Fanny Stenhouse (1829–1904)

Fannie Stenhouse was a writer by profession and thus this memoir is easier reading than many others of an historic era. The dramatic Preface by Harriet Beecher Stowe is a big plus. There are a lot of lessons about the hazards of being human illustrated here. It took twenty years of praying and searching her heart for the reasons why God would place her in such agony before she finally questioned Church doctrines, before she asked to see the transcriptions of Joseph Smith's later revelations that dictated polygamy to be a necessary feature of the utopian society he and his followers had founded before setting out for Utah. Stenhouse claims to be the first Morman woman to publicly condemn polygamy. Anyone who has undertaken discipline of any sort, whether in sport, business or spirituality, will understand what it is to be determined to practice until a promised result is achieved--even when things do not appear to be worthy of the effort. Rather than condemning Stenhouse for being a gullible ninny for twenty years, I admire her discipline to see it through, and even more, her insight and courage to give her experience to the world as she became certain about where her faith and good sense must next take her. More than an expose of a social experiment eventually dominated by greed and self-serving politics, Stenhouse's memoir is a rare first-hand account of an era in British middle-class life, the missionary zeal of the times, and the hardships of Europeans who set out to find a new life in unmapped territory.… (meer)