Makoto Hunter
Imogen holds me after the sun has gone down and little Lucy is put to bed and after
All of St. Johns is dark and quiet enough that we convince ourselves no one is awake
But someone could be since after all we are awake but we must tell ourselves that to
Be brave enough to try
In the dark we cannot see each other so we feel for each other
Hands in hands and then finding arms and face and hair and the first time we were so
Shy barely knowing what we were doing except that in Logan Imogen clasped hands
With Erasmus when Lucille placed her hand in his and then in Salt Lake City Erasmus
Clasped hands with me when Lucille put his hand in mine
This was when Lucille was
Alive still and when little Lucy wasn’t yet and when Imogen and I had not yet known
One another but even back then I thought that her eyes looked like the stars crowning
Mary’s head in Revelation but Lucille and Imogen touched hands and I only watched.
In St. Johns we say Imogen is my cousin and little Lucy is her child but Lucy calls us
Both her aunties and that is what she always called us so it is not her fault but it is our
Risk so if little Lucy has to go out it usually is I who takes her and I am told that I am
A generous aunt and I am asked if my cousin is still unwell
Is it lying since the two of
Us are not cousins or because she is not ill but I wonder sometimes if perhaps she is
Sick at heart if nothing else as ever since Lucille died Imogen trembles and she can’t
Sleep and she tries to eat but drops her spoons so I hold Imogen’s hand which calms
Her enough to eat then
Imogen holds me which calms her enough to sleep meanwhile
I listen to our beating hearts telling me she is not dead like Lucille and telling me she
Is not gone like Erasmus and telling me we will be here in the morning and it is hard
To remember that here in St. Johns she is Lucy’s mother and I am a generous cousin.
When he left Erasmus was supposed to return soon but soon he was not returning for
A long while because he feared the marshals and we feared for him but we feared less
When a while became forever after Erasmus told us of the Manifesto and said that he
Released us both from
Marriage was eternal Erasmus told us first and releasing us from
It was best Erasmus told us last and I wondered who released him because I never said
I did but I never bothered to ask and he never bothered to say but it does not matter for
Whatever Erasmus thinks it cannot change what I and Imogen and Lucy need and that
We are welded together even if in Salt Lake we never held
Our hands work to the bone
And more as two women are rather few to make a living with but we are just sufficient
Somehow I never ask Imogen what she plans to do next but then again she never asks
Me perhaps she knows I have no plans for anything besides another day of us and Lucy.
Then other Saints trickle back into St. Johns even Bishop Udall who the old Ring once
Locked in prison is more often around now that he is stake president and I think he does
Not remember me and Imogen and Lucy and we have not reminded him and I hope he
Is unlike Erasmus but they sometimes seem rather near as
Ella recognizes us somewhat
At least she seemed surprised to learn that Lucy stayed with us but she does not ask us
About Erasmus and I do not ask her about Ida who does not visit much and we call Ida
Mrs. Udall but we call Ella that much oftener and it is almost like the neighbors pretend
The Udalls are actually
Just the two of us are all that is left it seems of what we thought
Would be forever and we did not even hold hands in Logan or Salt Lake it was Lucille
Who placed my hand into Erasmus’s and I wonder if when we see our Father and our
Mother again will we be with Lucille too or will Imogen have to tremble for eternity?
To be brave enough to try we tell ourselves that even though we are still awake no one
Else could be and we convince ourselves that all of St. Johns is dark and quiet enough
And we put little Lucy to bed and see the sun has gone and that is when I hold Imogen
And Imogen kisses me
In the dark we cannot see each other and if we could we might
Not try but we feel instead placing hands in hands even though we did not in Salt Lake
And arm with arm even though we did not in Logan and lips to lips even though I did
Not whisper my name to Imogen through a veil but I sometimes wish I could just to be
Sure we are welded even though we only held hands after
The Underground has sunset
And St. Johns now knows we are not cousins but still does not know what we are or at
Least I want them to be wrong because they call us misses both and they ask us out to
Dancing and would they call us that and ask us such if they considered us welded still?
As Lucy gets older we wonder what she thinks but she does not say anything though
We say a lot as we tell over and over everything we can remember about Lucille and
Lucy listens quietly as I relate the day we met and Lucy watches carefully as Imogen
Holds a photo and Imogen does not tremble so much now
When I tell Lucy she will see
Her mother again and our Mother and Father also Lucy does not ask us about her father
But she asks us about us and Imogen says you will see us and I am quiet but I hope so
Even though we only held hands after and never whispered our names but Lucille held
Both of us by the hand
Every September I remember it is the day I clasped hands with
Erasmus in Salt Lake and I do not feel welded to him but is it through him that I have
Imogen or is it through Lucille and if Erasmus released us but never did release Lucille
Where will we be if we are not with him but are with her or do I have all of it wrong?
Lucy grows and goes to an academy and though we miss her terribly we are proud and
She studies and writes and reads and recites and there is a young man but he must run
Fast to keep up with her and Lucy finds she likes that so when she brings him to visit
St. Johns we trust her
Judgment radiates from the boy and he is subtle about it but from
His first question about our husbands to his last about Imogen’s hand held in mine there
Is surprise at least and something sterner if more and after he leaves Lucy apologizes in
Tears and we hug her and tell her there is nothing to forgive as she did everything right
And the boy’s choices are his own and she holds us close
To sunset Lucy turns in early
So Imogen and I sit alone together and I whisper in her ear and she whispers into mine
About the boy and the academy and Lucy knowing and of course she has but this is the
Nearest she has come to saying she does and so I feel strangely almost grateful for him.
And Imogen keeps whispering and I keep listening and she takes my hand and she says
That I am bone of her bones and flesh of her flesh and says where I go is where she will
Go and where I die is where she will die and my people are her people and I laugh and
Say we are of the same people and her God is already my God and I never go anywhere
Anyway and Imogen laughs too but she means it and so do I and when we die my hope
Is that they bury us neither as misses alone nor as missus to any because we are welded
Already.
Makoto Hunter is a graduate student in History at the University of California–Santa Barbara. She researches romance tropes in literature and the intersection of religion, sexuality, and the law in history. Her writing has been featured in Irreantum and Intermountain Histories.
Notes to “Welded”
St. Johns: A city in northeastern Arizona. Latter-day Saints moved into the region in the 1870s and 1880s, but St. Johns had a substantial non-Mormon presence before then. See Mark E. Miller, “St. Johns’s Saints: Interethnic Conflict in Northeastern Arizona, 1880–85,” Journal of Mormon History 23, no. 1 (Spring 1997): 66–99.
In Logan: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints concluded construction of the Logan temple in 1884 and dedicated it on May 17 of that year. See Noel A. Carmack, “Labor and the Construction of the Logan Temple, 1877–1884,” Journal of Mormon History 22, no. 1 (Spring 1996): 54.
Clasped hands with Erasmus: The Latter-day Saint marital sealing ordinance involves the participants “join[ing] hands across a sacred altar to be married for this life and for eternity. This eternal marriage is called a temple sealing, and children born into such marriages are also sealed to their families forever.” See “What is the Temple Sealing?” in Families and Temples, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, accessed March 13, 2023.
Lucille placed her hand in his: “A later account of the ceremony used in performing plural marriages says that the first wife placed the hand of the intended wife in the hand of her husband and then linked hands with him and remained standing while the marriage was performed.” See Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, A House Full of Females: Plural Marriage and Women’s Rights in Early Mormonism, 1835–1870 (Alfred A. Knopf, 2017), 131.
In Salt Lake City: The Salt Lake City Temple was not completed until 1893, but from 1855 to 1889 Latter-day Saints received temple ordinances, including marital sealings, in the Endowment House, also in Salt Lake City. The House was phased out of use and demolished in 1889. See Lisle G. Brown, “‘Temple Pro Tempore’: The Salt Lake City Endowment House,” Journal of Mormon History 34, no. 4 (Winter 2008): 54–55.
Stars crowning Mary’s head: “And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars” (King James Version of the Bible [KJV], Revelation 12:1). Some early Christian authors, such as Oecumenius, identified the woman in John’s Revelation as Mary the mother of the Son of God. See Commentary on the Apocalypse, trans. John N. Suggit (Catholic University of America Press, 2006), 107.
My cousin: Some Latter-day Saints evading arrest or subpoena for plural marriage presented false familial relations, such as a plural wife pretending to be the sibling of a husband. See Genevieve J. Long, “Laboring in the Desert: The Letters and Diaries of Narcissa Prentiss Whitman and Ida Hunt Udall,” PhD diss. (University of Oregon, 2002), 241.
Her aunties: “[M]ost of the children [in plural families] called the father’s other wives ‘Aunt,’” though “their actual relationships took on a number of forms.” See Jessie L. Embry, Mormon Polygamous Families: Life in the Principle, 2nd ed. (Greg Kofford, 2008), 231.
The marshals: U. S. federal marshals were tasked with enforcing federal antipolygamy laws. See Larry D. Ball, The United States Marshals of New Mexico and Arizona Territories, 1846–1912 (University of New Mexico Press, 1978), 167; and Embry, Mormon Polygamous Families, 25.
The Manifesto: Issued by Wilford Woodruff as a press release on September 26, 1890, the “Manifesto” (as it came to be known) disavowed “contracting any marriages forbidden by the law of the land” and claimed that “there is nothing in my teachings to the Church or in those of my associates, during the time specified, which can be reasonably construed to inculcate or encourage polygamy.” The text is printed in the Doctrine and Covenants as Official Declaration 1. See also Embry, Mormon Polygamous Families, 12.
He released us: After the Manifesto, some plural wives expressed fear that their husbands would abandon them, though general Church leadership discouraged such behavior, and outright abandonment appears to have been an unusually drastic response to the Manifesto (Embry, Mormon Polygamous Families, 13–15). In a retrospective account, Annie Clark Tanner avers that she was aware that “some men . . . justified themselves in forsaking their families” after the issuance of the 1890 Manifesto, and her own husband Joseph M. Tanner abruptly broke off their relationship in 1912, excepting a handful of holiday visits and an ongoing interest in their children, though not so much in her. See Annie Clark Tanner, A Mormon Mother, 3rd ed. (University of Utah Library Tanner Trust Fund, 1991), 152, 236–237, 266–268, 312–313.
We are welded: Joseph F. Smith called baptism for the dead “a welding together and a joining together of parents and children and children and parents.” See “Discourse by President Joseph F. Smith,” Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star, October 4, 1906, 629 (also see D&C 128:18). David A. Bednar associated this “welding” with sealing rather than only baptism for the dead: “the priesthood keys and sealing authority that turn hearts and forge welding links across the generations.” See “A Welding Link,” Worldwide Devotional for Young Adults, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, September 10, 2017.
Bishop Udall: David King Udall was called to be bishop of the St. Johns Ward in 1880 (Miller, “St. Johns’s Saints,” 71–72).
Old Ring: The “St. Johns Ring” was a group of non-Mormons who spearheaded antipolygamy prosecutions against Latter-day Saints; the Ring fell apart in the mid-1880s due to some members’ changed attitudes toward Udall specifically and Latter-day Saints generally (Miller, “St. Johns’s Saints,” 67, 98).
Stake president: David King Udall was stake president of the St. Johns Stake from 1887 to 1922 (Miller, “St. Johns’s Saints, 99).
Ella recognizes: Ella Stewart Udall was David Udall’s first wife (m. 1875) and was Stake Relief Society President of the St. Johns Stake from 1887 to 1922. See “Eliza Luella (Ella) Stewart Udall,” in The First Fifty Years of Relief Society: Key Documents in Latter-day Saint Women’s History (Church Historian’s Press, 2016).
We call Ida: Ida Hunt Udall was David Udall’s second wife (m. 1882) and co-wife to Ella Stewart Udall. David never forsook his second marriage or his plural children, but after the Manifesto he lived with Ida inconsistently and was more often with Ella. Granddaughter Maria S. Ellsworth observes that Ida “was honored with her husband” infrequently. See Maria S. Ellsworth, ed. Mormon Odyssey: The Story of Ida Hunt Udall, Plural Wife (University of Illinois Press, 1992), 193, 199; and Long, “Laboring in the Desert,” 311–312.
Like the neighbors pretend: Although this would have been a few years earlier, Ellsworth notes an 1887 episode in which “David did not take Ida to St. Johns. To do so would have been an affront to his non-Mormon friends” (Ellsworth, Mormon Odyssey, 186).
Our Father and our Mother: “When I lay this mortal by, / Father, Mother, may I meet you / In your royal courts on high?” Eliza R. Snow’s poetry, popular among Latter-day Saints during this period, bore “personal witness of the place of woman within the eternal scheme.” See Jill Mulvay Derr, “The Significance of ‘O My Father’ in the Personal Journey of Eliza R. Snow,” BYU Studies 36, no. 1 (1996–97): 105, passim.
Will we be with: “Earthly contracts and vows are not valid in heaven; thus, for a man and wife to be married for eternity they must be married on earth by one who has the authority to bind in heaven what is bound on earth. Those without such marriages will live ‘separately and singly, without exaltation, in their saved condition, to all eternity.’” See Kathryn M. Daynes, “Celestial Marriage (Eternal and Plural),” in The Oxford Handbook of Mormonism, eds. Terryl L. Givens and Philip L. Barlow (Oxford University Press, 2015), 335; and D&C 132:17.
My name: “If the world can find out these numbers, so let it be” (Pearl of Great Price, annotation to facsimile 2).
A veil: Temples used by Latter-day Saints include a ceremonial object called “the veil”; a veil was also included in the Endowment House (Brown, “‘Temple Pro Tempore,’” 57, 67). This veil is not directly incorporated into the marital sealing ordinance but is involved in a related ritual. See Tracy M., “Sealing Primer,” By Common Consent (blog), December 18, 2017.
The Underground: Latter-day Saints appended the nickname “the Underground” to their practice of evading antipolygamy prosecution by living in hiding or obfuscating their relationships (Embry, Mormon Polygamous Families, 12).
What we are: “Mrs. [Phoebe] Allred liked me . . . . She wanted a companion. For twenty-five years, we lived together . . . . She was lovely. Liked me. Wanted me. We believed in polygamy.” See Mary Eliza Tracy Allred, typewritten dictation to Emily Black in 1937, box 19, folder 11, #5, Collection of Mormon Biographies, Church History Library, 4–7, in B. Carmon Hardy, ed. Doing the Works of Abraham: Mormon Polygamy: Its Origin, Practice, and Demise (University of Oklahoma Press, 2007), 173.
Misses both: The details are complicated, but generally the English feminine titles “Miss” and “Mrs” came to consistently demarcate marital status (unmarried and married respectively) by around the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century. See Amy Louise Erickson, “Mistresses and Marriage: or, a Short History of the Mrs,” History Workshop Journal 78, no. 1 (Autumn 2014): 39–57.
Her mother again: Zina D. H. Young recalled that while grieving the loss of her mother, she asked Joseph Smith, “Will I know my mother as my mother when I get over on the Other Side?” Joseph answered, “Certainly you will . . . . More than that, you will meet and become acquainted with your eternal Mother, the wife of your Father in Heaven.” See Susa Young Gates, History of the Young Ladies’ Mutual Improvement Association of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1911), 16 (see footnote).
I do not feel welded: “All eternal relationships are voluntary. We will not be forced into anything eternally.” See Janiece Johnson and Joseph Stuart, “Doctrine and Covenants 129–132,” Abide: A Maxwell Institute Podcast no. 19, November 3, 2021, 39:32.
An Academy: In the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, the Church operated several private schools, called “academies,” throughout the “Mormon Corridor.” See Scott C. Esplin and E. Vance Randall, “Living in Two Worlds: The Development and Transition of Mormon Education in American Society,” History of Education 43, no. 1 (2014): 20.
She studies: “Woman was designed to be something more than a domestic drudge . . . the brain should also be instructed how to work, and allowed to expand and improve.” See “Educate Yourself,” The Woman’s Exponent 1, no. 9 (October 1, 1872): 69; and Thomas W. Simpson, “Mormons Study ‘Abroad’: Brigham Young’s Romance with American Higher Education, 1867–1877,” Church History 76, no. 4 (December 2007): 790–791.
Judgment radiates: Turn-of-the-century American attitudes toward “passionate” relationships between women could vary. “Romantic friendships” sometimes were deemed appropriate whereas “explicit sexuality” was condemned. Negative characterization of same-sex feminine intimacy escalated at the turn of the twentieth century as male doctors pathologized “unnatural lesbian degeneracy.” See Jay Hatheway, The Gilded Age Construction of Modern American Homophobia (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 52–53.
Lucy knowing: In 1912, the Children’s Friend publicly described Primary General President Louie B. Felt and Primary General Board member May Anderson as “the ‘David and Jonathon’ of the General Board” and wrote that “there never were more ardent lovers than these two.” See D. Michael Quinn, Same-sex Dynamics Among Nineteenth-century Americans: A Mormon Example (University of Illinois Press, 1996), 242; and “Mary and May,” Children’s Friend, October 1919, 421.
Bone of her bones: “And Adam said [to Eve], This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh” (KJV, Genesis 2:23).
Where I go: “And Ruth said [to Naomi], Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the LORD do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me” (KJV, Ruth 1:16–17).
Welded already: In the context of Latter-day Saint sealings, welding is more typically taken with generational meaning, but the word bears surprising resemblance to wedding and wedded.