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Show Chapter 12 ELLIS - HER LONG CAREER AS MOTHER-DOCTOR The decade 1870 - 1880 was pivotal for Ellis, for it determined her direction for the remainder of her life. In that time frame, she married for love, began her family, participated in plural marriage, established long-range personal goals, received her training in the East, and began her medical practice in Utah. That same ten-year period was filled with expanding opportunities for her peers-the Latter-day Saint women. The Relief Society, dormant for a decade just prior to 1870 due to the Utah War's disruption of ward functions, was revived by Brigham Young in his desire that the women of the church "enlarge their sphere of usefulness" beyond traditional househouse tasks. In response to his challenge, women began a wide range of activities under the aegis of the Relief Society. They nurtured both the Retrenchment Society and the Primary, with Eliza R. Snow as president of all three organizations. In addition to charitable activities, the ladies undertook to be entrepreneurs with wheat and with silk culture and with every imaginable home manufacture. To aid the sale of their products, they bought property and built halls where they not only held meetings but sold their products on commission. This is the atmosphere in which Ellis functioned as a wife, mother, professional woman, and holder of offices within the Church. |
