University of Utah Press is using glued bindings on their hardbacks now. Hiss! Boo!

As for the content: Brooks comes across as a rock-solid theist/supernaturalist, but it's hard to figure out the level of her commitment to the Restored Gospel in particular. When writing to Church leaders, she emphasized her activity, the many callings she held, etc. When writing to atheists, ex-Mormons, and anti-Mormons, she emphasized her unorthodoxy. Her friendly letters to Fawn Brodie seem more sincere than her friendly letters to General Authorities. She talked to LeGrand Richards about her recent temple attendance; she talked to others about her coffee-drinking. She talked constantly about following the truth wherever it led her, but did she do so in the matter of Oliver Overstreet? Mountain Meadows property owner Ezra Lytle is lauded as "a man of integrity and honor" when he refuses to sell to the Church, but when he refuses to sell to the government, Brooks laments the fact that private citizens have property rights.

There's lots of gossip in this book, for those who enjoy such things. I'm going to give Quicksand and Cactus a try; I think I'll like it a lot better..½

Have read several of J.B.'s books and this was average, at best. Not really a whole lot going on in terms of biography here. J.D. Lee took the fall and she continued to suffer because of Mormon retaliation. Before, we hear about her wonderful cooking and the odd story regarding her defense of J.D. Lee. Am glad it was a short book.

While the author provides a lot of documentation, I could not help sensing an LDS bias to the whole affair.

This wasn't a typical Mormon biography for me. It's short, with no footnotes, about an ordinary woman on the frontier, with seemingly limited historical record. But Emma wasn't so ordinary after all. She was among the British Mormon converts to sail to America and trek across the overland trail to Utah, and she was among the very few in the handcart companies, who walked with limited provisions. And she married into polygamy to a charasmatic man who had scandalously been named as involved in the Mountain Meadows Massacre, John D. Lee. As he built his homesteads and businesses and reputation, Emma supported and defended him. She settled at Lee's ferry, bore several children, and ran the ferry business. In later years she had another life on the frontier in Arizona, being known for her cooking and midwifery and medical service. I liked that it was a story that is not often told, a woman's own story on the remote and lonely frontier.

The composition of the biography was interesting because of how brief it was with no footnotes. Parts of the story seemed to have sparse details or to be skipped over, or to follow the life of her husband, who kept a good diary. It seemed a little uneven. I wondered if Emma didn't have full records of her life. And the author added some interpretative flourish to depict Emma's thoughts and feelings in certain situations.½

I write this in 2012, when Mitt Romney is the Republican nominee for President -- a Mormon nominee, and one whose Mormonism has been at least occasionally an issue. I find it very surprising that, in all this discussion, I have never heard the words "Mountain Meadows Massacre" used. For a massacre did take place at Mountain Meadows, a century and a half ago, and Mormons did take part, and in all the time since, there has been suspicion that the Mormon church was officially involved. The only way we can know for certain is to see the records of the Church, and these are hidden from the public.

Which makes this book historically very important. This was the first book to really try to take a critical look at the murder of dozens of "gentiles" on September 11, 1857. The author -- herself a Mormon -- was subjected to great anger by her church for raising such a delicate subject, even though she never reached absolute conclusions about the guilt of the church (a point on which many others have been less delicate).

So how good is the history? It depends on what you want. This is, frankly, a very disorganized book, opening with two Author's Statements and a Preface before it gets to the actual book. It concludes with many appendices which aren't even cataloged in the table of contents; you just have to go to the end of the book and start paging through them. The 1991 edition sandwiched this mess between a foreword and an afterword by a different author. It's a hard book to use, and not especially easy to read. But the research is impeccable, the conclusions appropriately cautious. If you just want a general outline of the affair, another book will be easier. But if you are willing to do the work to read the book, this is the fountainhead of more than fifty years of modern research -- research which, in 2012, could become significant if anyone ever asks the first Mormon presidential nominee what is his opinion about the Mormon Church opening its records.

(Disclaimer: The present writer is not a Mormon. Nor have I any idea whether the Mormon Church had a direct role in the Massacre, although it seems pretty clear they helped cover it up. I'm not particularly concerned about whether they are guilty or not; not only is everyone involved dead, but so are their children and grandchildren. But I do think we should have the truth.)½

have read it several times. juanita books was a neighbor of ours when we lived in the east 27th ward.