We have looked at three different ways women often – but, of course, not always– appear in general Church histories. These portrayals are not satisfying to many of us, not because we don’t recognize the historical truth that some women have been less than praiseworthy; not because we don’t recognize that Mormon women have endured extraordinary hardship because of the peculiar history of our people; and not because we don’t value the love and loyalty and personal service for which we are sometimes inordinately and indiscriminately praised. Rather, we don’t find these stories satisfying because we sense they are incomplete, and they don’t adequately represent our own sense of ourselves, and don’t give us many women to cheer for. We don’t see ourselves in our own history very often. We sense that the women in our histories are valued for reasons that we don’t find especially inspiring, or we find that the qualities we most value in ourselves are not the ones that seem to be valued by those who tell the stories.

None of us aspires to be a Witch, to be destructive or cause others to stumble – or, if we have somehow found ourselves in that role for some reason, we know that we are more than our Witchiness, and we suspect the same is true about the Witches in our history.

We generally don’t aspire to be a Damsel in Distress, either. Trials and suffering, at times acute, come into our lives as a natural feature of mortality, some of them directly connected to our religious belief or practice. We don’t want to be celebrated for our suffering, or celebrate the suffering that women in our history have endured. What matters isn’t the suffering – what matters is the way someone faces that difficulty, and works to overcome it, and becomes a better, stronger woman because of it. History that emphasizes the trouble and neglects the triumph leaves us uneasy.

We don’t ultimately feel satisfied for the recognition that comes from being a Princess, either. We have been raised to give service within our families, within our wards, and in the wider circles of community and nation and humankind. We generally don’t serve with the specific goal of being recognized for our service; and recognition, when it comes, is sweet … as long as that recognition is for our actual contributions and not for some substitute. A woman who keenly feels her shortcomings as a mother is not uplifted by exaggerated praise for the ideal mother on Mother’s Day. A woman who works long and hard, with all the talents God gave her, to accomplish something worthwhile, is not satisfied with compliments on her appearance and sweetness, when that recognition does not extend to her more solid contributions. History that overlooks or downplays or converts the contributions of women into something else is inherently unsatisfying.

The same archetypal world that gives us the models of Witches and Damsels and Princesses gives us another character who, I believe, comes much closer to the kind of women we long to find in Church history: the Heroine. I don’t mean “heroine” in the sense of “the star of the show” or “the one who always does everything right.” I mean Heroine, the feminine correspondent to the legendary Hero.

A Hero (for our purposes, a Heroine) in the archetypal sense has a mission to accomplish, almost always one that requires him to travel on a long journey. If he has companions, he may receive their assistance but he is still, himself, responsible for the success of the mission. He meets hardships of all kinds, and overcomes them through virtue and ingenuity and humility – if he does not have those qualities at the outset, he develops them along the way. When his goal is almost within his grasp, the Hero faces his greatest enemy and comes nearest to losing everything – but by drawing on everything he is and has learned, he is victorious.

The Biblical figure Moses is such a Hero. He has a mission to conduct the children of Israel to their Promised Land. Along the way, he must overcome challenges of a harsh physical environment, of attacks from kings and armies, and especially of the weaknesses of himself and his own people. He brings them to the very borders of that Promised Land, then finds that they are unworthy to enter. They must instead wander in the wilderness through long years. In the end, Moses accomplishes his mission: He guides the people again to the Promised Land, and while he himself cannot enter, his people cross the river Jordan and establish themselves there.

Dorothy, in The Wizard of Oz, is a familiar Heroine. She has a mission (to return home) that requires her to undertake a long journey. She overcomes one hardship after another to reach the Emerald City where she believes her quest will be fulfilled – but when she reaches the place, thinking she is within reach of her goal, she learns the truth about the Wizard. Nevertheless, she perseveres, finds a way to overcome that last disappointment, and accomplishes her mission.

Two years ago, President Dieter F. Uchtdorf used a journey from his own life to help the Young Women of the Church understand their own missions, their own heroic journeys. You can listen to that talk here but I’ll reproduce the key elements in this post.

I grew up in Zwickau, in the former East Germany. When I was about 11 years old, my father fell under increased scrutiny as a political dissenter, and my parents felt that the only safe choice for our family would be to flee to West Germany. It was decided that the safest plan was to leave at different times and follow different routes to the West, leaving all our belongings behind.

Since my father was at greatest risk, he took the quickest journey, through Berlin. My older brothers headed north, and each found his own way west. My sister—who would have been the age of many of you here today—together with Helga Fassmann, her teacher in Young Women, and some others took a train that passed briefly through West Germany. They paid a porter to unlock one of the doors for them, and after the train crossed the West German border, they jumped from the moving train to freedom. How I admired my sister for her courage.

I was the youngest child, and my mother decided that she and I would walk across a mountain range separating the two countries. I remember that she packed a lunch as if we were going for a hike or a picnic in the mountains.

We took a train as far as we could and then walked for long hours, getting ever closer to the West German border. The borders were tightly controlled, but we had a map and knew of a time and a place where it might be safe to cross. I could sense my mother’s anxiety. She observed the area intensely to see if we were being followed. With each step, her legs and knees seemed to become weaker. I helped carry her heavy bag filled with food, vital documents, and family photos as we climbed up one last, long hill. Surely, she thought, we had passed the border by now. When she finally felt safe, we sat down and started to eat our picnic lunch. For the first time that day, I’m sure, she breathed more easily.

It was only then that we noticed the border sign. It was still far ahead of us! We were having our picnic on the wrong side of the border. We were still in East Germany!

Border guards could show up any moment!

My mother frantically packed up our lunch, and we hurried up the hillside as quickly as we could. This time we didn’t dare stop until we knew with certainty that we had reached the other side of the border.

Even though each member of our family had taken very different routes and experienced very different hardships along the way, eventually all of us made it to safety. We were finally reunited as a family. What a glorious day that was!

How many Heroines did he tell about in this story? There is his mother, of course, but also his sister and the leader of her Young Women’s group. ((That’s an anachronistic name; even in English, the young women’s program was not yet called “Young Women.” That is ultimately unimportant, but I point it out ahead of any comments to avoid sidetracking discussion.)) President Uchtdorf could no doubt have told something of the journey of Heroes – his father and older brothers – but he tailored his message to his audience – a concrete illustration of how women’s stories are as valid as men’s.

What I have just told you is an experience that is to me a very precious journey. I can now look back on my life and recognize a number of such “journeys” I have taken over time. Not all of them involved crossing mountain ranges or political boundaries; some had more to do with overcoming trials or growing in spirituality. But they were all journeys. I believe that every life is a collection of individual “journey stories.” …

Don’t we love these journey stories because we can see ourselves in the travelers? Their successes and failures can help us find our own way through life.

Because we can see ourselves in the travelers. We love these stories because they tell us who we could be, who we secretly hope we are. These are the characters we long to find in Church history – stories that are not limited to the stereotypes of Witch, Damsel, and Princess, but which give us Heroines, whose “successes and failures can help us find our own way through life.”

And of course our written histories do give us some Heroines.

When we read about Lucy Mack Smith conducting the Colesville Saints through the Erie Canal and Lake Erie on their move to Kirtland, we read a Heroine’s journey:

The trip down the Erie Canal by flatboat had taken five days and was a nightmare, for most of the Saints had not provided adequate food for themselves, and the exposure to the harsh weather was hard on the women and children. When they arrived in Buffalo, some members of the Colesville Branch were also there, seeking boat passage to Kirtland. The harbor was ice-locked and the Saints were stranded.

When the Colesville brethren informed Lucy’s group that they must not tell anyone that they were Latter-day Saints, for then they wouldn’t find a boat or lodging, Lucy spoke up boldly: “I shall tell people precisely who I am, and if you are ashamed of Christ, you must not expect to be prospered; and I shall wonder if we do not get to Kirtland before you!”

This was a prophetic statement, for through Lucy’s faith and prayers, she found passage for her group. As her beloved Saints waited upon the deck of their ship arguing and complaining loudly, William rushed up to his mother and said: “Mother, do see the confusion yonder; won’t you go and put a stop to it!”

Lucy was not tall, but she straightened up regally and with fire in her icy blue eyes walked right into the noise and confusion. Her voice rang out with authority:

“Brethren and sisters, we call ourselves Saints, and profess to have come out from the world for the purpose of serving God at the expense of all earthly things; and will you, at the very onset, subject the cause of Christ to ridicule by your own unwise and improper conduct? You profess to put your trust in God, then how can you feel to murmur and complain as you do! You are even more unreasonable than the children of Israel were; for here are my sisters pining for their rocking chairs, and brethren from whom I expected firmness and energy, declare that they positively believe they shall starve to death before they get to the end of their journey. And why is it so? Have any of you lacked? Have not I set food before you every day, and made you, who had not provided for yourselves, as welcome as my own children? Where is your faith? Where is your confidence in God? … Now brethren and sisters, if you will all of you raise your desires to heaven, that the ice may be broken up, and we be set at liberty, as sure as the Lord lives, it will be done.”

Only moments later, Lucy’s faith was rewarded as the ice parted and they sailed into Lake Erie. The boat was so loaded that the bystanders were certain it would sink. In fact, they went to the newspaper office and published the news that the Mormon boat had sunk with all on board. When Lucy and the Saints arrived in Fairport, they were amused to read in the papers the news of their own deaths. ((Jaynann Payne, “Lucy Mack Smith: Woman of Great Faith,” Ensign, November 1972, ___. ))

Heroines are not always on literal journeys, but in Mormon history they very often seem to be:

Joseph had always been conscious of making history. After 1828, he was scrupulous about writing down the revelations and tried to preserve letters. when the Mormons were leaving Missouri, [James] Mulholland [Joseph’s clerk] passed many Church papers along to his sister-in-law Ann Scott, who carried them for days in large handmade cotton bags fastened with bands buttoned around her waist. Scott gave them to Emma, who carried them to Illinois. When she walked across the Mississippi ice in February with two children in her arms, the bags banged against her legs. ((Richard Lyman Bushman, Rough Stone Rolling, New York: Knopf, 2005, 389.))

As demonstrated here, stories of Heroines need not be long nor complicated; they only need to be recognized, and included.

We need more Heroines in our history, because they are under-represented. These will necessarily be stories new to most of us. In other cases, we need old stories to be rewritten to acknowledge the roles of Heroines. This does not mean fabricating history, or twisting history into a form that the documents do not support. Sometimes, it merely means using the documents as they exist.

Do you remember Elsa Johnson, the woman who appears as “Mrs. John Johnson” in the indexed histories discussed earlier in this series? She had an arthritic arm, so crippled and painful that it was practically useless. Joseph Smith healed her arm at Kirtland in an instant, and the dramatic healing had quite an effect on those who witnessed the miracle, and consequently on the course of Church history.

There are two accounts, equally accepted by historians, that describe that healing. The first is an account by Amos S. Hayden, and is the one that has been incorporated into the History of the Church (1:278):

Ezra Booth, of Mantua, a Methodist preacher of much more than ordinary culture, and with strong natural abilities, in company with his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Johnson, and some other citizens of this place, (Hiram) visited Smith at his home in Kirtland, in 1831. Mrs. Johnson had been afflicted for some time with a lame arm, and was not at the time of the visit able to lift her hand to her head. The party visited Smith partly out of curiosity, and partly to see for themselves what there might be in the new doctrine. During the interview the conversation turned on the subject of supernatural gifts, such as were conferred in the days of the apostles. Some one said, “Here is Mrs. Johnson with a lame arm; has God given any power to men now on earth to cure her?” A few moments later, when the conversation had turned in another direction, Smith arose, and walking across the room, and taking Mrs. Johnson by the hand, said in the most solemn and impressive manner: “Woman, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I command thee to be whole,” and immediately left the room. The company were awe-stricken at the infinite presumption of the man, and the calm assurance with which he spoke. The sudden mental and moral shock—I know not how better to explain the well-attested fact, electrified the rheumatic arm—Mrs. Johnson at once lifted it with ease, and on her return home the next day she was able to do her washing without difficulty or pain.

It’s hard to imagine a more passive role for Elsa Johnson than this telling: She doesn’t speak, but is spoken about, as if she were any other object under discussion. On his own volition, Joseph Smith approaches her; he acts to heal her. Elsa lifts her arm and does her laundry, but otherwise she has no active part in her own story. This is a demonstration of the power of Joseph Smith to heal, not an account of the faith of Elsa Johnson to be healed.

Another version of the event is found in a recollection by Philo Dibble:

When Joseph came to Kirtland his fame spread far and wide. There was a woman living in the town of Hiram, forty miles from Kirtland, who had a crooked arm, which she had not been able to use for a long period. She persuaded her husband, whose name was [John] Johnson, to take her to Kirtland to get her arm healed.

I saw them as they passed my house on their way. She [Elsa Johnson] went to Joseph and requested him to heal her. Joseph asked her if she believed the Lord was able to make him an instrument in healing her arm. She said she believed the Lord was able to heal her arm.

Joseph put her off till the next morning, when he met her at Brother [Newel K.] Whitney’s house. There were eight persons present, one a Methodist preacher, and one a doctor. Joseph took her [Elsa Johnson] by the hand, prayed in silence a moment, pronounced her arm whole, in the name of Jesus Christ, and turned and left the room.

The preacher asked her if her arm was whole, and she straightened it out and replied: “It is as good as the other.” The question was then asked if it would remain whole. Joseph hearing this, answered and said: “It is as good as the other, and as liable to accident as the other.”

The doctor who witnessed this miracle came to my house the next morning and related the circumstance to me. He attempted to account for it by his false philosophy, saying that Joseph took her by the hand, and seemed to be in prayer, and pronounced her arm whole in the name of Jesus Christ, which excited her and started perspiration, and that relaxed the cords of her arm. I subsequently rented my farm and devoted all my time to the interest of the Church, holding myself in readiness to take Joseph wherever he wished to go. ((Philo Dibble, “Early Scenes in Church History,” Four Faith Promoting Classics, Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1968, pp. 74-96.))

In this second account, Elsa is anything but passive. She approaches Joseph Smith and requests him to heal her. She affirms that she has the faith to be healed. She demonstrates the health of her arm to those who questioned. At each step, she acts rather than merely being acted upon. In the first account, she is a Damsel rescued from her Distress. In the second account, she is a Heroine, working out her own faithful path through life. Which version any particular historian chooses to use is, I think, as much a reflection of the historian’s attitude as it is a reflection on the life of this faithful woman.

Keepa has given you a number of Heroines who, in other tellings, might have instead fallen to Damsel status. Eva Rowe Salway could easily have been painted as a Damsel: In this version, for most of her life she doesn’t have a stable home, but is constantly dragged around by a husband whose employment was unstable. For crying out loud, she even has to live with her many children in a gypsy wagon! Then the Great War comes along, swallowing up her husband, leaving the Damsel Eva with a large family whom she herself must support. Oh, woe is me, the poor Damsel Eva! Instead, I chose the details from her recorded history that painted her as a Heroine, facing her hardships, actively finding ways to conquer them, and eventually meeting success by reuniting her family in a new land … the end of another literal journey.

Abigail Smith Abbot could also have been drawn as a Damsel in Distress: Widowed, then married to a man who stranded her in Nauvoo while he signed up for the Mormon Battalion – after secretly taking Abigail’s own daughter as his plural wife! Highlighting those details without telling the rest of her story would have left her a one-dimensional character, a prop, perhaps, to emphasize the worst features of plural marriage, or the wickedness of those who drove Mormon women and children into the wilderness. But without invention or exaggeration, Abigail’s record also justifies telling her life as the Heroine’s journey: Overcoming one impossible hardship after another, through courage and endless labor and faith, Abigail took herself and all her family from the Mississippi River to the Great Basin. When she accomplished that mission, our Heroine looked around and found another mission for her life.

Annie Griffith Burbank is another Mormon woman whose life could have been told as unrelievedly tragic– never able to gather with the Saints, she found herself dying of tuberculosis as a very young woman. But far from being a Damsel in Distress, Annie found a way to triumph: Prompted only by her own desires, she sent her mite – a “trifle,” she called it, to Brigham Young, for him to “devote to some good purpose.” Annie acted, and was a force in her own heroic story.

Amy Tanner Thiriot’s series on the lives of the Eminent Women gives us Heroine after Heroine. While previous accounts of Wilford Woodruff’s efforts to provide proxy temple ordinances for prominent women of the past have applied the label “Eminent Women” to those prominent women, I read Amy’s series as turning that interpretation on its head: Amy outlines the lives of the Latter-day Saint women of frontier-era St. George – women who could easily be drawn as Damsels in the Distress of that barren place – and shows us how they coped with their hardships, finding ways to be Heroines in temple service – the real Eminent Women of that project.

But we need more Heroines in our written history, ones that satisfy our need to find ourselves in the history of our people. We need Heroines from all eras, not just the founding and pioneer generations. We need Heroines from the rank and file, not just the elites. We need Heroines from all cultures and all places.

Writing Heroines, rather than Damsels or Princesses, requires the historian, first, to acknowledge that women have missions and are actors in their own lives and in the life of the Church, and are not merely the acted upon; and, second, to allow women to appear on the stage of Church history rather than limiting our history to the same male-centric narratives we have always told. It is not always easy to find the details of women’s contributions because their stories often weren’t recorded, haven’t survived, or lie unrecognized in underutilized sources. It is not easy to mark out a new path in the telling of Church history, and avoid falling back into familiar ruts.

It isn’t easy, but it is, I believe, essential. To fulfill our missions in life, women need to accept that we have missions, and we need to have models of other women who have fulfilled their missions. Our girls and young women need to know that they are accepted as active agents in their own lives where the Church is concerned, and will not be limited to the stifling roles of Damsels or Princesses. Our men need to know that their wives and mothers and sisters and daughters are full citizens of the Kingdom of God, and not merely passive creatures who “stand by” while men do all the things of real value.

The conclusion of this series – which is actually the beginning of a proposed solution – will be published on Monday. I timed this poorly, with Monday being a holiday and many of you away from your computers. I hope you will find time to read it on Monday, though. In it, I will propose one solution to the problem of how women appear as characters in our Church histories – and I hope to enlist your support in carrying that project into reality.

President Uchtdorf’s account of his family’s escape from East Germany set up the premise of his talk: That each of the Young Women listening to him – and every other person on earth – is on a journey that began “a very long time ago, long before the earth began spinning in its orbit, long before the sun began to reach its fiery arms into the cold of space, long before creatures great and small had populated our planet.” It’s time to recognize the Heroines of our people’s past, and write their journeys back into our history.

“And so,” President Uchtdorf concluded, “you took a deep breath …

“And a great step forward …”

The “She Shall Be an Ensign” series:

Women as Actors in Church History
Addendum
Wicked Witches
Damsels in Distress
The Princess in the Tower
The Heroine’s Journey
The History of the Church Told through the Lives of Its Women