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Show 144 physical comfort and educational advantages which Milford's situation did not give any prospect of providing. Though she never says it directly, possibly to avoid affronting Milford, these advantages were simply not going to be available to her offspring except through her own efforts to augment an income which had to cover the four wives and all of their children. That the sister wives felt this responsibility as well is abundantly attested by the record and by their own personal motivations toward professional attainment. These women, at considerable personal sacrifice and from their own earnings, had repeatedly sent money to Ellis while she was studying in Philadelphia. It is impossible to consider that Ellis did not feel the weight of an obligation to provide them a return on their investments. With the irony so often present in real-life situations, the condition which impelled her to continue her studies seemed to preclude the very possibility of it. ...ways and means seemed so far away, and the expense of returning and finishing my college course meant greater sacrifices to those at home. 'Twas from this I shrank instinctively, to do anything that could ever be unkind, unjust to those I held so dear.9 Small bonuses throughout the summer came in the occasional meeting with "old-time friends and neighbors," in visiting her "honored kindred" in Pleasant Grove, including her grandparents who were "broken with the weight of many years." She performed her annual harvest ritual in the "declining summer days" by preserving |
