Episode 116: Before They Were Famous: Emmeline B. Wells

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (0:06)
You know how it goes. You're walking down Lover's Lane, possibly with a raspberry tart in hand. And maybe you have an amethyst brooch. You, ahem, borrowed temporarily. You go for a row on the lake of the shining waters. Perhaps you wear a dress with puff sleeves.
Then Gilbert Blythe comes in the room. Swoon, big swoon.
Wait, wait, hold on now. No one lives a life like this, right? This is some straight up PEI nonsense. Lucy Maud Montgomery is just trolling us all the way to the bank. Or is it? What if I were to introduce you to someone who might as well have been in the school room in Avonlea?

**Bryan Buchanan** (0:53)
What if I told you she has to go live by a desolate salt sea? And her husband disappears, and her next husband just ignores her most of the time.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (1:01)
But does she want to live in a world with Octobers? Cause I do.

**Bryan Buchanan** (1:06)
Probably.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (1:06)
I'm so glad I live in a world of Octobers and crickets. Okay.
Or you could go all Pringle on my happy little scene. Thanks. That was a nice little tapestry. I was weaving there. Thank you for ruining it.

**SPEAKER_3** (1:20)
You're welcome.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (1:24)
Hi, this is Lindsay Hansen Park.

**Bryan Buchanan** (1:26)
And this is Bryan Buchanan.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (1:28)
Bringing you the story of Mormonism from the shadow of the Everlasting Hills straight out of Zion. This isn't your grandpa's Mormon history.

**Bryan Buchanan** (1:55)
This is the tale of Mormon saints and sinners from our roots until present day.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (2:00)
Gird your loins, lock your hearts and pay your tithing, because we're bringing you the story of Mormonism in all its paradisiacal glory.

**Bryan Buchanan** (2:09)
It's the Sunstone History Podcast.
Ma'am, ma'am, can I encourage you to quit writing ads for Rollings Reliable for just a hot minute? Because we need to hear from our fancy new sponsor, our friends at the University of Utah Press. For decades, they have been publishing seminal works of Mormon history. Hal Schindler's bio of Porter Rockwell, David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (2:53)
And they reprinted Juanita Brooks's edition of the Josea Stout Diaries and her selected letters and eventually my book.

**Bryan Buchanan** (3:00)
This is all true. What we're saying is that we're fans of the U of U Press.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (3:04)
Big fans.

**Bryan Buchanan** (3:05)
Among their gems is one very applicable for today. Emmeline B. Wells was the most noted Utah Mormon woman of her time, lauded nationally for her energetic support of the women's rights movement of the 19th century. She was a self-made woman who channeled her lifelong sense of destiny into ambitious altruism.
Her public acclaim and activism belied the introspective, self-appraising and emotional persona she expressed in the pages of her 47 extant diaries. Yet she wrote, I have risen triumphant after reconciling herself to the heartaches of plural marriage and she pursued a self-directed life in earnest.
This new biography tells the story of the private Emmeline. The unusual circumstances of her marriages, the complicated lives of her five daughters, losses and disappointments interspersed with bright moments and achievements all engendered the idea that her life was a romance with all the mysterious, tragic and sentimental elements of that genre. Her responses to that perception made it so. This volume, drawing heavily on Emmeline Wells' own words, tells the complicated story of a woman of ambition, strength, tenderness and faith. Emmeline B. Wells, An Intimate History by Carol Cornwall Madsen. Published by the University of Utah Press. Check them out at uofupress.com.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (4:27)
Okay, fine, I can't give you Anne Shirley Cuthbert.

**Bryan Buchanan** (4:31)
Can we settle for Diana Berry?

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (4:33)
No, not even Ruby Gillis. It's time for a world famous...

**Bryan Buchanan** (4:38)
Raspberry Cordial?

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (4:39)
Will you calm down over there? No, and we don't drink raspberry cordials in Dixie, Bryan. No, we welcome your ears to another round of Before They Were Famous.

**Bryan Buchanan** (4:50)
Rather walk a ridge pole.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (4:51)
Listen, you want to be Rachel Lind, you do it on your own time. We've got to get down to business.
Our own Anne Shirley Cuthbert, a one named Emmeline Blanche Woodward. Not just going to narrate herself, well actually with 47 volumes of diaries of her names, she kind of could actually.

**Bryan Buchanan** (5:10)
What about the 25 year gap in her diaries?

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (5:13)
Sir, do I need to get Marilla down here?