another book of mormons
CHAPTER four
The Testimony of Sister Karita, Seventh Wife
July 10, 1862, Sweetville, Morning
I am hungry. I am thirsty. I go to the water bowl. I drink deeply as if there is no tomorrow.
I have been talking much to Lannon, the Eastern writer, about our Sisterdom and the past. I want him to write about me, for my story is the most interesting of the Sisters. I am the most noteworthy of the golden, Celestial wives. Mother Evangeline is too aged. Sister Prudence is but a writer. Sister Hannah just speaks in tongues. I am the ideal Sister, the ideal wife. The Patriarch comes to me willingly, I who satisfy him.
“I am the golden one,” I attest to Lannon, “Build a tale around me.”
I remember too well the Willie Company and the early morn bugle call. What was this noise calling me to march on the trail to Zion? Could not we just wait and depart at a more sensible hour?
But no, that was not why I stirred myself. Those ordeals were over. I had forced myself awake not out of necessity but out of expectation.
I awaken more fully by focusing on the arrival of my admirer, Doctor Peter Jacobson, Sweetville’s lone doctor. He comes early this morn to the Patriarch’s house to check on Sister Willa and her impending delivery. At least I would have no role in that bloodied affair. Though it would be Sister Hannah’s job as midwife to see Sister Willa through the actual birthing, Doctor Peter is not one to abandon one of his charges completely to another’s hands. Just like dear Brother Peter.
With timing impeccable, I answer the front door at his first knock. He looks surprised to see me up so early.
“Sister Karita,” he blushes.
“Dear Brother Peter,” I offer my hand. Peter is mine to play with, an expendable plaything.
“How go Sister Willa and the child yet to be born?” Peter asks after patting my hand.
“She and her child are fine. Their fates are in the hands of our Mormon God.” I answer quickly. Sister Willa is nothing in the floods and waterspouts of the Mormon God. Our Mormon God in all of His practical worthiness has more important things on which to cast His care. Sister Willa must not give birth with a son. She is not worthy of Gold room status.
Doctor Peter looks me over with pleasure. I am an expert in what I look like. I know how to present myself. By form, I am still a fresh and blossoming woman, although I am the sealed mother of two Mormon sons. By height I may be but five feet but I carry myself with the stateliness of a taller woman. My face is magical. My complexion is still marble struck through with a flush of rose. My hair, and it was the hair that had attracted Peter when he had followed me cross-country some seven years earlier, is true blond, almost white, with waves that droop low behind. I wear a crimson red ribbon in my hair. I flaunt the ribbon to bring out my eyes, their retiring, reluctant blue-gray. I know what sets my beauty off.
“And how is the Mormon God treating my Danish Karita?” he says tempting me by withholding the word 'Sister.'
“I have found acceptance of Him and his surrogate, the Patriarch, the father of my sons.” I answer with a strict matter-of-factness. Slowly, not fearfully, I move back from the Doctor to emphasize the safety and comfort of my surroundings. “He is forever the source of our beneficence.” I leave Peter unsure whether the “He” was the Mormon God or the Patriarch. I do not distinguish between the two, for both are so eminently bountiful.
“Were that so, I should join you in trusting Him. I seem to become more each day a Jack Mormon, caught in a ritual that I do not believe but cannot abandon.” Peter looks at me without a shred of accusation. He knew why I had chosen the Patriarch over his more pressing, if modest, attentions. I had seen too much to take on an unwanted risk. I had seen death from starvation’s want close up—no more eating bran shorts of corn or wheat for me. I took no chances. The Patriarch’s position was impregnable—a landowner, a businessman, a Bishop, a Prophet, a seer, hopefully soon a member of the Church leadership, the Twelve. The Patriarch, a man of ample harvests, had the means to support as many wives as he might choose. And I am one of his higher, Celestially sealed wives, the most fecund of the golden wives, the one he asks for willingly and often.
I was the first of the Patriarch’s multiple wives to be sealed openly before the Gentile’s prying eyes. The sealing had been proudly announced in the Salt Lake City Deseret News. Polygamy, hitherto the well-known Mormon secret, had by 1856 come out into the light. The Patriarch displays me pridefully.
Mother Evangeline joins us in the front hall of the house.
“Sister Karita, what is that crimson ribbon that you are wearing in your hair? Who are you trying to entice with your vanity of apparel?” Mother Evangeline looks at Peter and me with skepticism. “And don’t you be luring the Patriarch with your amorous flirting! He has God’s work to do.” She said with an edge to her tone. How shriveled is her countenance compared to mine.
Amorous? I remember too well starvation to ever be amorous. Although I am quick to answer the sexual callings of the Patriarch, I look upward and away throughout each act. Afterwards I drink and eat to replenish myself.
Mother Evangeline angrily snatches the ribbon from my head.
I do not deign to register any anger. I slowly rearrange my hair removing any hint of muss. “At least I have living sons and have been sealed for them properly in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City safely away from all Gentile eyes.”
I remember the cool water in the blessed font atop its twelve white wooden oxen. The sealing ceremony called forth heaven’s blessing with a solemn prayer, a united shout, a Hosanna to God and the Lamb, then an Amen, another Amen and another Amen. How safe I felt, at last re-baptized and sealed. The Patriarch was then my eternal marriage partner, exalted to become a God. He was clearly a God in making; he would have no end, everlasting to everlasting. And I had earned the right to sit by His side in the Celestial Heaven as a Mother of Israel with my two healthy sons.
I taunt Mother Evangeline. “I have not been granted Gold Room status in mere memoriam for a son that did not live to see his manhood. I have living sons.”
Rage as hot as ashes crosses Mother Evangeline’s face.
“Mother Evangeline, I have come to check on Sister Willa.” Peter asks to keep anger’s fire from relighting, “How is she doing?”
“She is upstairs and is doing fine. What would she want with a doctor? Birthing is women’s work. Sister Hannah will lead us. Our Sisterdom will have to be enough.”
“I just wanted to see that Sister Willa is healthy. To see if she needs anything.”
“You men! Thank God the Patriarch is not as sentimental as you, Doctor. Well, if you must. But do not be touchin’ her. I will go fetch her.” Mother Evangeline leaves us alone.
Doctor Peter looks that insipid Sister Willa over quickly, not one to touch her even lightly without reason. She, of course, is blissfully healthy. Would her not yet born child be male or female? Did a Blue Room present or a Gold Room future await Sister Willa? God help us, lest the Gold Room become overcrowded with those that are unworthy. Why would God waste time elevating any of my Sisters? They are but pale reflections, mere handmaidens, next to my beauty. I am the best and shall remain the best. Who could question that?
Peter’s rationale for visiting our house is now dispatched. Reluctantly he parts without looking back at me again. There cannot be too much temptation in one short day for poor, not quite the Brother, Peter.
Sister Sarah enters with the morning’s washing. She hands me my newly cleaned undergarment.
I raise it high flaunting it before that red renegade.
“I received this at my sealing. It is a sacred cloth that protects me from harm head to foot.” I hold it up proudly.
“For me it would be too warm to wear in the height of summer.” Sister Sarah observes like a Shoshone.
“I fear only the cold, not the heat. I feel safe only when I am warm.”
“If I had to wear such vile garments, I would feel like a deer caught in a snare.”
“No Lamanite arrow or bullet can penetrate me when I don it. But then you are one of the dark skinned ones and do not need such protection.”
“I am the Great Spirit’s child. I need no other sheath.” She counters.
Sister Sarah and I gather the lunchtime food to be brought to those tilling the fields. I could not stand her presence. Such a Shoshone squaw with such inky blackened hair.
At least the wagon arrives on time. I cannot walk. I will never walk again if I have my choice. I marched all the way to Zion with the Willie Company—and that was enough walking for a lifetime. I perch myself high upon the Patriarch’s wagon-top, reveling in the breeze’s play upon my tightened bonnet
November 6, 1856, On the Trail with the Willie Companion
The Company led by the honorable, if hapless, Brother James Willie was persistently late. The Scandinavian Mormons, most bankrolled by the Perpetual Emigration Fund, had been late sailing from England. They were late arriving in New York City. They were late in their journey to Iowa City where the Trail itself started. It was mid-July before the Willie Company was ready to depart. The elders were divided in their judgment as to the practicality of reaching Utah so late in the season. After all, we still had a twelve hundred mile journey left to Zion. Brother Willie led the decision that, God willing, it was not too late. The elders thought we could in safety journey to the resting place of Israel in this the latter days. But of course we were too late.
Few of the Scandinavians, and certainly not me, Karita Hanson, or my younger, lesser sister Elsa, could afford to ride on a wagon. There were only six wagons when the group left Iowa City—six wagons for five hundred people. The Mormon planners had called this new concept, a handcart train, “Zion’s Express.” There were some one hundred twenty handcarts, each loaded with one hundred pounds. We walked and sometime we pulled a light handcart, nothing more than a rickshaw. “With speed we will strengthen Zion,” the elders claimed. They had promised the cart would be light enough that even a young girl might draw it. They were wrong. Lying our way to Zion. The handcarts would lessen the time and the expense of emigration. Let them gird their loins and walk through to Zion.
They had promised the handcarts would be swift and sure. They were neither. Fallible carts, even those pointed towards Zion, still lost their wheels. The unseasoned wood of the handcarts had long since shrunk, warped, and cracked in the dry, summer heat. Some of the axles were made of wood. These were prone to grind away in the dust. Metal axles needed greasing and for this the Willie Company had no more bacon left.
“At least they have stopped singing, that infernal song.” I shuddered as I thought about that false, misleading tune.
The chorus clamored,
Some must push and some must pull
As we go marching up the hill,
As merrily on the way we go
Until we reach the Valley, oh!
The Company tried to average twenty miles a day, but even if conditions favored us, we clocked at best fifteen. As our Willie Company traveled deeper to the West, the weather became more severe. Each night became colder. God, I was cold. Would I ever be warm again?
Doctor Peter Jacobson, although a recent convert—my follower, more than Zion’s—had been chosen tent captain for the group of twenty that contained both Elsa and me. Peter may have been lax in guaranteeing the daily singing and praying; but he was adept at maintaining peace amongst our twenty. It was Peter’s main job to keep the carts in some semblance of order. As our group of four handcarts reached a steep hill, all four of the carts balked; they could not be pulled up it. Peter led some of the stronger, younger men who, with their collective strength, doubled back to bring up two carts at a time a short distance, then back for the other two laggards. Up, back, up, after hours of toil, our whole company gained the summit. Then the carts rolled giddily downhill, out of control in the cold, whipping wind. Then there was another summit with more laggards to be coaxed up. And another. And, of course, it was so cold.
The carts moaned and growled, screeched and squealed. I had only to hear something akin to their noise and I tensed up. It was only with difficulty that I would force myself onward. I would not be left behind in this cold.
“Pull, pull, pull, these Devil's carts.” I screamed inwardly.
At last we stopped for the night. A lassitude overtook my sister, Elsa. She knew not where she was or where she was going. She could not help to pull anymore. She lessened. I had not taken over Elsa’s pull time. Although I tried to love my lone sister with as much affection as one orphan can offer another, I resented her incapacity. Why was I responsible for a sister, I who craved servants? Who would be responsible for me? Peter tried, but what was he but a smitten camp follower?
Peter had trouble leading the nightly battle to raise the poles and pitch the tent as the snow eddied around us in gusting fits. There were less able-bodied men to assist. Already three of our crew, supposedly the healthiest men, had died. Four days ago, one saintly, strong Mormon had pulled the cart in the morning, given out during the day, and died before morn. Those that remained alive had their strength tempered by the wintry wind. At last the tent was up and there was a warmer place to rest quietly through the enveloping night.
Today Elsa had tried to keep up walking, though she could not do that for long without dizziness overtaking her. She would stop and eat some snow. She ate nothing now, just hard frozen snow. It was only the doubling back for stragglers that allowed her to keep within sight of the group. Elsa, lesser Ella, not-my-responsibility Ella, had lost two toes, the small toe in each foot, to the cold. As a result, her balance was not good. But certainly, no matter how poorly she felt, she had not enough money to ever buy a ride in a wagon. Neither would she accept the charity of a free ride for the sick. If she could not make it to Zion on her own, then that was God’s will which she must accept. I was tired of her incapacity.
Elsa lay down alone in the tent. Warmer, yes, but Elsa, her enameled lips burning with fever, flashed hot and cold under her inadequate blankets. Elsa may have dreamed of her lost sunbonnet that had fallen into the Platte River as we crossed on a distant, warm July day. Little did Elsa know that she must forge her way to Zion bare-headed.
The Company had not brought much in the way of cattle for food. Each hundred had started with three milch cows and a few head of cattle. “Let us not tempt the thieving Lamanites with too many head,” Brother Willie had said. Our paucity of cattle had really been more a matter of money. Most of our Company was at the end of our tether. That was why we all dreamed of the opulence of God’s land. Who could afford to lead a head of cattle to Zion? The few cattle that left Iowa were now long gone. There was no milk and no succor of meat from which to rally our strength.
I was never so hungry in my ever-starving life. I could not hear the Prophet’s voice anymore. I no longer trusted that I would join the other Saints in Zion.
Peter joined us and built a fire. We lived on Johnnycakes and corndodgers—how I now hate their mealy grittiness—if I had the strength to batter and fry them. Wordlessly, I made this same measly meal. Elsa was long asleep before our fare was ready. “Let her sleep,” Peter said with a bitterness that belied his doctor’s craft. “Eating will do her little good for she has no energy left to rally. She is not like you, Karita, a Danish oak with strong roots. She will not make it to the fabled Zion.”
I divided Elsa’s share of the food with Peter; and mine was the greater quantity. I must be fed first, amply.
I looked numbly toward the tent of my failing sister and then at the soured physician by her side. “You must decide.” Peter said haltingly. I gave no answer. Decide? Why must I make a decision when there were not enough choices available? Was it Peter with his childish love built on the beauty of my tresses or nothing at all? Had I journeyed from my land of woe to give myself to a mere struggling doctor? Had I almost made it to Zion for this?
“Peter,” I asked. “Who will serve me?”
“Karita, I will,” he answered.
“But what makes you think your service will be at all adequate?”
The five groups of a hundred gathered for their nightly prayer. I spied where Sister Inge hid some dumplings under her false and prosperous wagon. When Sister Inge was invested in the vigil, I left the prayer meeting, found the dumplings, and hid behind the wagon as I devoured them all. I would do anything to survive.
I returned to the still vacant campsite. I heated some snow to make water for my illicit tea. The Word of Wisdom might condemn the drinking of tea, but it remained my only luxury. I had hoarded my pound of tea throughout this cross-country journey and would not deny myself this, the ultimate, sustaining extravagance. My tea was my warmth.
Elsa’s life that night went out as smoothly as an oil lamp ceases to burn when its fuel source is gone. She did not awaken to face the fear of death. Her spark went out haplessly in the cold, indifferent night.
I registered no surprise as I fetched Peter. “She is gone. She is now safe in her long home.” I did not feign caring.
Early the next day, Peter, with two young men to assist him in their sad, indifferent task, added Elsa to the three others from the Company who would share a common grave. They were buried stiffly wrapped in the frozen clothing and bedding in which each had died. As Peter stood over Elsa’s communal grave watchfully, he fired his gun into the air to keep the hovering crows and buzzards away. The smell of the buried, wrapped flesh would bring the wolves to devour Elsa’s body. I knew this. But tired and detached, I would not think about it.
Brother Willie led the short ceremony. “Take them, O Lord, and make them ready for Thy kingdom.” The internment was accompanied by the plucking of our blind harpist, Brother Thomas. The first deaths had been a shock to our Willie Company but now it was ordinary to start each day by burying the old, the young and the infirm. Those, like Elsa, who had given themselves up to death’s apathy.
As the last of the harp’s arpeggios sounded, the Company heard loud sounds from Zion’s way. Ten wagons appeared on the horizon heading eastward towards us. Was this a mirage or had help finally arrived?
“We have come, brave Mormons, to welcome you to Zion. We have foodstuffs aplenty, and wagons for the weary. Turn away the cold and the storms for ye have entered Zion,” the Patriarch, John Sweet, bellowed from his lead horse.
Before we continued our journey, I tugged our cart to the edge of the road and gave it a push and watched it roll and crash and burst apart. I would see that I rode in glory to Zion. And, that I might never walk or pull again.
All that I brought with me now was the clothes on my back and the last of my tin of tea.
As we cleared Little Mountain in our approach to Zion, the Ballo band came up Emigration Canyon to meet the Willie Company. They played a complacent tune, “Home Sweet Home”. Unready to accept such tuneful solace, I wanted to stop my ears. Where was Elsa if this was indeed our home?
But I was riding now, secure in the Patriarch’s wagon. I looked westward into the Valley with acceptance. So this was what a miracle was. No longer thinking of Elsa’s death, I was almost glad as I looked ahead. I turned to the Patriarch who was mounted next to me. He has already spotted me, I thought, although he has not yet spoken up. But I trust enough in my attractions to place my fate in his far abler hands. I would have this Patriarch to worry for me. His success would guarantee my own. His accomplishments would reflect upon me. He looked at me assertively. He found in me an echo of his assurances.
July 12, 1862, Sweetville, Afternoon
The slender, sinewy Eugene and the fleshier Abigail Lannon join our Patriarch’s wives for milk and strawberry pie under the sprawling oak out back. Abel Bermann, although included in the invitation, has sent his regrets. Abigail says he is too busy reworking his sketches to accompany the two. She tells of the painter adjusting the spacing on his sketch to more properly accentuate the role of the Patriarch. Certainly that is a fit and proper undertaking.
I watch the Lannons up close in an attempt to understand them. Abigail Lannon is a female born to use others. She is almost flirtatious with the Patriarch, as flirtatious as a woman can be with my strict husband. I have seen the way she looks at the painter as if testing a conquest. The writer, Eugene Lannon, I do not understand though I have talked with him as the Patriarch commanded. Lannon's dark eyes are haunted with gloom and doubt. His confused, expressive face has too much of a woman in it. Why has he come to Zion? Was he merely a reporter looking for a story? What else was he seeking?
“Fetch my tea, Lamanite.” I order Sister Sarah before she can sit down. “I have had a hard afternoon seeing to my sons. I’ll have a cup of tea with my pie. Then I may lie down in the Gold Room.”
Sister Sarah will do as I bid without comment. She will put the water on. She will go to the proper slot in the Mormon square rack for the Mormon tealeaves that only I use. She will measure an appropriate amount into the teapot and add the boiling water and let it brew. “Let the Celestial wife have her cursed tea!” She will think but never say. Sister Sarah will pour a healthy cup and over-sweeten it with an extravagance of honey, just as I like it. She will empty the teapot carefully. She will in mockery humbly join us and serve me, a Golden One, as is my due.
“I thought Mormons do not drink tea,” Lannon observes.
“It is only Sister Karita that does,” Mother Evangeline explains. “It is a pre-Mormon sin she has brought from her Danish homeland.”
Sister Nona, her pear shaped face hidden by her dark hair as if she might retire behind its strictures, is charged with the pie. She joylessly cuts the pie into ten equal pieces as Sister Katherine pours the well-creamed milk. The Patriarch, too busy with his Bishop’s duties, does not come to table. Without the blessing of the Patriarch’s prayer, we do not pause before starting to eat.
I add some additional milk and sip slowly the still hot tea. I revel in the tea’s aroma and the honey’s sweetness.
“Why did you journey to Utah, Sister Karita?” Lannon asks.
“There was nothing for us in Denmark. My sister Elsa and I became Mormons and knew that our safe haven was in Zion.”
“And what became of Elsa?”
“I told you. She died on the trail.” I begin salivating as I remember Elsa’s death.
"Oh yes I remember. We talked of that the other day," Lannon says.
I feel spittle form on my lower lip. I wipe it free with my napkin but then there is more spittle. My wiping cannot keep pace with the accumulation of spit. I froth at the mouth. I begin trembling.
“Are you alright, Sister Karita?” Mother Evangeline asks. “Perhaps you should go lie down.”
“Yes, maybe I…I should.” I slur my words. I try to rise but am too weak. My quivering muscles will not obey. I try again to get up but just then a violent tremor passes through me. I knock the teacup over, its contents spilling to the ground.
Lannon rises to catch me lest I fall. How could I, who am paramount, ever fall?
