Janiece Johnson - The Witness of Women: Firsthand Experiences and Testimonies from the Restoration

The cover painting, All Assembled Awaiting , by Paige Crosland Anderson, represents themes the artist encountered while discovering her ancestry: repetition, consistency, veiled connections, endless succession, commitment, diligence, and duty. Her use of patterns and layers refers to the process of uncovering our ancestry and regaining connections to our progenitors.

Back cover photo: Zina D. Young, Bathsheba W. Smith, Emily P. Young, and Eliza R. Snow, credited on the original image as the Leading Women of Zion. Courtesy of the LDS Church History Library.

2016 Janiece Johnson and Jennifer Reeder

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher, Deseret Book Company, at permissions@deseretbook.com or P. O. Box 30178, Salt Lake City, Utah 84130. This work is not an official publication of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The views expressed herein are the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the position of the Church or of Deseret Book Company.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Johnson, Janiece, author. | Reeder, Jennifer, author.

Title: The witness of women : firsthand experiences and testimonies from the restoration / Janiece Johnson and Jennifer Reeder.

Description: Salt Lake City, Utah : Deseret Book, [2016] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016036659 | ISBN 9781629722474 (paperbound)

Subjects: LCSH: Women in the Mormon Church. | WomenReligious aspectsThe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. | Mormon women.

Classification: LCC BX8643.W66 J64 2016 | DDC 289.3082dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016036659

Printed in the United States of America

Lake Book Manufacturing, Inc., Melrose Park, IL

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Cover painting, All Assembled Awaiting , by Paige Anderson. Used by permission.

Back cover photo: courtesy LDS Church History Library.

Design: Shauna Gibby

Book design Deseret Book Company

My happy soul is witness.

Laura Farnsworth Owen found joy and fellowship in the Restoration, despite enduring much privation in her lifetime. She declared, I longed for union, and for latter day glory; and my happy soul is witness that it has commenced! Though her voice is unknown to most Latter-day Saints today, she witnessed to her friends, her family, and her former minister. When she was accused of heresy and delusion by her former church and not allowed to defend herself, she published a tract Defence Against the Various Charges That Have Gone Abroad making a case for both herself and Mormonism.

Laura felt it was a duty incumbent upon her to witness to that which she verily believed to be the fullness of the gospel. Latter-day Saint women observed and followed her example.

Of course, female disciples are not the majority voice in scripture, yet this imbalance further highlights the distinct witness of women. Earlier in Johns gospel, many citizens of Samaria believed on Jesus due to the witness of the Samaritan woman when she testified to them, He told me all that ever I did. Her testimony led them to seek out their own. (Oh, the running involved with discipleship.) Latter-day Saint women saw themselves in the scripture narrative; they too had an opportunity and a duty to run and witness their experience of truth.

Just after Emma Smiths baptism, Joseph received a revelation for her, the only canonized revelation specifically addressed to a woman. The revelation admonished Emma to expound scriptures and exhort the church.

The editors of the Times and Seasons considered Laura Owens Defence of too much value to be lost to history, so they published it. Our hope is that The Witness of Women will help to create a more inclusive narrative of the early history of the Church as it documents the witness of early Latter-day Saint women in their own voices. These women describe their experience of the Restoration, testifying of the restored gospel and demonstrating how they faithfully applied doctrine and principles. As Latter-day Saints come to understand both their shared identity and individual value, they will better realize their own essential role as the Restoration continues.

This book offers Gospel Doctrine teachers, Young Men and Young Women teachers, religion professors, family history researchers, and Church members in general a resource to incorporate womens experiences and testimonies into their study, teaching, and personal understanding of the Restoration. Our primary goal is to privilege the voices of the women themselves. Often in the chaos of the moment women would not have an opportunity to write of their experience; some of the accounts are later remembered and then written down. In a few instances, if the women havent left a record of an experience themselves, we include others descriptions. Inclusion of women in history elevates everyone with a more complete view of the Restoration.

Methodology

This book is not a standard historical narrative; it is a resource offering multiple perspectives organized by subject. Distinct from Latter-day Saint womens biographies, the chapters are arranged topically to make them as accessible as possible for teaching. This organization provides straightforward, uncomplicated access to the powerful testimonies and experiences of early Latter-day Saint women for their sisters and fellow members in Christ today. Though we have arranged the chapters by topic, lives are not ordered topically; themes overlap throughout different chapters in the collection. We recommend referring to the index to find further testimony on a topic beyond its assigned chapter.

We have lightly edited these sources for readability, standardizing spelling and grammar. Each account includes a brief biographical sketch to offer a glimpse into the lives and situations of these women at the timecontext that is important to understand each woman and her experience. In most cases, secondary sources have helped us better understand this context.

There is an admitted lack of diversity in these accounts; only a few women are not white, American, or from northwestern Europe. Though there were early members of the Church beyond those categories, often the extant written sources are few. Within this limitation, we have worked to include a variety of ages, levels of education, and visibility in Church leadership; distinct places of origin; and a spectrum from well-known historical figures to lesser-known female members of the Church.

We used archival sources found in various collections of the LDS Church History Library (CHL), Brigham Young Universitys L. Tom Perry Special Collections in the Harold B. Lee Library, the Utah State Historical Society, private collections, as well as other archives across the United States. We also utilized womens writings from nineteenth-century out-of-print compilation publications such as Edward Tullidges Women of Mormondom , Augusta Joyce Crocherons Representative Women of Deseret , and most significantly the Womans Exponent newspaper. Both Tullidge and Crocheron collected autobiographical writings for their publications. Tullidge carefully inserted womens experiences and their own words into a larger celebratory, hagiographic book, which was often touted in the Womans Exponent . Seven years later, Crocheron gathered biographies and autobiographies of twenty leading Mormon women, some accounts written in the womens own words, some published in the Exponent , and others written by friends. Both of these books were compiled during the lifetime of their subjects, and each was approved as an authentic representation of womens lives and experiences.