Meeting Laurel

I doubt anyone remembers this post in which I despair that "I may never meet [Laurel Thatcher Ulrich]". You may only remember that I've referenced her in several posts, one about a study done on Mormon women and higher education and another on Mommies and their dreams. Clearly, I'm a big fan of this woman and have been inspired by her life and work. And on Tuesday, thanks to a Mormon feminist sister-friend, I discovered she was doing a talk in Salt Lake Thursday night. Lots of sister-friends were in attendance, some of whom may even read this blog (I love you).

Ulrich briefly referenced the first book she has written about Mormon history called A House Full of Women, which won't be published until next year. But the focus of her talk was a new church manual, Daughters in my Kindgom, and hearing a review of the book from a bona fide historian was fascinating to say the least. Her review was actually quite positive, until she cited the timeline on pages 182-184. It includes momentous deeds accomplished by the Relief Society until, of course, 1969, where the timeline actually seems to be recording the disappearance of Relief Society. To fully get her meaning, I'd recommend you read the book Women of Covenant, which also covers the history of the Relief Society.

The question and answer period permitted me to pick her brain a bit. The greatest piece of advice I gleaned (and that's saying something!) was when she said, "I try to be the same person at work as I am at church. I try to be honest about who I am." I'd like to be more like her in this regard.

Thanks, Laurel, for being one of my heroes.

Thank you, Dr. Morrison

photo courtesy of blackoncampus.com

Dear Toni (I hope you don't mind if I call you Toni?),

Thank you for your wisdom. strength. clarity. intellect. honesty.
Thanks for becoming a writer. Thanks for everything you've taught me. I've lived vicariously through your characters and learned awful things about myself, but wonderful things too, about life and what it means to be me and a woman and a mother.
Thanks for stretching my mind. and even though so many of your books and literary devices acted like splinters in my brain, I think the mental scarring they've left and continue to leave have made me a better person and a more capable reader.
I admire you.

Sincerely,
Jen

P.S. Thanks, also, for this wonderful statement you made years ago where you described motherhood as

the most liberating thing that ever happened to me. . . .Liberating because the demands that children make are not the demands of a normal "other." The children's demands on me were things that nobody ever asked me to do. To be a good manager. To have a sense of humor. To deliver something that somebody could use. And they were not interested in all the things that other people were interested in, like what I was wearing or if I were sensual. All that went by. You've seen the eyes of your children. They don't want to hear it. They want to know what you are going to do now-today. Somehow all the baggage that I had accumulated as a person about what was valuable just fell away. I could not only be me-whatever that was-but somebody actually needed me to be that. It's different from being a daughter. It's different from being a sister. If you listen to your children and look at them, they make demands that you can live up to. They don't need all that overwhelming love either. I mean, that's just you being vain about it. If you listen to them, somehow you are able to free yourself from baggage and vanity and all sorts of things, and deliver a better self, one that you like. The person that was in me that I liked best was the one my children seemed to want. . . . I found that extraordinary.

From an interview with Bill Moyers, 1989.

O'Reilly, Andrea. Toni Morrison and Motherhood: A Politics of the Heart. State University of New York, 2004.