The Deeply Ambivalent Feelings of a Missouri Mormon

I grew up in the RLDS church - the Reorganized LDS church, the LDS being known as the Mormons - named after the Book of Mormon, written by their founder, Joseph Smith, in New York State, in 1830.

After he was killed by a mob, in 1844, in Illinois - many of his followers went with Brigham Young, to Utah.

Some of his followers remained in Illinois, and were reorganized under his oldest son, also named Joseph Smith. They moved to Independence, Missouri - and became the Missouri Mormons, far fewer, than their Utah cousins.

But to my family, their little church was everything. And to this day, when it is even less important, than it was - my family continues to believe it is important.

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When I graduated from the University of Illinois, in 1959, I realized how unimportant the church was, and left it - the only one in my family to do so.

Now, looking back at it, I can see the other church members knew their church was unimportant also - but could not acknowledge these feelings, and kept them to themselves.

My best example of this, was my maternal grandmother - who desperately wanted to be a successful novelist, but knew almost nothing about the world she was writing about. She only knew about her church.

She was successful at one kind of writing, however - homilies, that she got from listening to the sermons at church. She supported herself, throughout the Depression, by writing for a company that made Offering Envelopes. Every church member in good standing, received a box of these at the beginning of each year, one for every week of the year.

Instead of dropping money in the offering plate, you dropped your Offering Envelope. A church official would open these envelopes, note the money enclosed, and provide a statement that could be used for Income Tax purposes - and for our church, a Financial Statement, that could be used for similar purposes inside the church.

But I am getting off the track - I started to write about the conflicted feelings of artistic church members. Grandmother wrote her homilies, that she wrote for Offering Envelopes. But never saved them, as part of our family history!

The only writing that was saved, was the book she wrote for the church Joseph's City Beautiful. This was not beautiful writing, and deep in her heart - she knew it. She wanted to be an artist - and failed.

And I am the only one to write about this, many years after her death.