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Life Writings of Frontier Women
Life Writings of Frontier Women series, edited by Maureen Ursenbach Beecher |
  Currently 5 volumes available, this set has been produced with the cooperation of Utah State University Press. This Limited Edition set production of 50 complete sets are bound in top quality chocolate top grain horse hide leather. Care was taken to create sets from single hides in order to ensure as consistent color as possible amongseperate volumes that comprise a set. We have retained samples of the leather used for each set in order to match subsequent volumes as closely as possible to the initial five volume release. Patterned silk end sheets and bound in silk ribbon are a matching cream color. Edge gilding was applied by hand. ISBN 1-58958-013-3 5 volume set $900.00 Winter Quarters - The 1846-1848 Life Writings of Mary Haskin Parker Richards Maurine Carr Ward, editor Volume 1, Life Writings of Frontier Women series, edited by Maureen Ursenbach Beecher Winner of the 1996 Evans Handcart Prize and the 1996 Mormon History Association Best First Book Award Mary Richard's journals and letters record a young woman's rare, but richly detailed view of life in the temporary Mormon pioneer communities in Iowa. ISBN 1-58958-008-7 $225.00 Mormon Midwife - The 1846-1888 Diaries of Patty Sessions Donna Toland Smart, editor Volume 2, Life Writings of Frontier Women series, edited by Maureen Ursenbach Beecher Winner of the 1997 Evans Handcart Prize Patty Session's 1847 Mormon Trail diary has been widely quoted and excerpted, but her complete diaries chronicling the first decades of Mormon settlement at Salt Lake City have never before been published. They provide a detailed record of early Mormon community life from Illinois to Utah through the eyes of Mormondom's most famous midwife. They also recount her important role in women's social networks and her contributions to community health and Utah's economy, to pioneer education and horticulture. Patty Sessions assisted at the births of humdreds of early Mormons and first-generation Utahns, meticulously recording the events. Shed had an active role in the founding of the Relief Society and health organizations. She spoke in tongues and administered spiritually as well as medically to the ill. Her diaries are a rich resource for early Mormon and Utah history. ISBN 1-58958-009-5 $225.00 The History of Louisa Barnes Pratt - The Autobiography of a Mormon Missionary Widow and Pioneer S. George Ellsworth, editor Volume 3, Life Writings of Frontier Women series, edited by Maureen Ursenbach Beecher In her memoir, and 1870s revision of her journal and diary, Louisa Barnes Pratt tells of childhood in Massachusetts and Canada during the War of 1812, and independent career as a teacher and seamstress in New England, and her marriage to the Boston seaman Addison Pratt. Converting to the LDS Church, the Pratts moved to Nauvoo, Illinois, from where Brigham Young sent Addison on the first of the long missions to the Society Islands that would leave Louisa on her own. As a sole available parent, she hauled her children west to Winter Quarters, to Utah in 1848, to California, and, in Addison's wake, to Tahiti in 1850. The Pratts joined the Mormon colony at San Bernardino, California. When in 1858 a federal army's march on Utah led to the colonists' recall, Addision--alienated from the Mormon Church after long absences--chose not to go. Mostly separated thereafter ( Addison died in 1872 ), Louisa settled in Beaver, Utah, where she campaigned for women's rights, contributed to the Woman's Exponent, and depended on her own means, as she had much of her life, until her death in 1880. ISBN 1-58958-010-9 $225.00 Out of the Black Patch - The Autobiography of Effie Marquess Carmack, Folk Musician, Artist, and Writer Noel A. Carmack and Karen Lynn Davidson, editors Volume 4, Life Writings of Frontier Women series, edited by Maureen Ursenbach Beecher Effie Marquess Carmack (1885–1974) grew up in the tobacco-growing region of southern Kentucky known as the Black Patch. As an adult she moved to Utah, back to Kentucky, to Arizona, and finally to California. Economic necessity primarily motivated Effie and her husband’s moves, but her conversion to the Mormon Church in youth also was a factor. Throughout her life, she was committed to preserving the rural, southern folkways she had experienced as a child. She and other members of her family were folk musicians, at times professionally, and she also became a folk poet and artist, teaching herself to paint. In the 1940s she began writing her autobiography and eventually also completed a verse adaptation of it and an unpublished novel about life in the Black Patch. Much of Effie’s story is a charming memoir of her vibrant childhood on a poor tobacco farm. She describes a wide variety of folk practices, from healing and crafts to children’s games. Her family’s life included the backbreaking labor and economic trials of raising tobacco, but it was enriched by a deep familial heritage, communal music, creative play, and traditional activities of many kinds. After the family converted to the Mormon Church, religious study and devotion became another important dimension. Effie’s account of Mormon missions contributes to the little-known record of Latter-day Saint attempts to establish a presence in the South. After marrying, the Carmacks moved west, eventually landing in the Arizona desert, where Effie took up painting in earnest. Her art began to attract modest attention, which brought exhibits, awards, and a new career teaching others what she had taught herself. After the Carmacks later retired to Atascadero, California, Effie became a more active and public folk singer as well. ISBN 1-58958-011-7 $225.00 The Personal Writings of Eliza Roxcy Snow Maureen Ursenbach Beecher, editor Volume 5, Life Writings of Frontier Women series, edited by Maureen Ursenbach Beecher Perhaps the most famous woman in Mormon history, Eliza Roxcy Snow was a person of high standing and many accomplishments. She married Joseph Smith secretly in 1842 and wed Brigham Young after Smith’s death. She was also the sister of Lorenzo Snow, fifth president of the LDS Church. Best known as “Zion’s poetess,” her prominence also earned her the appellations of “priestess,” and “prophetess.” Capable of producing a poem for virtually any special occasion, she came to be considered the first lady of Mormon letters, having written, by her own count, nine published volumes. Her leadership among Mormon women is demonstrated by her positions as president of the Relief Society (the church’s organization for women), president of the Deseret Hospital Association, and organizer of the Young Ladies’ Mutual Improvement Association, the children’s Primary Association, and the Woman’s Commission Store. Compiled in this volume are her autobiographical writings, including “Sketch of My Life,” originally written for inclusion in Edward W. Tullidge’s The Women of Mormondom, published in 1877, and revised for Hubert Howe Bancroft’s proposed series of histories of the western territories; her Nauvoo journal and notebook, which are the earliest, but most recently discovered, of her extant chronicles; and her trail diaries, covering February 1846 to May 1847 and June 1847 to September 1849. Together they provide valuable insights into both mid-nineteenth century Mormon society and Eliza R. Snow’s life, revealing much about a public woman who tried to guard her privacy. ISBN 1-58958-012-5 $225.00 |
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