Previously, we expounded on the virtues of John D. Fitzgerald’s The Great Brain. A book not suited to sensitive children or those prone to realistic reenactment, The Great Brain is a riotous celebration of American boyhood in the Old West.
Through the marvels of interlibrary loan, you also may be able temporarily to acquire—direct from the Salt Lake City Library, no less—a copy of Fitzgerald’s novel “about the people who built the West.” A fictionalized account of his family’s history in Utah Territory, Papa Married a Mormon is a winsome, memorable tale.
To modern ears, the title might sound a bit corny, but the first chapter will dispel any lingering concern. From the beginning, the book launches us into the Old West through the story of Uncle Will, gambler, gunslinger, agnostic who says nothing against God so he has “an ace in the hole” if Catholicism turns out to be true.
The book is not a masterpiece. Fitzgerald is a superb storyteller, but as a novelist he appears at times amateur; the work drags in parts. What redeems it, without a doubt, are the lively portraits of people who really lived. As we have previously discussed, fiction is not about telling the whole story exactly as it happened but getting to the heart of the story. Fitzgerald has unforgettable stories of Papa, Mama, Uncle Will, the town drunk Windy Davis, woman of the night Queenie, Uncle Mark (who isn’t related), Aunt Cathy, a bald grandmother with a tremendous sense of humor, Bishop Aden, and the forces that shaped Utah in the years leading up to statehood. The tales are overly sentimental at times, but more than that they give an impression of a loving family and tightknit community on the edge of civilization.
Throughout the novel, Fitzgerald draws on documents apparently preserved in the family: letters, newspaper clippings, and, best of all, the play written by the child John D. Fitzgerald: “Who Will Help the Fallen Woman?” Through artifacts such as these, the modern read has a sense that people have always been the same, and yet there are noticeable ways in which people were different in the way they carried themselves and interacted with each other.
The discipline, decorum, and daring of the generation on the frontier is endlessly intriguing. In conditions of extreme deprivation, people persevered. Whatever a one thinks of the polygamous Mormons, their journey across the plains and over the Rockies into Utah is a feat of human endurance. Foolish? Undoubtedly. Look no further than the memorial for pioneer children who died on the way to Utah.
Overlooking the Salt Lake Valley at This Is the Place Heritage Park, the monument is disturbing and yet deeply impressive. It’s disturbing to see the history of a people so driven to follow antisocial religious tenets that they dragged children into conditions of starvation, extreme weather, and disease. Children unsuitably dressed and undernourished perished on treacherous journeys to their holy Zion. The memorial is framed as a “tribute to the children whose lives were lost in their quest for a place of safety and peace.” As a distant outsider one cannot help but wonder if the founder of their religion had not had dozens of wives, several of them allegedly very young and/or married to other men, perhaps finding “safety and peace” would not have required such harrowing travails.
Nevertheless, these are the events that unfolded, and Fitzgerald is part of the heritage of the Mormon pioneers. His mother walked much of the way as her mother lay near death in the cart, which resulted in her lifelong bald head. Equally extreme, Fitzgerald’s uncle came west to make money running gambling houses for the miners, and his bigoted Catholic aunt followed to convert Fitzgerald and his heathen siblings without adequate religious instruction. The convergence of all these extremes of ideology and personality make for a marvelous story. And the conversions and reversions open your eyes to the fact that extremism is so often prone to changeability.
Throughout the family’s story—but a brief history conveyed in the book—there is fierce sense of loyalty and striving for honor. Even among the gun-slinging gamblers, there is often a keen sense of duty and decorum that must be adhered to.
For anyone who has spent time in Utah, the religious discussions in the book will appear astonishingly familiar. While much has changed, the thread of certain religious questions in Utah Territory and then the State of Utah are surprisingly unchanged.
Not everyone has been impressed with Fitzgerald’s work. A 1955 review in the New York Times was far from glowing. The reviewer, George Y. Wells, wrote, “In these pages, papa and mama talk to each other like a couple of lovers out of Godey’s Lady’s Book. The other family and community portrayals read like the oversentimentalized and romanticized eulogies at a family reunion. There remains a pretty valid, if sketchy, picture of how the Mormons and the miners built Utah.”
Wells does not have the last word, though. Papa Married a Mormon remains a beloved story for many and continues to win new readers. Into the current century, Utahns present stage adaptations of Fitzgerald’s story. Part nostalgia, part interest in a bygone era and a fascinating history, Fitzgerald’s work is worth reading.
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