History may be recorded in the big events, but life is lived in the details. And over a period of time, the most common, ordinary details can be some of the most telling. In recent decades, historians have discovered the common man - and woman. The big events are needed as milestones and markers, but common events and ordinary people also have compelling stories to tell. Here are three new works about Western women that provide ample evidence of that.
UNCOMMON COMMON WOMEN: Ordinary Lives of the West, by Anne M. Butler and Ona Siporin; Utah State University Press; 144 pages; $34.95 cloth; $21.95 paper.
Anne Butler and Ona Siporin are storytellers. They see drama in the ordinary and commonality in the dramatic and for the past several years have been presenting a lecture/-performance series around the Mountain West that has received critical acclaim. Now they have captured the essence of those performances in print.
On the trail and off, people found their ways of dying. . . .
Chapter headings reveal the scope: women of the prairies, of the schoolhouse, of the criminal world, of the fort and city, immigrant women, indigenous women - mostly the women that you don't hear a lot about. The authors are not interested, they say, in promoting stereotypes of the West but rather in "focusing on the forgotten roles and gritty realities of these women's lives during an often brutally difficult time."
I have always imagined her stepping onto the train in Buffalo as a woman and stepping off in St. Louis as a man. That must be the way she did it. A desperate, determined woman could bring it off. . . .
Each section contains a historic narrative that provides context and background for the vignettes and photos that add voice, imagery and detail. These are only bits and pieces of a much larger story - there is no pretense that it is an in-depth study. "The content is merely suggestive, intended to infuse the reader with a desire to learn more about Western women," they say. "Although we center on women of the American West in the latter half of the 19th century, we are convinced that their essence, in story and in life, transcends the boundaries of region and, in some aspects, of time, to encompass the nature of womanhood."
The Blackfeet. The Brule. The Cheyenne . . . Reno's advance. Reno's fall back to the trees. Reno's retreat. Custer's stand about Deep Coulee. Custer's last stand against Crazy Horse, Gall, Black Moor.
These things are easy to see on a map.
But who can show me on a map the spot where the young woman Tashnamani, dropped her digging tool of ash?
"Uncommon Common Women" is proof that every life contains a story. And in the hands of skilled narrators it is a fascinating one.
WORTH THEIR SALT: Notable But Often Unnoted Women of Utah, edited by Colleen Whitley; Utah State University Press; 308 pages; $37.95 cloth, $19.95 paper.
This book is a "labor of love and curiosity and outrage and humor," says Colleen Whitley in the preface. "It began with a conversation among volunteers for the Utah State Historical Society who discovered that each had identified a woman in Utah history who had been overlooked, neglected or misrepresented in the past."
Many of the names are recognizable: Maud May Babcock, Maude Adams, Helen Zeese Papanikolas, Ivy Baker Priest. Others are less familiar: Mother M. Augusta, Elizabeth Ann McCune, Georgia Lathouris Mageras, Kuniko Muramatsu Terasawa. But they all made important contributions to the history of the state.
Eighteen profiles in all are included, written by different authors, and as with any anthology, you get a bit of unevenness as to tone and style. But the authors have skillfully captured their subjects, telling of their lives, their dreams, their hardships; showcasing their diversity; presenting them as women you feel you would like to know.
"The current superintendent at Mt. Olivet Cemetery," writes Judy Dykman of Susanna Bransford Engalitcheff, "is not sure if Susie's body actually rests beneath her headstone. No doubt Susie would be delighted with this situation. She loved to leave people guessing and enjoyed a good joke."
"And what of Chipeta?" asks Susan Whitney in her profile of the wife of Ute Indian Ouray. "What was in her heart when she became Queashegut's adoptive mother? What was in her heart when he was kidnapped, lost for years, then found and lost again? Nothing is recorded of how she felt, of course. We are left to guess, knowing only this: Chipeta never bore any children of her own."
And what Donna Smart says of Patty Bartlett Sessions could be said of them all: "We might ask what sense of destiny or importance or urgency drove her. Surely she teaches us some lessons - that life's meaning is found in its dailiness, that small, necessary acts can be creations of art, that the tattered scrap of webbing pressed between the pages of the 1842 medical book may be the key to Patty's consistency in record keeping (since we all hope for some kind of immortality). Cross-stitched in bold red letters and decorated with forest green squiggles are two simple words: `Remember Me.' "
A SCHOOLMARM ALL MY LIFE, by Judy Kinkead; Signature Books; $17.95; 240 pages, paper.
Schoolmarms interest Judy Kinkead - specifically Mormon schoolmarms who taught in the early days of the settlement and territory, women who "worked at a conventional profession in an unconventional society." These were women who often had little formal training themselves, who had to cope with the other trials of frontier life, who still developed a love of education and a desire to impart knowledge and were sustained by their faith and beliefs.
From countless diaries and life sketches of early Mormon women, Kinkead has selected 24 that belong to women who were teachers some or most of their lives, covering a century - from Louisa Barnes Pratt, born in 1802, to Reva Stevens Daniels Smoot, born in 1902. Given the scope of the study, Kinkead seems overly fascinated by polygamy (several of the teachers were polygamous wives), and some of the introductions are a bit repetitive; but the overall tone of the work is scholarly and thoughtful. A disertation-like introduction is followed by a lengthy, well-researched prologue that provides background and an overview of education in these early days.
"The first Utah school, taught by Mary Jane Dilworth, opened in October 1847 in a tepee-shaped army tent inside the old town fort (now Pioneer Park) with nine pupils; Dilworth was 17."
And it is interesting to see how much some things have changed: "One incident impressed my mind always. `Twas of a boy hanging by his feet from one of the joints in the room, his face red and his eyes bulging. This was given as punishment for some unruly act. My wonder afterward was how the teacher, she being a woman, got him up there. The children were all crying for fear he would fall." - Martha Cragun Cox.
And how much some things have not: "What trying things children are! Especially boys; full of fun and mischief and so ungenerous, ungrateful and tantalizing! Really, I think sometimes the better they are treated, the worse they act. I haven't had a minute's rest all this long afternoon." - Louise Lula Green Richards.
"School has been fairly good today. I must introduce percentage tomorrow to my eighth grade. I dread it. Only eight weeks until Christmas." - Vilate Elliott.
It is an interesting collection from diverse women joined by a common thread. The diaries and sketches reveal a lot about teachers and teaching, of course - but even more about life.
*****
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Brown-bag series to profile notable women
Various authors included in the anthology "Worth Their Salt" will be speaking throughout the year during a brown-bag series sponsored by Utah State Archives and the Utah State Historical Society.
Beginning this week, the series, titled "The Pioneering Spirit: Notable Utah Women," will be held at the White Chapel, 150 E. 300 North (across the street from the Utah State Capitol at noon on the following days:
- Thursday, Jan. 16: Donna Smart talks about Patty Bartlett Sessions, pioneer midwife.
- Feb. 20: Harriet Horne Arrington speaks on Alice Merrill Horne, art promoter and legislator.
- March 20: Miriam Murphy tells the story of poet Sarah Elizabeth Carmichael.
- April 17: Susan Whitney talks about Chipeta, a woman of the Ute tribe.
- May 15: Robert Goldberg reviews the life of Esther Rosenbaltt Landa, political activist.
- June 12: Judy Dykeman tells the story of Susanna Bransford Engalitcheff, the Silver Queen.
- July 17: Haruku Moriyasu speaks of her mother, journalist Kuniko Muramutsu Terasawa.
- Aug. 21: Martha Bradley talks about artist Mary Teasdale.
- Sept. 18: Helen Zeese Papanikolas talks about her own life as a writer of ethnic history.
- Oct. 16: Rachelle Pace Castor speaks on the subject of actress Maude Adams.
- Nov. 20: Stanford Layton talks about former U.S. Treasurer Ivy Baker Priest.