Episode 144: Mail Bag: Malissa Lott

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (0:15)
Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. How does it go again?

**Bryan Buchanan** (0:19)
Going to need more information.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (0:21)
Right, sorry, I'm trying to remember the words to the mailbag fight song.

**Bryan Buchanan** (0:26)
Oh yeah, I think it's, Hail mighty mailbag, we bow down in adoration, and wonder at your splendor at your laudation.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (0:35)
Laudation.

**Bryan Buchanan** (0:36)
While this one's not about castration, you doth bring the straight information.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (0:42)
Wow, that was it, that was word for word what I was trying to remember. Thank you for that.

**Bryan Buchanan** (0:47)
We aim to please.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (0:55)
Hi, this is Lindsay Hansen Park.

**Bryan Buchanan** (0:58)
And this is Bryan Buchanan.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (0:59)
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** (1:27)
This is the tale of Mormon saints and sinners from our roots until present day. Saddle up.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (1:32)
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** (1:40)
It's the Sunstone History Podcast.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (2:03)
Sometimes, you find crazy things that belong to your parents. Who's with me? Eleven years old. Turned the door handle too fast, I just didn't like what I saw. Or I could also mean photos from the 70s with really disturbing mustaches or rad blue satin champion pants. It's all over the place. You don't know what you're going to find in your parents' drawers, that's why you shouldn't look. If you're lucky, though, sometimes you find something really fun. Polygamously fun? Did she write that really polygamously fun?

**Bryan Buchanan** (2:49)
This mailbag adventure comes from a listener who quite literally found something in a box. As she was going through some stuff from her mother, she happened on an old signed affidavit. Since her family was reluctant to talk about the polygamous ancestors, she wasn't familiar with the name. My eyes immediately lit up because the name was familiar. Oh yes, it was familiar.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (3:13)
Familiar to me too, because I actually did a Year of Polygamy episode about the woman who created the affidavit. Way back, checks notes, in 2014 Her name is Malissa Lott, and we're so excited to talk about her again. Thank you for sending this in. We're loving the smell bags, where we're getting some really cool history we haven't seen before. And Bryan was so excited about this one, he like called me about it and told me that he, there was a new document find. That's always fun. But who was Malissa Lott? Do you need a refresher?
Bad, bad memories, all you, your polygamy listeners. Let's get into it. Who was this woman? Malissa Lott was born in 1824 to Permilia Darrow and Cornelius Lott, and spent the first decade of her life in Pennsylvania. About the time Malissa is 10, her family encounters Mormonism, and her parents are baptized. Within a couple years, the family has picked up and moved to Kirtland. They arrive there at least by the fall of 1836, when Cornelius is made an elder. Wait, why are you looking at me so ominously, Bryan? Was there an ominous air in Kirtland at this time?

**Bryan Buchanan** (4:25)
Oh man, okay, I know we gave the Ohio period short shrift. Shut up, Missouri, I don't want to hear from you.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (4:31)
Shut up, Missouri.

**Bryan Buchanan** (4:33)
I think we gave you at least enough ammo to know that 1836 on, thems was rough times. Within just a year, they went from the high of the temple dedication and all the showering down of heavenly visions to the absolute funk of the safety society. The lots had put money into it and lost their temporal shirts, if not their spiritual shirts also.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (4:55)
Don't worry, they didn't lose money because it wasn't real money after all.

**Bryan Buchanan** (5:00)
Listen, when I want to go into Ravenna and buy some shoes, I don't want to have to cash out my notes at 10 cents on the dollar, all right? That's a very real word.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (5:11)
Let's go break some glass.

**Bryan Buchanan** (5:13)
And nothing says celebrate economic and spiritual chaos quite like a baptism.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (5:18)
Is there really any other reason?

**Bryan Buchanan** (5:20)
No, no, no, no, no, that's the appropriate way. Like if you wrote Ann Landers, she would be like, have your daughter get baptized. They did. In November 1837, 13-year-old Malissa joins her parents in their tenuous new faith.