Comments on: Random Reasons Why I Like Brigham Young: Two

By: Susan

Susan — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 19:39:53 +0000

This is the first time I’ve come across this anecdote about Theodore Walter Curtis. Unfortunately, Theodore Walter left the church a 2nd time–this time, turning his back on a wife and young sons, too–so his descendants don’t have much information about him. In fact, BY specifically counseled Theodore in a letter to stay in Utah. (This was one of my mom’s favorite family stories to tell, since the moral of the story was that Theodore W., who went ahead and defied the prophet, died in Boston, broke and alone…) One thing I always liked about BY is that he signed his letters to Theodore W. with, “Your Brother”, this coming, I now learn, even after Theodore’s first apostasy. I am extremely interested in learning the source you quoted by Margaret “Maggie” Curtis. (Maggie attended BY’s school and also boarded there in 1867.) Thank you!

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 21:48:23 +0000

Thanks, Justin. Besides the clipping about the Broadway show, and the Bean-in-court story, those notes are the first time I knew that D’Arc accepted my well-documented evidence that the movie had actually been released to the public. In all of our email (which I have carefully kept, and some of which will appear in my published history), he insisted that the movie had never been seen by anyone but investors. Those program notes would have been very different — and very wrong — without the appropriation of my research, and yeah, my name should have appeared.

By: Justin

Justin — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 21:25:23 +0000

Knowing about your work on Corianton, I read the program notes with the expectation that your name would appear. I was surprised when I didn’t see it.

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 19:08:04 +0000

BHodges,thanks. But you’re confusing me with Juvenile Instructor, I think.

(Really, I hope eventually to write this material up in a more formal publishable form; in the meantime, I try to guard some of my sources a little. A determined researcher could find most of them, after being tipped off to their existence, but I don’t want to make it too easy for someone to scoop me with my own stuff. James D’Arc’s program notes for the showing of the Corianton movie, for instance, used without attribution two stories he knew only because I furnished a newspaper clipping to Randy Astle for his BYU Studies article, and because D’Arc read one of my 2005 Tribune columns about O.U. Bean — I don’t like to be cheated that way more than I can help, especially when one of my stories was mangled as badly as the Bean one was in the program notes. If I posted sources, it would be harder to claim the work as my own.)

By: BHodges

BHodges — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 18:39:25 +0000

PS- where’s the footnotes?

By: BHodges

BHodges — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 18:38:23 +0000

Ardis, I finally caught up to this in the queue and enjoyed it. Well done.

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 14:08:11 +0000

Steptoe and his men reached Salt Lake City on 31 August 1854 and the bulk of them spent the winter encamped in a downtown barracks (the detail at Stockton had charge of the unit’s hundreds of animals that had to be pastured somewhere remote from town; there was a lot of traveling of officers because they had the specific assignment to investigate the massacre of JWGunnison and his men near Fillmore, but the main camp was downtown). The 1854 Christmas Day riot occurred in downtown Salt Lake, too. They didn’t leave town until spring 1855.

floridagirl, I kinda think of it as a dream job, too. If it’s what you would do if you didn’t have to earn a living, then “work” is one long play date.

By: Mark D.

Mark D. — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 07:35:07 +0000

I thought Lt. Col. Steptoe and company spent the winter of 1854-1855 encamped a few miles south of Stockton. Am I wrong?

By: floridagirl

floridagirl — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 04:07:55 +0000

I loved this post. It was wonderful to read. What a man he must have been, to be able to settle an entire people in that barren valley and have them prosper in every way possible. We read so many negative things about him, it’s nice to have this to hold up.

I think you probably have the best job ever.It would be my dream job, I think! How fun.

I think you should write a book along the lines of this post. I’d sure buy it.

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 22:00:10 +0000

Maybe I should be like Edje and his thesis at Juvenile Instructor — write it one chapter at a time, in full view of the bloggernacle.