New-York tribune., 1900-01-20
A DEACoNESs OUT IN UTAH.
HER WORK DESCRIBED FOR ST
GEORGES PARIsHIoNERs.
INTERESTING TALK BY DR. s. ]. ELLIOTT IN
MRS. sCHIRMER's DRAWING RooM-soME.
BUT NOT ALL. MORMON WOMEN
SATISFIED WITH PoLYGAMY

large audience of women. many Of whom were
from st. Georges Parish filled the drawing room
Of Mrs. Rudolph E. Schirmer at No 243 East Sew
enteenth-st., yesterday afternoon TO listen to
talk by DR.. S. J. Elliott deaconess of the Prot
estant Episcopal Diocese of Salt Lake Utah, on
Conditions in Utah"
Dr. Rainsford preceded DR.. Elliott with some
remarks on the work of the deaconesses of the
Episcopal Church and of the growth of the order
DR.. Elliott began by reviewing her work as a
deaconess and the causes that led TO her location
in Utah While in Johnstown, Penn, in 1889 she
said just after the great food, she read article
by Dr. Rainsford upon the scope of the work of
the deaconesses of the Episcopal Church. She
wrote in reply to DR.. Rainsford, do you mean all
that your article implies, is it literary effort?'
She received a telegram in response from him
asking her to come to New-York. When she met
him she told him that she not willing to take
any vows TO work for any man, but she was
willing to work with any man.
AS a result she became deaconess of his parish
and for several years devoted her time to work
among the poor people of the East Side When
she broke down from overexertion she went to
Utah to recuperate, without she quantity
put it, ANY notion of staying there. 1 wanted to
be in the thickest of the fght-not poked off into
some little Western town"
After an invalidism of year Dr. Elliott visited
the little Mormon settlement of Moab which had
a population of about three hundred people, and
she has lived there for the last seven years Her
work there was described in The Tribune of jan
uary s.
In the course Of her talk she said that fifty
years of Mormonisfr has bred race of abnor-
mally patient women. AS the only physician in
the county, she has committed great numbers of
women TO the insane asylum. and among them the
majority have been first wives.
The older women who came to Utah. she ex-
planned, did not understand before their arrival
about pluia marriages, and while they submitted
to seeing other wives come in they were never
reconciled 10 the custom, and many of them be-
came insane as a result
The Mormon woman of to-day educated to
believe in bigamy, and she expects lovemaking
and no wooing. When man calls upon her and
says, THE president says | must marry you, and
/ guess we Will go to the temple tomorrow" she
replies indifferently Il will walk TO the temple
with you," or else says, Il have promised walk
TO the temple with another man."
woman came to DIR. Elliott day and SAID: :
II want you to go to the temple with my hus-
band. 1t is your only chance of getting into
heaven" She told another Of it, and the
latter replied: "Oh, don't marry him. He's not
of adding extension and putting in another
door as formerly, the speaker said separate houses
for the different wives are now built Evidently
she said, the husband got tired of trying get
They scattered over whole counties now
The children, said DR.. Elliott, have plenty of
food and fresh air, and wholesome looking.
She finds great deal of nervous trouble among
and keen because all the household burdens fall
upon them. The homes are fatherless. Hundreds
or men who are not poygamists will not abjure
the Church because such course would to
throw discredlt on their mothers.
A telegram came to DR.. Elliott yesterday stating
that manifesto the way to Washington
in the care of three men, saying that the Mormon
Church does not approve of Mr. Roberts