Introduction

Lilian Rachel Brown and Joseph Christenson were my great-grandparents. If you can picture the pedigree chart in your head, they were, more specifically, my paternal grandmother's parents. To say I am fascinated with them and their lived experiences would be an understatement. Their lives were far from average. "Tragic", in many respects, would be a much more accurate description of their lived experiences.

They were both deeply and fully converted to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Joseph was not only employed by the church throughout his adult life, he spent countless - endless - hours in church-related and church-dictated service. He was strictly obedient to the leaders of the church and their teachings of the day, even if those doctrines and teaching changed and/or contradicted themselves from one day to another. Joseph was one who would embrace the thought that "when the brethren have spoken the thinking has been done" as he never questioned their authority or the fact that they claimed to always, universally, be speaking for God himself. Lilian (or "Lily" as Joseph called her) completely embraced her God-ordained role as wife and mother, a paradigm every faithful LDS woman at the time was obliged to accept if she wanted to obtain her divine destiny. It was her job to be obedient to her husband first and to God second. That was (and is today, in fact) exactly how the plan was presented to her which she was obliged to accept by covenant, an eternally-binding obligation she freely and willingly took upon herself in the temple of God. 

If I were to speculate as to which two things most influenced their lives and their relationship - that set them apart from most other mainstream American couples of their day - it's pretty easy for me to identify them: divinely-ordained patriarchy and Mormon plural marriage. Patriarchy and polygamy elevated Joseph to a near God-like status as long as he remained true and faithful to all the things he was taught to do and to believe. But those same two things had exactly the opposite effect on wife Lily. Although she was effectively and willingly on board, they were, it seems, primarily responsible for her complete loss of self and her life-long battle with insanity - a fight she ultimately lost. From my perspective, they both, individually and collectively, surrendered their will and their very lives to the precepts of Mormonism with very different outcomes. 

I have come to understand that history is not a neatly packaged set of names, dates, places, and factual events to which only one narrative can be assigned.  History is a matter of perspective and requires much interpretation. This was made clear to me while listening to a recent podcast in which a fellow Texan was being interviewed. His father was from Texas, his mother from Mexico. He attended school in both places and referenced the Battle of the Alamo to make his point.

The Alamo

Having grown up in Texas myself, and having visited the Alamo more than once, I was well-informed as to the major points of that infamous scourge and the ambush of those loyal volunteers who selflessly fought and died to secure Texas' independence. He, however, made it crystal clear that the story told from the perspective of the Mexicans was an entirely different narrative than that told by the Texans. And, now, it makes perfect sense to me that it would be exactly that way.

I spent more than half a century of my life fully and completely committed to the Mormon narrative which the church told about itself. Any other printed perspective or point of view was instantly dismissed as "anti-Mormon literature" and was to be avoided at all costs. Only "church-produced resources" told the true and accurate story. I've since learned differently. There are always - at the very least - two sides to every story. It's virtually impossible to form honest, informed opinions from one heavily biased set of "facts". Comparatively speaking, the success of our judicial system is completely dependent on opposing points of view.  It was a painful, debilitating process to learn how to let go of what I thought I knew - what I had previously defended and proclaimed as absolute truth over the pulpit in Sunday meetings - while going through the process of eliminating the cognitive dissonance which precluded me from understanding actual points of long-held church doctrine and church-related historical events fairly and rationally. That "dark night of the soul" has ultimately become a huge blessing in disguise as it allows me the privilege and luxury of  relying on internal authority upon which to make decisions, form opinions, and live my life. My profound spiritual experiences, which I do not deny and continue to hold with the utmost of importance, no longer testify of the truth of ALL things Mormon as I was led to believe they should.  They do, however, profoundly and universally testify to me of the existence of higher power and eternal order. I further acknowledge that, through my own internal dialog and level of understanding, my paradigm can continue to shift as I form new beliefs and opinions.  My relationship with the Mormon church today is extremely complicated and it is beyond difficult to remain active and participating as I deeply feel the marginalization and judgments imposed on me from many strict, orthodox believing members of my congregation now that I no longer believe exactly the way they do. 

So why do I include all that information about myself in a blog dedicated to my great-grandparents? I want you - meaning anyone who decides to take valuable time out of their lives to read this - to understand my motivation in doing so. I am not writing to embarrass or humiliate them.  I am not writing to shame or judge them (although I'm positive my bias will rear its nasty head as the story progresses). I am writing to tell their story - the parts of their whole, entire story which are available to me - so that we can learn from it.

I'm also writing this because truth is extremely important to me. In 1981 LDS apostle Boyd K Packer said, "There is a temptation for the writer or the teacher of Church history to want to tell everything, whether it is worthy or faith promoting or not. Some things that are true are not very useful." In fact, he put teachers and leaders of the church under condemnation (at the very least church discipline, and at the very most eternal damnation) for teaching truth if it could possibly limit faith. I could not disagree more. We simply cannot "testify" of the truth of all things (and you fellow Mormons know exactly what I mean by that) when the "truth" we've been taught is a shortened, well-crafted, one-sided narrative which intentionally leaves out important events and details to alter and manipulate actual, historical facts and lived experiences. Simply put, truth can never be extrapolated from a foundation of lies. Unfortunately, his methods, beliefs, and admonitions are currently backfiring as church members are discovering the truth that's been hidden from them and are feeling deceived and lied to. For many, as I well know, it can be devastatingly painful and isolating. If this scares or offends you, I would invite you to stop reading right now. But for those of you who are on board, and as I tell the story of Joseph and Lily, I'll try my best to present the history and let the readers form their own conclusions. I doubt I'll be highly successful at that, but I'll try.

My great-grandparents were, in some respects, ordinary people and in other ways quite extraordinary. Through his work and servitude within the church, Joseph knew and had dealings with every contemporary and future president of the church from Wilford Woodruff to Gordon B. Hinckley. He played with the "big boys" and longed to be one of them. He identified the "evil" in temple work duplication and was instrumental in the formulation of much of the church's initial policies and practices concerning temple and genealogical work. In contrast, between cooking, cleaning, and taking care of children Lilian spent almost 20 years of her adult life committed to the Utah State Mental Hospital in Provo. Ultimately, they lived separately and apart, not to be reunited until their bodies were placed side-by-side in the Salt Lake City Cemetery. 

In her acceptance speech at the 2017 Academy Awards Ceremony, actress Viola Davis said, "You know there’s one place where all the people with the greatest potential are gathered – one place – and that’s the graveyard. . . . Exhume those bodies, exhume those stories: the stories of the people who dreamed big and never saw those dreams to fruition, people who fell in love and lost." I'm accepting that challenge.

Just as the Alamo crumbled and its defenders were defeated, so happened to the relationship between Joseph and Lily. It's a sad, tragic tale, and one from which we can learn innumerable life's lessons.

next post