24th. Of July

The Title of this Blog, The Smell of Distance comes from a definition Wallace Stegner made in a forward to a book, describing Western Non- fiction writing. He argued, in the best sense of the word, that because of the land, the scale of the west and it aridness, that the smell of distance was a fitting description! I most certainly agree. I come from old Mormon stock and am proud of it. When my daughter Caitlin; who in addition to my pioneer ancestors, is a direct descendant of Brigham Young, was little, and I first took her up to This is the Place Monument, I told her that she had two ancestors on the monument and which two did she think they were. She first pointed to one of the Indians, and I laughed and said, that any Indian tribe would be more than happy to claim her. One of my Great Great Grandfather's was Erastus Snow. Snow Canyon near Saint George is named after him. He was one of the original colonizer's of Saint George. He spent a great deal of time among the Indians of Southern Utah, Northern Arizona and New Mexico. He also did some work for the church in acquiring land in Mexico. He had four wives and fathered about 35 children. He apparently got along well with the different tribes For most of his life he was referred to as “The Late Erastus Snow,” because he was always late for meetings, church, etc. He was once late for a meeting with Brigham Young in Cedar City and Brigham said something like “ Give a sermon and put the people to sleep,” supposedly he gave one of the best speeches several people had ever heard. In 1849 he became an Apostle of the church and served in that capacity till his death in 1888.

On July 21, 1846, Erastus Snow and Orson Pratt, entered the Salt Lake Valley from Emigration Canyon, along the Donner Reed Trail. Almost every time I come out of Emigration Canyon on a motorcycle or in a car, I try to imagine what this Valley must have looked like empty. By transporting my mind to one of the many empty valleys I have crossed in Nevada, I think I can pretty well imagine what it looked like. Jim Bridger had drawn a map for Brigham Young, so they knew all the canyons that entered the Valley and where water was, etc. So they did not end up planting the first crops just north of the site of the City and County Building, fairly close to where the old Center Theater was located., by happenstance.

While Wallace Stegner was not born in Utah, he spent his formative years here, graduated from East High school, went to the University of Utah, and when he was a teacher's assistant at the University of Utah, he taught my mother Louise in an undergraduate course. He was also a life long friend of David L. Freed, the uncle of my childhood friend Howard. Howard's uncle Dave, is a character in several of Stegner's fictions works that were centered here. Those two works were “Remembering Laughter,” and “Recapitulation.” I attended a lecture of Wallace Stegner at Kingsbury Hall in the mid nineteen seventy's. I think it was after the release of his book, “The Uneasy Chair,” which was a biography of another and important Utahan Bernard DeVoto. My favorite novel of Stegner's is “Angle of Repose,” which won a Pulitzer prize.

Bernard DeVoto wrote some excellent books on Western Expansion and Manifest Destiny. If you are at all interested in learning more about the west I would suggest the following books of Bernard DeVoto, “The Course of Empire,” “Across the Wide Missouri,” dealing with the fur trade and last but not least, “The Year of Decision 1846,” which not only has a good chronology of the Mormon trek west, but also a great one of the Donner Party. He also wrote for years, a monthly column in Harper's called, The Uneasy Chair. Both DeVoto and Stegner have helped in a positive way, shape the conservation movement in this country.

Happy 24th of July Weekend to Everyone.