I didn’t expect Sandra Dallas’ book, True Sisters, to splash cold water on my view of the Mormon pioneers. I already had opinions of my own, which Dallas’ story only reinforced.

I was raised to revere those continent-crossing converts. But all I can muster is pity.

Dallas fictionalizes the journey of the Martin Handcart Company. I assume that you already know a little about this company, but if not: this was one of the pioneer groups that started their journey too late in the season. They ran into howling snowstorms and unparalleled suffering.

We see this harrowing journey through the eyes of four women:

Anne, who resists joining the church but, dependent on her convert husband, grudgingly joins the trip.

Nannie, a young woman who nearly married the missionary that converted her, only to watch him choose another. Oh, and then her cad ends up in the Martin company.

Jessie, a hard-working Scottish girl traveling with her brothers, who almost married Thales Tanner, a rain-maker missionary who captivates souls with “the thunder in his voice, the fire, the cadence of words.”

And finally, Louisa, who did marry Thales, counting herself lucky to have won God’s own favorite man.

Did I mention that True Sisters has a villain that I loved to hate?

But anyway, back to the journey.

Why couldn’t these people just wait until the next year to cross the mountains? This question has been the subject of a few vigorous discussions at my house.

My opinion is that they could have waited, but that doesn’t take into account the social pressure bearing down on them at the time.

Let’s say you are one of those reluctant — and wise — souls. You sit through meetings where the leaders preach, “I say let the cowards and the apostates stay. They will find a curse come upon them.”

These same leaders might send letters up the line, asking that “authorities would take him in hand and show him the error of his ways.”

Then they promise that your path across the country will be dotted with well-supplied way stations. And that is not all. You are promised, “The Lord will look after His people. He parted the Red Sea for Moses and the Israelites and led them into the Promised Land. . . . We are His people, and He will turn away the storms while we pass by. It may storm on our right and on our left, but the Lord will keep open our way before us.”

And you look to your right and your left at the weeping, enthralled people shouting “Ho! For Zion!”

Next thing you know, you are westward bound.

The first order of business is to trim your possessions down to seventeen pounds. Anne, our Gentile tagalog “discarded the rug that had been her mother’s and sold the sewing machine they had brought for their home in Great Salt Lake City, both items that could have fit into a wagon but not a handcart. Then she abandoned a trunk of clothing, curtains, her books, the Delft plates, and a crystal castor.”

(In my opinion, it has taken us five and six generations to begin to recover from all this tossing out of beauty and culture.)

And off you go.

Toward death.

Which I’m not spoiling anything by telling you. I think you already know that too many of them died. Still, many surprises await you. It’s the misery just short of death that schooled me.

According to Dallas, they faced their troubles with a lot of “God must be trying my faith, I sure don’t know why.” Maybe Dallas over-uses this idea, but who knows? Maybe they really did say that with every broken cartwheel, every bowl of thin soup. In all their misfortunes, maybe they believed: there must be something wrong with me. Would that one of them told himself, there is something wrong with this whole trip. At Fort Laramie I’m out.

Add in polygamy’s twist on romance, and you’ve got quite a tale here.

We all have to learn the same lesson as the Martin Handcart Company: how much does God intervene? What help can we expect from him?

Who doesn’t spend a lifetime figuring that out?

Photo credit: More Good Foundation via Visual hunt / CC BY-NC

Nothing makes me hungry like reading about starving pioneers. Check out this post for a mac ‘n cheese recipe.