Comments on: Women’s History Lecture Series: Chad Orton, “Those They Left Behind”

By: Maurine

Maurine — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 05:17:57 +0000

Ardis, I wish I could have been there. I’m rather partial to women’s histories and these stories are mostly new to me. I’ll have to dig in my files and see what I have.

Thanks for the report.

By: Jared T.

Jared T. — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 17:49:37 +0000

Thanks for the report, Ardis.

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 16:34:28 +0000

David, there was an overflow room, although there were scattered seats still available in the main room. My group went down about 15 minutes before time, and the room was then only about half full.

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 16:32:53 +0000

I forgot to put this in the OP: The lecture was recorded, and it should be available on the Library’s website in a few weeks. I’ll put up a sidebar link as well as add a comment to this thread when that happens.

By: David Y.

David Y. — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 16:32:38 +0000

Yeah, I wish I could have been there, too. (I enjoyed reading Orton’s BYU Studies articles that were linked here at Keepa about the myths of the handcart rescue.) I hope the presentation gets published. The subject of “those left behind” seems like such an obvious story to tell, and yet, so untouched.

The Fall lineup looks great, too. If, perchance I were able to make one of these presentations, how assured could I be that I’d get a seat? Was the auditorium anywhere near to full capacity?

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 16:32:13 +0000

For the life of me, I can’t understand where you’ve gotten enough exposure to 20th century Mormon history to become partial to it.

Keepa was pretty well represented there last night. I hope I’m not telling tales out of school to say that not only was I there, but so was Researcher and so was Bessie, who has contributed some pictures and stories to earlier posts.

Chad hopes that his lecture will inspire members to pull out family records and stories of wives-left-behind. If you are able to collect some memories from your uncle, ask if he’d be willing to have them shared with the Library.

By: Mark B.

Mark B. — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 16:19:10 +0000

There were some missionaries who served in the same mission as my father (Canadian, late 1940s) who had married shortly before they started their mission. And my grandfather served a mission in Great Britain during the Korean War, leaving my grandmother home with my youngest uncle–who would have been in his late teens at the time.

Some of those people might still be alive–my grandfather isn’t, but maybe my uncle has some memories of that time. I’ll have to contact him.

For some reason I’ve become rather partial to 20th century Mormon history. We need to add these stories to the ones told last night.

And, darn, I wish I could have been there.

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 15:57:51 +0000

Although we usually think of these married missionaries and their left-behind wives as figures of the long-ago 19th century, their stories don’t seem all that distant to me:

My own mother was born while her father was a missionary in England. My grandmother was left behind as a newlywed, probably not yet knowing she was expecting my mother; since her own widowed mother was in no position to provide a home to her, she moved in with her mother-in-law, a woman whom at first she barely knew, being partially supported by my grandfather’s brother — my grandfather was serving his second mission both for himself and that brother, and it was Orson’s part to look after the missionary’s wife and child until the missionary came home. My mother was more than two years old before she met her father for the first time.