Having recently moved to Missouri has put my family in prime location for visiting historical sights. Suddenly we're twenty hours closer to everything east of the Mississippi. Chicago? 5 hours. New Orleans? 10 hours. Virginia Beach? 14 hours, but totally more do-able. We're talking a two day trip instead of a week's worth of driving.
For an ex-Mormon, I've found myself nestled comfortably, living in a spot about halfway between the Garden of Eden and Nauvoo. The area is rich with history - and a lot of it pertaining to my own pioneer roots. I've joked multiple times about petitioning Missouri for that $2,000 my great great great grandfather sued them for, that they've never repaid, back from when they threatened our people with extermination and drove them from the state.
I've come back, though. Home sweet home.
You can imagine my joy, Sunday morning, when I woke up and was immediately told, by my husband, "We should go to Nauvoo today." I showered and dressed in under ten minutes, and immediately began packing the family bags in giddy excitement, providing no room for my husband to take back his suggestion.
Two and a half hours of driving later, and we arrived.
It being Sunday, we knew that the Community of Christ sites would be closed, but in truth, we didn't care. I wasn't in much of a mood for tour guides showing me fireplaces and coaching me through old timey facts about candle-making. For me, visiting Nauvoo was about putting stories into the streets where they happened. It was about walking the roads, feeling their distances and the air around us. The stories would be supplied by my own years of study. The feelings would be supplied by none other than the buildings and ground itself.
We arrived at Joseph's house, then quickly moved to visit the Smith family cemetery.
Sure enough, he was dead.
Just kidding. But he was.
This was Joseph's FINAL resting place. The dramatic stories of hidden burials and reburial are not often discussed. It was a story of men trying to fight a woman for rights to her dead husband's body. She won, naturally. That's why Joseph is in Nauvoo, and wasn't dragged along to Salt Lake City. Because despite what the mainstream Latter-Day Saint movement would have you believe, Nauvoo isn't THEIRS. It was obvious, visiting Nauvoo with new eyes. Nauvoo was Community of Christ's. Everything that actually mattered to Mormonism's history was theirs. Nauvoo, ultimately, belonged to Emma - the leader, the wife, the mother, the woman who stayed.
The disparity between men and women was one key component to my leaving the church - wanting more for my daughter. It was reading about Nauvoo and subsequently Salt Lake, and the existence of women trying to thrive within the patriarchal systems set up there. So visiting Nauvoo, for me, involved a lot of mourning for those women, and anger.
Seeing Joseph's grave, I was surprised to feel that anger. It was sudden, and it was quietly raging. It filled my eyes with tears, and it took a great deal of distracting myself to not grind my teeth, growl, and weep on the spot. I, fortunately, have children, and there was a poopy diaper to change, which was a good distraction - though what to do with said poopy diaper certainly tempted me. But I wouldn't do that to some poor missionary somewhere who would have to clean it up...
I was comforted by some small, generous gesture. Someone had left flowers for Emma. Joseph had nothing, and she had something. It was comforting to me to know that there were still SOME people, the people who cared for her home and grave, that saw her, and knew HER, and what she had endured. Whoever had placed those flowers had honored her before her husband, and to me, that was comforting.
Next was the mansion house. 
We read the story of Martha Brotherton on our drive. Martha was 17 years old when Heber C Kimball, Brigham Young, and Joseph Smith locked her in the top room of the Red Brick Store and tried to convince her to marry Brigham Young on the spot, as his second wife. They chortled with each other about what good men they were. They told her it was "lawful," so don't worry about asking your parents. This smart, smart girl demanded she be given time to think.
It was harder than I expected, to know a place's history, and be confronted with the location itself. "The Mansion House" is deceiving, given today's mansions. My own house is easily bigger.
Privacy. So many things happened in this house. So many affairs, and flirtations. So much that was harmful and wrong to so many women. And it was shockingly small. All I could think about was privacy, and the lack of privacy that comes with smaller dwellings. What things would have been obvious, that could more easily be covered up in a twenty-first century mansion? Had I considered privacy before, when I read those stories?
There was the Red Brick Store.
"I will have a kiss, any how." insisted Brigham.
Naturally, they all denied this happened. They implied that Martha was a skank, obviously. What a little liar. Her family moved to St. Louis. She was married a year later, and had five children. She died at thirty-nine. After her death, Brigham Young had the last word, and had her sealed to him for time and eternity. This girl he had called a liar at the time. But he would have his kiss, any how.
We visited Heber C Kimball's home. We had moved into the mainstream LDS property, now, where things were open. The senior missionary couple at the site were lovely, as they always are. They told about how the Kimballs were only able to live in their home for a few short months before being driven West. They told about how Heber had left his family behind, while they were all sick, as was he, to go serve a mission. They talked about his wife, and about how she was a lovely woman, and a "peacemaker."
I asked the Elder if the Kimballs home, prior to this one, had been built on the same lot? (Because they'd lived in Nauvoo prior to 1844, I knew, which is when this home had finished construction.) The Elder didn't know, and casually had no more answers to any questions. I wasn't being combative or obvious. We listened to their testimonies and smiled and nodded politely.
But I still wanted to know, because this Heber C Kimball home was on Partridge Street, and the irony was too much, for me. I wanted to know if Heber had ALWAYS lived on this street - named after the Partridges. Because of Emily.
Emily Partridge had been propositioned by Joseph Smith, when she was a teenager living in his home with her sister, as her mother was dead and her father was on a mission. She'd told him "No thank you." But spiritual wifery and eternal marriage kept being brought up to her by those "in the know" who were helping Joseph. Eventually, she was convinced to meet with Joseph at Heber C Kimball's home.
Her story was the final shelf-breaker, for me. See, I was molested when I was a kid. Deep down inside of me, there is some visceral fear response that echoes when things just aren't right. I understand, personally, what it is to be in a position where you are young, weak, and dumb, and someone else is older, smarter, and stronger, and the fear and cognitive dissonance that come when you are made to do something, or be somewhere you don't feel comfortable about, and how that happens, and how you "go along with it," keep quiet, and rewrite the narrative that everything was "normal" and "okay."
Emily approached the Kimball home. The children were playing, and Emily was with them. Heber C Kimball entered the room, and basically told the kids to get lost, outside, and go play somewhere else. Emily got up, as well, and started for home. She knew Heber wasn't "actually" dismissing her, but she left. In writing about the experience later in life, you can hear her fear in her words. She walked fast. Behind her, she could hear Heber trying to call her back, quietly, and secretively, and she pretended she couldn't hear him. She kept walking, and fast. But, she writes, Heber chased after her, and she knew she couldn't get away, so she listened to him, and went back.
She was married to Joseph Smith on the spot.
Learning that story was when I finally allowed myself to label Joseph Smith as a predator. He was a predator. That wasn't the first time, but Emily's words were vivid and relatable to me. And Heber helped him. The street she would have taken that speedy, terrified walk for home on? Partridge Street.
Did we go and eventually learn how to make candles? Yes, we did. Because despite having our own religious trauma to work through, we also had a five and six year old, and as good parents, we let them be entertained. (We learned how to spin wool, make rope, make candles, and weave rugs!)
At the Visitor Center I asked for information on where my pioneer family members lived, in Nauvoo. Growing up, the pioneer ancestor we talked about most, as a family, was Freeborn DeMill. (He later settled in Manti, Utah. Over the years we've visited his grave many times. Also, he had several wives, including a 14-year-old girl he married in his 60's or 70's, and had children with...)
We were told the plot and intersection where Freeborn lived, with his wife Anna Knight, in Nauvoo, and drove out there to check it out.
It was an RV Park. Handwritten signs and all.
To say I chortled is an understatement. Sorry, grandpappy. I'm no longer one to reverence someone just because I'm related to them or their story. Freeborn was pedophile, and I hope he's proud of his RV Park.
On, on to Carthage!
Driving into Carthage, my husband asked me, sarcastically, if I could "feel the weight of the journey that Joseph made," to the jail there. "I don't feel sorry for him one bit." I informed my husband.
The sign as we entered the city pronounced, "Welcome to Carthage - A Proud City." My husband and I laughed at that. "Welcome to Carthage. We're proud of what we've done." "Welcome to Carthage. We killed the bastard." "Welcome to Carthage. You're Welcome." "Welcome to Carthage. We'd do it again."
Welcome to Carthage.
We arrived just in time to use the potty and join the next tour, at the Visitor's Center, for Carthage Jail. A new missionary couple was there, smiling, from Kaysville, watching the older missionaries going through their scripted retelling. But first? A movie!
It was the five minute Jeffrey R Holland talk about The Book of Mormon, asking, in passionate, often heated tones, if a man would give his life for a lie. I held my distracted, happy baby, and bore it. Holland's rings were distracting - large, like a banker's jewels of wealth. I could have quoted this talk from memory. I was there when it was given. Holland's voice had made me tearful at the time. "Yes," I'd thought. "Of course. What a good man Joseph was, and they killed him. It's all true. Laying down his life to the hands of the mob was an act of love and courage."
The actual tour itself began outside, and the guides stuck to their script with exactness. "He was cleared of all charges, in Nauvoo." they explained. Yes, because Joseph Smith had declared himself God King of Nauvoo, so of course he would. "Then he was charged with treason." See God King?
The careful wording of the story made it so that they could present Joseph as completely guiltless. Anyone who actually knew the true history could see through the precision of their words and find the gaping, misleading errors in their tale. Still, our little family moved as quietly and politely as we could along with the others. (Which was not terribly quiet, as the baby was hungry and the children were maxed out on quietness. That's one thing to be grateful to Mormons for, however. They all smiled and bore the children with extreme love and patience.)
The mentioned Joseph's friends willingly being jailed along with him. They mentioned the mob that was present for days. They mentioned four friends leaving the jail, then being refused re-admittance. They didn't mention the guns the men had. They didn't mention that Joseph himself had shot and wounded several of the mob members - to the point that John Taylor bragged he had even killed two. It was much easier to play him as the defenseless "lamb to the slaughter," listen to the hymn "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief," and pretend that Joseph gave his life willingly, and not in a drunken shootout. (Because yes, they were drinking.)
I noticed a change to the official narrative's story from the missionaries, however. John Taylor was no longer shot in the watch, which saved his life. John Taylor fell against the windowsill, was shot in the leg, then rolled under the bed. The watch broke on the windowsill. It was interesting to hear the concession to the ballistics, regarding the watch miracle having been disproved. The watch had been on display in the museum for decades, advertised as a miracle. It was interesting to hear that quietly taken back.
We left as soon as was appropriate, to run outside and feed the baby on one of the outdoor benches, while the boys gathered acorns and cicada shells. I stepped back to the jail to snap one photo.
Naturally, tattooed me, was approached.
I love the missionaries. I love them. This enthusiastic, new missionary from Kaysville, asked me how I'd found the tour. "It was great." I said, thanking him. Not feeling like discussing Mormonism, I redirected, "How thick are the walls, again?"
"Twenty six inches." he confirmed with his wife.
"That's amazing." I stated. "I just recently found out that a house my family owns, from about the same time period, used to be an old jail! This place reminds me of it, so it's very much confirming that discovery for me!"
He was amazed, appropriately, and I excused myself to go back to my family.
The family house that used to be an old jail? It's in Manti Utah. We still own it. Turns out, my great great grandparents were jailers during the Utah Black Hawk Indian Wars. I found it while reading over a biographical piece on my grandmother, which stated she knew the native american language. It was sold as fantastic, and charming, that she would share food with small native children who came to the house to beg, and they were amazed at her speaking to them in their own tongue. Quietly buried in the text was the fact that she knew the language from her time jailing natives in her own home.
The truth was buried and kept as quiet as it could be. We still walk the walls of that place, Easter in the kitchen with extended family and drive four-wheelers in the yard. Sleeping in front of the heater in the living room, on the black and white, floral, textured rug was always my favorite spot. And I never knew it was a jail. Someone had hung an angry painting of a native american that was given to my grandfather in the room upstairs, and it always gave us kids the creeps. It was more appropriate than we ever could have known.
I don't know why some people prefer to keep the past's secrets.
On the way home, we stopped in Quincy Illinois to eat dinner and let the kids run around on a playground there. It felt like a humid Ogden. Quincy is also known to Mormons. When driven out of Missouri, the Mormons found friends in the good people of Quincy, who were too happy to condemn the actions of the Missourians. The Mormons talk about that.
They don't talk about the fact that Quincy sent a message to Nauvoo, years later, basically telling them that they should leave Illinois as well. The people of Quincy, when given a taste of the Mormons as neighbors, changed their tune, and decided that Missouri hadn't been wrong, after all.
Telling half-truths isn't telling the truth either.
We talked about morality on the final stretch of the drive home. What makes someone a good person? I love the missionaries, but it felt like they were lying to people - spinning half-truth stories to convince others of some beautiful reality that never existed as they describe it. Are they bad people, for this? Do they not know any better? And if they do?
