A Collage of Mormondom | Rodello Hunter, A Daughter of Zion

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In Dialogue’s maiden issue Rodello Hunter’s A House of Many Rooms was re viewed as one of those books “. . . by Mormons for non-Mormons,” a valid classification of the book. Mrs. Hunter’s A Daughter of Zion, which was obviously written with the same purpose in mind, may not interest the Gentile audience as much as did her earlier book, because A Daughter of Zion’s focus delineates every day, here and now Mormon life, while the earlier book has the more universal view of a history of rural America with the Mormonism as seasoning, rather than a main course. 

A much more probable and enthusiastic audience would be her fellow Mormons of all kinds, from the dedicated ones to “jack” Mormons. The former group may find themselves a little shocked by their own likenesses and Mrs. Hunter’s doctrinal questions, but, I would guess, will be fascinated at the same time. And those whose stance in the Church reflects Mrs. Hunter’s will find an entertaining echo of their feelings in the book. Thanks to her middle position outside the orthodox center of the Church but still inside its pales, Mrs. Hunter has written a book that honestly and tenderly palpates the Latter-day Saint life in all its celestial glory and terrestrial hypocrisy. 

That A Daughter of Zion is aimed at non-Mormons and, I suspect, misses its target, adds to its charm. The capsule explanations of doctrine and custom are more likely to touch off a sympathetic nod, chuckle or squirm in the member reader than in the non-member. For example: 

Most Mormons simply do not have the ability to oppose Church authority—this kind of dissent has been trained out of them since infancy. 

In the huge General Conference gatherings, or in any other assembly where authorities are sustained year after year, there is always a unanimous aye vote—never a nay. I have known many people who would like to vote nay, myself for one, but we satisfy our con sciences with abstention from voting. No one notices that. 

Most Latter-day Saints (except those who haven’t time or inclination to read non doctrinal church works) will recognize their own quickly repressed feelings and thoughts in Mrs. Hunter’s arguments with Papa, her grandfather and adopted father, about tithing:

With Mormons, it’s sort of an accounting. They pay out x many dollars, so they sit down and count up x many blessings. If they think the blessings are worth the money they’ve paid, well and good. If they can see that they are going in the hole, they still pay the tithing be cause they are afraid if they stop, they’ll lose what little they have. . . . Mormons pay tithing as if they were paying on an insurance policy. 

or in a discussion of the United Order with Brother Gardiner: 

In theory, Brother Gardiner. It’s all very beautiful in theory—both the Order and Communism—but either way it doesn’t work. . . . 

There’s always the man who only plants one row, but who takes the crops from ten—ac- cording to his needs! . . . It would be no different now than it was in Orderville. When the lesser lights of the Ward went to the storehouse, everything was picked over by the wives of the Bishops and Stake presidents and high councilmen. 

However, the validity of the book rests not in the side issue of its audience but in its central purpose—to reveal, to air and examine “the indescribably painful tug of war of heritage, love, and friendship against logic,” which Mrs. Hunter de scribes as the ambivalence that many thinking Mormons struggle with periodically. A Daughter of Zion accomplishes that purpose with an accurate and affectionate but surface depiction of the real people Mrs. Hunter loved or tolerated in Lincoln Ward and her own honest, highly personal interpretations of or reactions to Mormon theology. 

The people she loved are unforgettable because they call to mind Saints we have all known, including ourselves: Papa, the closest thing to a true prophet in Rodello’s mind; eighty-four-year-old Sister Thompson, beautiful of face and soul; Leone, made of the same fiber as the Saints who girded up their loins and took fresh courage to endure; and Bishop Trauffer, who called Sister Hunter into his office to tell her why he had not called her to a certain position. Also unforgettable are the ones she tolerated: the Bishop’s wife who rejected one Saint’s offer to teach MIA and confession of coffee drinking with, “Oh, in that case, we won’t need you”; Martha Lee Moser, who, “had she been a man, would have been a power in the church”; Mrs. (not Sister) Goring, who resigned a stake position after falsely accusing Rodello of breaking roadshow rules. 

Mrs. Hunter’s ambivalent discussions of Church doctrine and custom are equally honest, though not always as accurate. Take, for example, her comments about meetings: 

The other days of the week [besides Sunday and Tuesday] are not neglected by the Church. The Latter-day Saint passion for meetings to plan meetings to plan meetings is one that is moaned about throughout Mormondom. And those who should attend each meeting are mightily exhorted to be there so the 100 percent attendance quota can be met. . . . I went to the meetings along with the others because I liked basking in the warm sun of approval, and was reluctant to be one of the backsliders who brought down the percentage. . . . 

There is one great advantage to all of these meetings. It ties the individuals from the wards into the Mormon Stake Family. 

Or about temple marriage: 

It hardly seems right that a woman must be sealed for eternity to her first husband when she might love the subsequent more. . . . A woman cannot ascend to the highest degree of glory—the Celestial Kingdom—except as the wife of a Priesthood bearer. She cannot attain anything by herself. She only shares her husband’s glory. So it seems only right that she should be able to choose whichever husband promises the most glorious future for her in the hereafter.

As in A House of Many Rooms and Wyoming Wife, Mrs. Hunter uses an organizational style reminiscent of a cluttered hall closet, in which one idea or story detail triggers off an avalanche of other associations which are not necessarily logical or chronological. However, like the closet, the book is a goldmine, some of it is funny, some sad, little of it weighty, but all of it interesting. And taken as a whole, the clutter turns out to be a remarkably balanced and fair collage of mod ern Mormondom.

A Daughter of Zion. By Rodello Hunter. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 285 pp. $6.95.