In the spring and summer of 1905, Isaac Birdsall took steps to have his daughter Cora declared by the state court to be insane. When that declaration was made, Cora’s mother Mary, in company with the county sheriff, took Cora to the State Hospital in Provo, Utah, where she was confined. No records of her treatment there survive. An article in the 2010 Utah Historical Quarterly ((Janina Chilton, “A Photographic Essay of the Utah State Hospital,” Utah Historical Quarterly 78:2 (Spring 2010), 134. )) gives some idea of general conditions at the hospital. In particular, this photograph haunts me. It pictures a “Utica bed,” a cage-like bed meant to restrain combative patients – as Cora surely was – by restricting bodily movement and enforcing “rest.” Such was the state of medical treatment for the mentally ill in 1905.

One condition of Cora’s confinement was the determination by the state court that she was not indigent, meaning that she was responsible for paying the costs for her confinement and treatment in the hospital … which brings us to another, perhaps the primary, reason for Isaac’s efforts to have Cora declared legally insane: He sought to be named her guardian. As guardian, he would have control over her property, able to pay her bills to the State, and also to bring suit against James E. Leavitt to have Cora’s 1904 deed set aside and Cora’s land returned to her, through Isaac, as her guardian.

In September 1905, the case of “Cora Birdsall, an Incompetent, by Isaac Birdsall Her Guardian, vs. James E. Leavitt and Hulda Leavitt” was heard before Judge John F. Chidester in the District Court of Sevier County. No transcript of the testimony in that trial was made, but a few of the key documents do remain in the court file. And there are reports in the newspapers, of course.

Ah, the newspapers! Because of Isaac’s testimony in the Smoot hearings, this became one of those cases where the public loses sight of the real issues, and certainly of the real people at the heart of a dramatic tragedy, because the press takes sides and uses the case as a club to beat on a political opponent.

One of the Salt Lake newspapers (I’ll leave you to guess which one) characterized the case this way:

The conclusion of this case should be satisfactory to all persons who have regard for justice, fairness and the validity of contracts written or verbal. It may be considered that the Bishop’s court departed somewhat from the usual course of entertaining a complaint from a non-member of the Church against a member thereof, but it is evident that the purpose was to censure a member who had been guilty of un-Christianlike conduct, in refusing to recognize the just rights of a human being, no matter what were his religious views or standing.

The attempts to bring trouble upon the Church for the action taken was inspired by the same spirit that sought to deprive Mr. Leavitt of his property and to violate a fair agreement. The Church refused to fellowship a member who would take the course pursued by Cora Birdsall, and by doing so stood for equity, honesty and right, and did not in any degree infringe upon the authority of the courts or of any department of the national government.

Can’t you just hear the angelic choirs as you read those paragraphs? The Church court heard Leavitt’s case because the Church court stood for human rights against the evil encroachments of a woman like Cora … who, if these paragraphs are to be believed, the Church courts had already decided was guilty of un-Christianlike conduct before they ever heard the case.

But the hyperbole of the other side – again from a Salt Lake newspaper; you can guess which – was just as bad:

One of the most pronounced cases of the vindictive, relentless and brutal policy of the Mormon church in disciplining its members and bringing them into subjection when they might, from however honest and worthy motives, transgress any of its laws or edicts, in the history of that church’s tyrannical hounding of those who come under its ban has become public in Richfield through a case which has just passed through the district court of Sevier county. As a result of this merciless persecution Cora Birdsall now languishes in the insane asylum at Provo with reason dethroned and the spark of intelligence gone out forever, while even the body is robbed of its rights guaranteed by the Constitution of this great Republic. …

Civil right is ground into the dust and the Juggernaut of Mormonism triumphs over the stricken clay of Cora Birdsall. The church has crushed and conquered.

Can’t you just smell the sulphurous vapors of the infernal pit as you read those paragraphs? Cora was driven insane and robbed of her property by the intentional, evil acts of the most corrupt organization ever to pollute this fair planet.

The chief surviving record of the trial is the decision of Judge Chidester, entered on 25 September 1925.

Chidester first reviews the history of the land, in detail. After reviewing the comings and goings of those who claimed the land, ending with Cora’s possession, he writes: “There was some dispute, as it appears, between Cora and the defendant, Mr. Leavitt, which, after she had proved up, grew to such an extent that Mr. Leavitt determined to settle that dispute by taking it into the Church courts.”

One, the judge glosses over the fact that the “dispute” was the indisputable fact that Cora had legal title to the land, while Leavitt’s claim was only a traditional one that the district courts could not recognize. And two, the judge refers to Cora as Cora, without her surname, while always giving Leavitt the honorific of Mr. Leavitt. Just sayin’.

Chidester’s review takes the case through the multiple church trials, Cora’s excommunication, and the statement that Cora “executed a warranty deed, conveying the land in controversy to James E. Leavitt. The deed was delivered to James E. Leavitt by the sister of Cora birdsall, and $100 in cash was paid by the defendant.” Then Isaac brought suit on behalf of his daughter.

The complaint sets out that at the time the deed was executed, Cora Birdsall was wholly incompetent and incapacitated to care for herself or property and that fact was at all times therein mentioned well known to the defendant, and that notwithstanding said knowledge of plaintiff’s insanity on the part of the defendants, said defendant fraudulently taking advantage of the plaintiff’s incapacity procured her to sign the deed in question, and that Cora Birdsall was always incompetent and incapable of making said deed or ratifying the same or binding herself by the same, the plaintiff also alleges that she was made to, incompetent and insane, by the actions of the defendant in causing the plaintiff to be disfellowshipped from the “Mormon” Church, and that by reason of such severance from the “Mormon” Church undue influence was resorted to by the defendant, James E. Leavitt and his agents to induce plaintiff to so deed the said land to the defendant, representing to plaintiff that if she would deed said land to defendant, she, the said plaintiff, would be re-instated in the “Mormon” Church, and would regain her health and happiness that by reason of said promise and inducement and on others, plaintiff was induced to sign said deed which had been previously drafted without her knowledge or consent, and which was so signed by her while she was unconscious of the act done and unable to give legal consent there, and all that done by means of the fraudulent misrepresentations and undue influence practiced and exerted as aforesaid.

Regarding the claim of “undue influence,” the judge noted:

There was not one word of testimony that I can find in this record that even intimates that Mr. Leavitt himself ever used any influence whatever with Cora Birdsall to get her to sign the deed. The contention, however, is that the Elders of the “Mormon” Church who were called in to see Cora when she was sick used an undue influence over her to get her to abide by the decision.

The judge relied on the testimony of two bishops and three high councilmen who had seen Cora on the day she signed the deed, implying that the deed was simply a trifling matter to satisfy Cora’s own desires.

She consulted with these men in regard to it [rebaptism]. They simply pointed out to her that it was not necessary for her to see the Twelve Apostles, but that she could comply with the decision if she so desired without going to them and when it was made plain that she could do that, she seemed willing to deed the land; and it seems to me from all the evidence in this case that if Cora Birdsall had been left to herself to do as she pleased she would have deeded the land in question to defendant long before she did.

In fact, the Judge wrote, if any undue influence had been exercised, it was not on the part of the churchmen who only wanted to comply with Cora’s wishes. “It appears that if there was any influence used with her whatever in this case it was used by her parents to prevent her from deeding the land.”

Whatever they did was in a way to assist her in carrying out her own desires, and the only way that the court could possibly hold in this case that undue influence was used would be to hold that by reason of the Church courts dealing with the case it was undue influence per se.

That, Judge Chidester refused to accept, on the grounds (paraphrasing Doctrine and Covenants 134:10) that churches have a right to discipline their members.

Regarding the claim that Cora was insane, the Judge referred to testimony by old friends of Cora’s who said that she seemed just fine to them. There is no mention in the Judge’s decision of the psychologists whose testimony had earlier been used to adjudge Cora insane.

And finally, Judge Chidester referred to a deed that Cora signed (I know nothing more about it; it was never recorded with the county, and doesn’t play a role in any other hearing) deeding the remainder of her real estate to her parents. In doing so, the Judge makes plain what he had been hinting at throughout his decision: All the fuss over Cora’s condition, all the claims that Leavitt or the Church had exercised undue influence, was merely a cover for Isaac’s unscrupulous intent to gain personal control over the land, both that claimed by Leavitt and that retained by Cora.

It appears that Mr. Birdsall, the representative of Cora, who is now suing to cancel this deed, also himself and his wife accepted a deed from Cora made a day or two later than the deed in question, which they never have returned. They hold it at the present time and have been occupying the land. It weakens materially their testimony; for certainly if she was competent to give a deed to them a day or so later than the deed made that is in controversy, she was competent at the time she signed the deed in question. There seems to be some motive on the part of Mr. Birdsall, the legal representative of Cora in this matter. The fact that he himself has stood in the way, preventing Cora from deeding this land to Mr. Leavitt the defendant and working to get a deed for some of the rest of the land, looks rather bad on his part.

In the view of one of the newspapers,

On Monday forenoon of this week, Judge Chidester, sitting upon a bench dedicated to the righteousness of every American citizen, handed down a decision sustaining the demands of the church and robbing Cora Birdsall of her just possessions. And thereby James E. Leavitt accomplishes, through the tool of the church, that which would have found no standing at all in a court of equity.

while in the view of the other,

The chief point in this contention is that the Church did not interfere in any way with the courts or the laws of the land. It dealt with a Church member on Church discipline. It rendered judgment against a “Mormon” in favor of a “Gentile.” As we have explained before, the entertainment of a complaint by a non-member against a member of the Church was out of the regular order of Church discipline. But it was simply a question of un-Christianlike conduct of which the accused was clearly guilty. The district court declares the deed of conveyance valid, and all attempts to present the Church authorities in a false light are unworthy of any decent journal or individual.

So, Cora remained in the insane asylum, and Leavitt remained in possession of the land he had wrested from Cora.

“But the matter does not end here,” wrote one journalist. “An attempt will be made to reach the ears of the blind goddess through another tribunal. The case will be appealed to the Supreme court of the State.”