Her Quiet Revolution, page 1
Page ix: image of Martha Hughes Cannon used by permission, Utah Historical Society.
© 2020 Marianne Monson
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, Shadow Mountain®, at permissions@shadowmountain.com. The views expressed herein are the responsibility of the author and do not necessarily represent the position of Shadow Mountain.
This is a work of fiction. Characters and events in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are represented fictitiously.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Monson, Marianne, 1975– author.
Title: Her quiet revolution : a novel of Martha Hughes Cannon : frontier doctor and first female state senator / Marianne Monson.
Description: “This historical novel recounts the life of Martha Hughes Cannon, her early life in Utah, her studies in medical school, and her election as America’s first female state senator.”—Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019049248 | ISBN 9781629726090 (hardcover) | eISBN
Subjects: LCSH: Cannon, Martha Hughes—Fiction. | Women politicians—Utah—Fiction. | Women physicians—Utah—Fiction. | Suffragists—Utah—Fiction. | Mormon women—Utah—Fiction. | Mormon pioneers—Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Historical / General | FICTION / Biographical | LCGFT: Historical fiction. | Biographical fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3613.O539 H47 2020 | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019049248
Printed in the United States of America
Lake Book Manufacturing, Inc., Melrose Park, IL
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Cover art: Magdalena Żyźniewska/Trevillion Images; City and County Building, Salt Lake City, used by permission, Utah Historical Society; CSA Images/Getty Images
Author photo: Nathan Burton
Book design: © Shadow Mountain
Art direction: Richard Erickson
Design: Heather G. Ward
For Andrew—my one and only
“This is the woman’s age.
The universal voice of society proclaims the fact.
Woman must therefore lay the cornerstone of the new civilization.
Her arm will be most potent in rearing the glorious structures of the future.
Man cannot prevent it, for in it is a divine intending.”
—Edward W. Tullidge,
Women of Mormondom, 1877
Martha Hughes Cannon
with her daughter, Gwendolyn, 1899
Contents
Part One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Part Two
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Part Three
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Part Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Part Five
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
Chapter Notes
Recommended Reading
About the Author
It is the chlorofil cell that gives the green color. When it is not exposed to light it throws of[f] carbonic acid gas; it is dependent on darkness and night.
—Martha Hughes Cannon
September 3, 1861
Mormon Pioneer Company,
Utah Territory,
near modern-day Wyoming
The long and mournful cry of a hoot owl sounded through camp, causing horses to shift restlessly and campers to turn over muttering in their sleep, pulling thin woolen shrouds tight about their shoulders.
Elizabeth hung over the precious form of her baby, her littlest one.
Listening. Waiting.
An eternity’s pause.
And then.
Annie’s frail rib cage lifted, breath rattling through bones as flimsy as the wagons that had carried them these many miles—creaking over ruts, groaning beneath the weight, straining their way West.
The owl cry came again, haunting and solemn.
Elizabeth sought to push the old country’s stories from her mind, to keep them safe behind walls of prayer and Bible verses taught by missionaries, but tonight the Welsh tales refused to be banished. In the darkness, legends seeped in at the edges, straining the gap of every seam. Gwyliwr nos, gwarcheidwad duw. Night watcher, guardian of blackness. Lady Blodeuwedd, formed from boughs of broom and meadowsweet, cursed to live out eternity in the form of an owl, harbinger of death.
Wishing for some magic to aid her, Elizabeth focused on the child before her, angling the dear feverish forehead upward to ease the entrance of breath. She added her frayed wrap to the baby’s threadbare coverings, straining helplessly against her longing for a village healer, her own mother, or perhaps for medicine and understanding.
Others in camp had helped bless the child before sunset, but now the company slept, exhausted from the work of day and worn from caring for others afflicted with the dreaded mountain fever. So near the end of their journey, there were few able hands to help the suffering.
Elizabeth’s older daughters slept on, unaware, and at last the baby, too, relaxed into slumber. Kneeling on the floor of the tent, the mother allowed the long hours of care to descend upon her shoulders, becoming one more burden to be hefted over eight hundred miles. Her daughters turned toward each other in sleep, leaving her alone with the dark edges of her mind.
Whooooo whooooo. The accursed bird sounded again, beckoning from some scrubby, gnarled pine sheltered in a crevice of wilderness. In the distance, a dog whined. The only animal that could see the approach of Cŵn Annwn, hounds of hell.
Unable to bear the sharp angles of such thoughts any further, Elizabeth pushed the tent flap aside, allowing the frosted September air to swallow her wholly. Culled clouds scuttled over the face of a vapid moon, throwing a swift succession of shadows across the cliffs rising near the edge of camp.
Flickering moonlight illuminated rocky formations plunging down the sides of the mountains. Witches Rocks, they were called, conjuring the Witches of Llanddona of her youth. Please, she tried to pray, struggling for the peace and faith she had felt at conversion, had felt many times on this journey since.
But she had so recently adopted a new truth, and her mother and her mother’s mother had repeated tales from Glamorganshire far longer still. Winds howling through the canyon summoned stories of Cyhyraeth, the disembodied moan of death, and Elizabeth wished for a sprig of rowan to tuck in her pocket. Alone in this endless night, she could no more ward off superstition than she could breathe wellness into the body of her littlest one, anymore than she could heal the man she loved lying prostrate in a wagon.
But if Annie . . .
No. She could not think such a thought.
Skittering clouds sent terrible shapes over the face of the mountain, and the words her mother had said at their departure came unbidden to her mind. She could not help but whisper them, her breath rising in hoarfrost: “Cadarn, cariad. Os ydych yn parhau yn y gwallgofrwydd crefyddol hwn, ni fyddwch yn dod i ben yn dda. Sure, love, if you persist in this religious madness, you will come to no good end.”
The ground glittered with crushed gems, hard and frozen, and Elizabeth’s foot struck against a rock, sharper than the rest. Wincing, she tightened the stained and filthy rags bound round her feet to replace shoes that had shriven to pieces somewhere in Wyoming, becoming two more useless objects littering the edges of the trail.
“Please,” she tried again to pray. “Please help us.” Her words were snatched by passing shadows, torn and tangled by frantic winds.
During their ocean crossing, Elizabeth had watched a mother push a child-sized bundle into the sea, had seen that mother’s body sail onward while her heart remained behind. Here on this trail of suffering, where shoes and bones collected on both sides of the roadway, why should her own child be spared?
She turned away from the night, returning to her sleeping dear ones. At the opening of the tent, two hazel eyes watched solemnly from beneath folds of fabric. Two arms waited patiently, trusting the night to return her mother. An oddly perceptive child, this one. Elizabeth hastened her steps.
“Plentyn tawel.” Hush child, though the girl had not uttered a syllable. “Yn ôl i’r gwely, Mattie. Back to bed with you.”
But the four-year-old was still young enough to trust her heart more than her mother’s placating words. “Mam,” she called, knowing the tent to be far too quiet.
Brisk footsteps. A sharp cry of mourning against a baby’s nightdress.
Mattie reached for her sister’s unmoving hand, listened to her mother’s choking sobs, and wished for the power to calm cries and breathe life back into stillness.
But the world outside Mattie’s tent was big, and oh so dark. What could she do, such a small and girlish thing? Still even too young to walk with the children at the front of the wagons—what could she do?
They buried the baby at daybreak.
Elizabeth dug her daughter’s grave with her own hands as her husband cursed his own helplessness from the nearby wagon. Though others in the company had sorrows plenty of their own, they brought butter, prayers, and condolences.
In Wales, Elizabeth would have stayed at home with the other women during the graveside service, but here they lacked both a house to hold vigil in and a gravedigger to open the earth. So she clawed away at the barren, rocky soil, scarcely feeling stones scraping across her palms. She carved rock and grime into an earthen cradle to shelter Annie through winter snows, through spring rains, to hold her safe from seasons passing in and out. Four-year-old Mattie and six-year-old Mary did their best to help, their stubby fingers swiping at the dirt.
Elizabeth longed for draped white linen to wrap around her precious child, for scented herbs, black gloves, funeral cake, and the ringing of a corpse bell to sound her pain. Instead, she sought to ignore her aching breasts longing for a baby who no longer needed feeding. She knelt beside a pile of rocks, next to her living daughters, as she spoke prayers both in English and the old tongue. “Rhowch gylch i mi, arglwydd. Circle me, Lord. Keep safety within, danger without,” she prayed. “Circle me, Lord. Keep light within, and darkness without.”
Elizabeth placed a single stone atop the shawl turned shroud, her face contracting as if she had set it upon her own heart and not her daughter’s. “Those poor little bones,” Mattie heard her mother whisper.
A tuft of mountain grass took the place of rosemary. A single candle glowed an eerie red in the rays of sunlight, leading Elizabeth’s worried eyes back to the wagon where her husband lay, his cough grown worse. What if? She could not allow the thought.
Witches Rocks brooded down upon the grim assembly. In place of a hymn, Elizabeth sang a cradle song, the words finding new meaning as they echoed off the mountainside. “Huna, blentyn, ar fy mynwes, Clyd a chynnes ydyw hon. . . . Sleep my dear one, ’tis a mother’s arms around you, make yourself a snug, warm nest; I will hold you, close enfold you, lay my blessing on your rest.”
Elizabeth’s voice broke as she struggled to finish. Mary’s voice merged with her mother’s and Mattie’s, too, half wondering if this were not just another game and Annie would push aside the stones above her. But no. The rocks felt sharp, heavy, and oh so final.
“Huna’n dawel, annwyl blentyn. . . . Lovely darling, I will guard you. I will hold you, close enfold you, sleep upon your mother’s breast.”
Mattie marked her mother’s worried glance as fear collapsed in a dense knot at the base of her stomach. If Annie could fall into this still and awful silence, then who else might follow? The girl tipped her head to watch her mother who, it seemed, could do anything, had done everything on this journey.
Her hands now hung shaking and helpless by her side.
Elizabeth murmured a final prayer, as Mattie trembled at this twisted discovery, for her mother had always been solid and immovable—a pillar of stone upon a hillside, there to remain through all millennia of time.
The rigidity of crystalline substances shut out the external impression.
—Martha Hughes Cannon
November 1873
Salt Lake City, Utah Territory
t a e r G
Mattie’s hands flowed over and across the case of ten-point metal type—selecting a steel rectangle from among its companions, turning the notch upward, aligning it snug and square beside others in the metal composing stick. Bottom up, top down, notch to the right of the lead. Then a spacer.
y r c t u o
Sister Emmeline’s distinctive scrawl was not the easiest to read, but the wit and humor made her work instantly recognizable, even if Mattie hadn’t already memorized the way Sister Emmeline shaped each letter.
Great outcry. It was an interesting enough opening to pause over, and, for just a moment, Mattie stopped her movement between cases and let herself read forward instead of backward.
“Great outcry is raised against the much marrying of the Latter-day Saints,” the column began. The outcry over polygamy had captured the attention of the nation, and as a polygamous wife herself, Emmeline often used the platform of the Woman’s Exponent to publicly defend the practice Eastern papers termed “barbaric.”
“The tendency of the age is to disregard marriage altogether,” Emmeline continued, “but there seems no indication of a desire to have the race die out.” Mattie stifled an undignified snort and reached for another spacer. Of course Sister Emmeline would turn the debate over polygamy into a criticism of society’s morality instead. The idea of sharing a husband seemed odd enough to Mattie, but plenty of women defended the system, even organizing indignation meetings to fight accusations of repression from one of two territories in the union outlandish enough to allow women to vote. “The season of scattering intellectual filth has set in over the country,” the editorial continued. “It occurs quadrennially in the United States, commencing a few months before the Presidential election.”
Mattie laughed aloud, then stiffened as a voice called out her name. Though she’d read only a line or two at most, she clenched her thumb over the last sort in the composing stick to keep it in place.
“Sister Emmeline wants to see you,” said a girl with brown, braided hair and an apron identical to Mattie’s.
“Very well.” Mattie sighed, holding out the composing stick. “Finish this last line for me, won’t you, Ruby?”
“I’ve work to do of my own before closing,” the girl replied, glancing around for Brother Parry, before taking the mostly finished composition.
“You’re a dear.” Mattie smoothed her apron, though she could do nothing about the smudges. Well, it was a dirty job and nothing for it.
With her impeccably trimmed gowns, pinched nose, and severely drawn hair, Sister Emmeline reminded Mattie of a glossy black bird flitting around her formidable office—checking this, ordering that, and scrawling scathing words across slips of paper. Invariably, reading her tart replies in the paper proved far more enjoyable than speaking with her face-to-face.
Mattie paused in front of the heavy oak door. “Come in!” came the sharp invitation. Surrounded by stacks of paper nearly as tall as herself, Sister Emmeline sat behind her mighty desk, pin-tucked in gray silk, scribbling out sarcastic pronouncements on the nation. “Yes?” she asked briskly.
Mattie pushed the door open the rest of the way. “You wanted to see me, ma’am?” She shifted, feeling far too frumpy for such an office.
Legendary, this woman was, as an accomplished poet, author, and newspaper editor. She had been abandoned by her first husband, buried a second, and married a third with six other families to take care of. Yet a delicate lace collar circled her throat and a dainty amethyst ring rested on one finger, belying the whip-smart wit embodied in the woman they adorned. Emmeline glanced down at her papers. “Miss Paul?”
