Through Cloud and Sunshine Read online

  © 2013 Dean Hughes.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher, Deseret Book Company, P.O. Box 30178, Salt Lake City Utah 84130. This work is not an official publication of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The views expressed herein are the responsibility of the author and do not necessarily represent the position of the Church or of Deseret Book. Deseret Book is a registered trademark of Deseret Book Company.

  All characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Hughes, Dean, 1943– author.

  Through cloud and sunshine / Dean Hughes.

  pages cm — (Come to Zion ; book 2)

  Sequel to: The winds and the waves.

  Includes bibliographical references.

  Summary: Will and Liz struggle to deal with their new life in Nauvoo, Illinois as they witness important events in the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Meanwhile Jeff and Abby, living in 21st century Nauvoo, face their own challenges as they learn about Jeff’s ancestors.

  ISBN 978-1-60907-525-5 (hardbound : alk. paper)

  1. Mormon converts—Fiction. 2. Mormon pioneers—Fiction. 3. Religious fiction. I. Title. II. Series: Hughes, Dean, 1943– Come to Zion ; volume 2.

  PS3558.U36T48 2013

  813'.54—dc232013009217

  Printed in the United States of America

  Edwards Brothers Malloy, Ann Arbor, MI

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  For my grandson, Robert Taliesin “Tal” Hughes

  And for all the missionaries and dear friends we came to love in Nauvoo

  Table of Contents

  Preface

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Author’s Note

  Preface

  I often hear a complaint about novels that are published as a series. “By the time the second book comes out,” readers say, “I can’t remember what happened in the first one.” I understand the problem, so let me provide some brief reminders of characters and plot elements, merely to get you started on this second volume.

  The story in The Winds and the Waves, volume 1 of Come to Zion, starts with a portrayal of Will Lewis, the first son in a family of tenant farmers. He lives near Ledbury in Herefordshire, England. He longs to improve himself and escape his life of poverty at least in part because he’s in love with Elizabeth (Liz) Duncan, a solicitor’s daughter who attends the same church he does. Both families are part of the United Brethren who, in actual history, were converted in the late 1830s by Wilford Woodruff.

  Will eventually finds his way to the LDS Church, marries Liz, and immigrates to Nauvoo, Illinois. The two experience some harsh realities, but they develop deeper faith as they travel on a sailing ship and then on a Mississippi riverboat. Liz struggles to leave her parents and her beloved sister Mary Ann, and realizes that in Nauvoo her life will be much more demanding, but she and Will have hopes for a satisfying future in Zion.

  A contemporary story about a second Lewis family is interlaced with the first. Jeff Lewis, who is the fifth great-grandchild of Will Lewis, has lost his job in California. He is still in his first year of marriage to the former Abby Ramsey, originally from New Jersey. Jeff and Abby are offered an opportunity for free rent if they remodel a house in Nauvoo. As a young couple starting a life together, they struggle to know what their futures should be, but they like living in the historic city where Jeff’s forebears once lived. When they learn that their unborn baby may have a heart defect, they pray and hope for the Lord’s help.

  Actually, I hope the stories are much more exciting than this summary would make them sound, but I hate to give away “everything” to readers who pick this book up first and still plan to go back and read the first volume.

  The characters in the two Lewis families are fictional, but I have researched the era and tried to portray the setting and history as accurately as I can. If I have done my job, you should be able to “feel” and understand the conditions in England during the apostolic missions and gain a deeper sense of the struggle to establish Zion in Nauvoo.

  History is tricky. We tend to filter everything we learn about the past through the perceptions of our own time. Perhaps there’s no way around that. But the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in this early period, was in a process of growth, with doctrines and policies continuing to be revealed. Modern Mormons are naturally surprised that practices and attitudes that have long been clarified were developing at the time, not set. As you read Through Cloud and Sunshine, try to comprehend the conditions of the time and the mindset of the early Saints.

  The lists of commodities recommended by organizers of the pioneer migrations across the plains to the Great Basin invariably included coffee and tea. Not only did people in Nauvoo commonly use such hot drinks, but they sometimes drank wine or used tobacco. Contemporary Latter-day Saints must remember that the admonitions of the Word of Wisdom (see Doctrine and Covenants 89) were not given “by way of commandment,” and were not considered binding for temple attendance until the early twentieth century.

  When Patty Sessions visits the home of Liz Lewis in the novel that you are about to read, she places her hands on Liz’s head and gives her a blessing. That may surprise modern readers. Such blessings by women were not uncommon in Nauvoo, and they were given through the power of prayer. When asked about this practice, Joseph Smith said, during a meeting of the Female Relief Society of Nauvoo on April 28, 1842, that “there could be no devils in it if God gave his sanction by healing” the people who were blessed in this way (Sheri Dew and Virginia H. Pearce, The Beginning of Better Days [2012], 104). It was always clear to Joseph Smith and other Church leaders that such blessings were performed by faith, and were not priesthood blessings. Latter-day Saints are now directed that only those who hold the priesthood should use the “laying on of hands,” but many of the women of Nauvoo had great faith, and their prayers were certainly heard and answered, as Joseph Smith knew.

  In 1843, in Ramus, Illinois, Orson Hyde preached a sermon in which he said that God and Jesus Christ could dwell in a person’s heart. After the meeting, Joseph Smith told Apostle Hyde that he would correct some doctrinal mistakes from Hyde’s morning speech. In Doctrine and Covenants 130, which contains Joseph’s response, we learn that the idea that God and Christ could dwell in a man’s heart is “an old sectarian notion, and is false” (v. 3).

  Now, think about that. Our Primary children wouldn’t make the same mistake. The Church had been organized thirteen years earlier and the First Vision had happened ten years before that. How could an Apostle not understand such a simple concept? If God and Jesus are separate and both have bodies, how could they “dwell” in anyone’s heart? The only answer I know is that certain “sectarian notions” had long persisted among the Saints. The idea of the Holy Trinity was
taught by Christians, both then and now, as a mystery. We see indications of three beings all through the scriptures, but in a.d. 325, at the Council of Nicaea, a decision was reached by vote that the three beings were miraculously one. That idea, along with the doctrine that God was a spiritual being, was certainly believed by most people who joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and many must have clung to that way of thinking about the Godhead.

  Confusion over the nature of God plays a part in this novel. When Joseph Smith delivered the King Follett Discourse in the spring of 1844, some members considered the sermon blasphemous. It was actually, as Joseph argued in the last sermon of his life a few weeks later, only a further extension of what he had long taught about the nature of God. For those who were still dubious about a God with a body, the idea that God had once been a man was entirely too much to accept. The doctrine was considered by some dissenters not only false but proof that Joseph was a fallen prophet.

  Those who left the Church at that time, however, were especially opposed to the practice of plural marriage. To understand that, simply ask yourself how you would feel if you were now asked to live “the principle.” The early Saints were often descendants of Puritans, and they lived in a world of Victorian morality. Most who heard of plural marriage for the first time were immediately shocked and often offended. Brigham Young, known widely for having many wives later on, recorded his response when he first heard the doctrine: “It was the first time in my life that I had desired the grave, and I could hardly get over it for a long time. And when I saw a funeral I felt to envy the corpse its situation, and to regret that I was not in the coffin” (quoted in Robert L Millet, Camille Fronk Olson, Andrew C. Skinner, and Brent L. Top, LDS Beliefs [2011], 494).

  So don’t be surprised when my characters find nothing but distaste for the practice when they learn of it. What you also may not realize is that in the beginning, plural marriage was taught privately to individuals, not publicly to the general Church membership. The first recorded revelation about the “new and everlasting covenant” of marriage, and about plural marriage, is contained in Doctrine and Covenants, section 132, written down in 1843, but Joseph had, according to his report, received revelations on the subject much earlier. He had been taught that monogamy was normally the will of the Lord, but that in certain eras, when commanded by God, individuals had been sanctioned to marry more than one wife—as we see in the scriptures (see 2 Samuel 12:7–8; Jacob 2:27, 30). Joseph Smith certainly knew what critics would say—and do—should this new Church announce such a doctrine, and so he followed God’s direction and for a time taught it only to a small circle of Church leaders. It would not be publicly announced until 1852 by Brigham Young, then in the safety of the mountain west.

  Rumors, of course, would spread in a town the size of Nauvoo, which meant that most people learned of plural marriage second hand, and needless to say, misunderstanding led to controversy. One man who fueled that controversy was John C. Bennett. Bennett had become both the mayor of Nauvoo and a member of the First Presidency of the Church, but his history, unknown to Joseph Smith, was that of a scoundrel. When it was discovered that he had been using a distorted version of the doctrine to seduce women, not to marry them, he was brought before the high council, where he begged for forgiveness. When it was learned, however, that he hadn’t changed his ways, he was excommunicated, and that set him off on a campaign of lecturing and writing newspaper articles and a book, all “exposing” Joseph Smith and the Saints. He claimed that Joseph practiced “spiritual wifery,” which was his name for his own seductive, illicit behavior.

  The problem for Joseph Smith was that these accusations were untrue. He did not use the Lord’s doctrine of plural marriage (Doctrine and Covenants 132) to commit illicit sexual acts. He had to deny Bennett’s accusations, but that appeared to be a denial of plural marriage. The doctrine of the “true and everlasting covenant of marriage” was holy to him, sacred, and he was not sanctioned to announce plural marriage to the world. When evidence of such relationships among leaders of the Church mounted, however, dissenters and enemies used plural marriage as one of their justifications not only for murdering Joseph and Hyrum Smith, but for pressuring the Mormons to leave Illinois.

  Joseph Smith wrote an essay on “Happiness” that was printed in his History of the Church. B. H. Roberts made corrections and added notes to the history and republished the seven volumes from 1902 to 1912. Roberts said that it was not known exactly when the essay was written, but he believed that it had reference to the practice of eternal and plural marriage. The following is a section from that essay:

  That which is wrong under one circumstance, may be, and often is, right under another. God said, “Thou shalt not kill”; at another time He said, “Thou shalt utterly destroy.” This is the principle on which the government of heaven is conducted—by revelation adapted to the circumstances in which the children of the kingdom are placed. Whatever God requires is right, no matter what it is, although we may not see the reason thereof till long after the events transpire. (Joseph Smith, History of the Church, 7 vols., ed. B. H. Roberts [1932–51], 5:135)

  You will notice similar language in my fictionalized account of a conversation between my character Will Lewis and Joseph Smith. When I portray Joseph Smith or other Church leaders expressing specific doctrines or opinions, especially in meetings where notes were taken, I use their own words, or paraphrases of those words. These particular words explain the problem Joseph was up against. He knew the world would see plural marriage as wrong, but he also knew what he had been commanded to do. He was caught in the dilemma of having to keep plural marriage private and sacred at a time when rumors were making the practice seem lascivious.

  Chapter 1

  Will Lewis pulled off his cap and used a bandanna to wipe his face. Nauvoo was steamy this time of year—hotter than anything he had ever experienced in England. He had been sick with cholera back in May when he and his wife, Liz, had limped off a Mississippi riverboat, and he was still not back to his full strength. He got up early every morning and worked hard, but by afternoon he could feel himself wearing down. It was August now, 1842, and he had had some months to get used to such weather, but today was worse than usual.

  Nauvoo was overgrown with corn, the stalks reaching much higher than Will’s head and filling almost every patch of open ground. Will had been forced to plant his garden rather late, but his own corn was coming on strong. He had missed the chance to plant spring vegetables—peas and cabbage and the like—but his potato plants were now producing. His root crops—carrots, beets, parsnips, turnips, onions—were also surviving so far. Weeds were thriving too, and even though he had put in a hard morning plowing deep-rooted grass out on the prairie, he still needed to catch up on his hoeing in town.

  Will stretched his back and was about to start hoeing again, but as he glanced past the house he saw a family—a man and woman and three small children—open the gate out front and walk into the yard. John Griggs, a neighbor, was with them, carrying a large travel trunk on his shoulder. He stopped near the house, grunted as he lowered the trunk to the ground, and then walked on toward Will. “What’s this, Brother Lewis?” he called. “I’d heered you’d moved from this place.”

  Will took some careful steps as he worked his way out of the garden row. “We have moved, Brother Griggs,” he said, shaking John’s hand. “We’re staying in our new place now, but I thought I’d keep this garden going and see what I could harvest from it—if everything doesn’t burn up in the heat.”

  Brother Griggs laughed. “That’s what I thought last year when we first come, but some plants like the heat. I never seen corn grow like it does here.”

  Will had never seen this kind of “corn” grow at all. What he had called corn in England was called wheat here, and this American “maize” wasn’t anything he’d ever tried to raise. But Will’s attention was drawn to the family standing behind John. “A
re these folks planning to move into this old cabin?” he asked.

  “We was thinkin’ so. What’s yer ’pinion? Will the roof hold out the weather one more winter?”

  By then the man of the family had stepped up alongside Brother Griggs. He was a stubby fellow dressed in homespun trousers and a worn linen shirt that was stained yellow around the neck. He was maybe thirty years old and was built strong, with thick legs and arms. He had a heavy growth of whiskers. “Lewis, is it?” he asked.

  “Aye. Will Lewis.”

  “Then ye’re Welsh, the same as us.”

  “Back in time, we were. But I was raised in Herefordshire, in England, along the border of Wales.”

  “Johns is my name. Daniel Johns. And Welsh through and through, from Merthyr Tydfil.”

  “Are you only just come off the boat?”

  “No. Not at all. We been here half a hour, maybe more.” He grinned.

  Will laughed and then shook hands with Sister Johns and greeted the children. “My wife and I lived in this shack when we first got here,” he told Brother and Sister Johns. “The family that owns the lot would be happy to sell it—so if you find it a good place to put down roots, you could purchase the land and build a better house right here.”

  “But you chose not to do that yerself?”

  “No. We picked out a lot up this hill to the east, on top of the bluffs.”

  “I cannot say what we might do in time,” Brother Johns said. “For now, we need someplace to lay our heads for the winter.”