Women’s History Month. Wow. How’s that for a heavy load of words? I’ve been asked (directly or indirectly) several times already what woman from history has most influenced my life. Now that’s a question that requires a lot of thought. I’m not sure I’ve got time for that kind of thought. I’ve got too many [...]

This week I’ve been getting to know Susa Young Gates. The daughter of Brigham Young and Lucy Bigelow, his twenty-second wife, Susa was no ordinary woman. The following excerpt from Mormon Sisters, by Claudia Bushman, describes, some of her accomplishments.
“During her lifetime of seventy-seven years, she was a prolific writer, musician, genealogist, teacher organizer, [...]

You probably don’t know this about me, but I am a product of what has been dubbed “one of the most heartbreaking episodes of in the annals of Mormon polygamy.” Or something like that.

I’m all about the love stories.
As a youth I would pester my “elders” for recitations of their first encounter, of how they fell in love. I would ask for pictures, for endless details, I wanted to know these things. I didn’t need these stories to draw selected bits from, to collage my own fantasy; I [...]

I remember the way the white counter tops would be covered with scores of paper plates, droopy under their load: cookies. Lots and lots of cookies.

A few months ago, I was sitting in the too-small chairs located in the children’s section of my local library. I was there to meet with my son’s social worker, speech therapist, and another mother whose children were also in therapy. And as if often the case when women get together, the conversation [...]

Ten years ago the Church celebrated the sesquicentennial of the 1847 arrival in the Salt Lake Valley. I missed all the hoopla, the documentaries and nationwide news coverage”“I was on a mission in Ecuador. I got echoes of the festivities through letters and weeks-old copies of the Church news. Also it seemed [...]

At two a.m. my companion and I knocked on the mission nurse’s door. “You made it!”she said. She hugged us both as we stumbled in, lugging our baggage. Inside her apartment mattresses lined the floor, with suitcases squeezed in between: all thirty sister missionaries in our mission would be crammed inside this [...]

“Okonkwo’s fear was greater than these. It was not external but lay deep within himself. It was the fear of himself, lest he should be found to resemble his father.”—-Chinua Achebe, “Things Fall Apart”
I have spent many years running away from the abnormalities of my family. Let’s just say that we [...]

When my dad tells me he loves me, I know that he truly loves me. I can see it in his blue eyes and how they squint just so, tearing up. Sure, there were times I also saw disappointment or anger cloud those eyes, but first and foremost I knew love, and so the subsequent [...]

Some of the greatest lessons I learned about motherhood I learned from my father.

I have something like 87 mother’s in my life. The obvious one, the one I got with the wedding, the dozen or so I picked up with the neighborhood, some from the ward. And the ones who kept me even after we moved away. I love these women. Do you hear that? I love you [...]

I fear a Man of frugal Speech–
I fear a Silent Man–
Haranguer–I can overtake–
Or Babbler–entertain–
But He who weigheth–While the Rest–
Expend their furthest pound–
Of this Man–I am wary–
I fear that He is Grand–
–Emily Dickinson
I am the product of a long line of opinionated, flawed, and strong women. My grandmother, who stubbornly lived to be 93 years-old, [...]

Editor’s Note: This is another (very welcome) guest post from Emily M.

The Book of Mormon mentions five women by name: Sariah, Abish, Isabel, Eve, and Mary. It refers, without naming, to various wives (of Nephi and his brothers, of King Lamoni, of Jacob’s philandering people); to an abused servant girl of a dissenting army leader; [...]

When I was young, my father told me I could “be” anything.
I believed him.