Dear Ellen: Two Mormon Women and Their Letters

Dear Ellen, Page 074

Dear Ellen agitation in this direction while Bradley was on his mission, for in October, 1877, Bradley wrote his sister Edna: ". . . your letter tells me that Father said he would take Mother with him. Is that not jolly though? . . . You say Father has consented to take her with him if she can raise the money. Well if Father cannot afford it It will be a pleasure to Mother's sons to say that they were the means of giving her dear good self some little enjoyment and I hope we shall never miss what we subscribe for her to go." Bradley encouraged his mother to press for the trip for he wanted her to see "something of the outside world." To visit your old home in Canaan [Connecticut] would bring back to mind many things connected with your childhood hours and perhaps some of those who lived then: then you would be able to see, and have a good talk of olden times. I hardly think Father could refuse when the case stands as it docs and that Auntie [Emily?] has been both east and west. It would be very gratifying to me if I could receive a good long letter from you dated New York in which I could read of the pleasure you were having there in company with Father and Spencer. But Bradley did not have that pleasure until the winter of 1880-81 when Ellen did accompany Hiram to New York. Only correspondence after the event reflects that she did go. She did visit relatives, and theatre programs of the dates they were there suggest that Ellen was 011 the entertainment tours. Later in 1881 Ellen was in St. George. The First Presidency made a trip to St. George at that time, and it is possible that Hiram accompanied them and took Ellen. There is nothing written at the Beaver end to indicate a meeting of the two Ellens, though Ellen Pratt Coombs was there, and her Aunt Caroline mentions the coming of the party. Readers familiar with the history of Mormon relations with the federal government will recall the anti-polygamy cru- 74