Vol. 40 No. 4 - Spring 2021

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Magazine Issue: Spring 2021

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“Family Constellations: Searching for Jean”

I come from a long line of Mormons whose genealogy is laid out like a tree with roots that fill the earth and branches that scrape the sky. But if my family tree is a sequoia, my husband’s is more like an aspen, where the rhizomes underground cover up a more complicated history than implied by the thin trunk. His father’s side is mostly unknown and I’ve always felt compelled to seek out answers. About a year ago I sat down at the computer, logged into Family Tree, and printed out a few names for my daughters to take with […]

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“Sisterwives”

Neither of my parents had a sister — just brothers. Ill-prepared, my parents had four, close-in-age girls. As they struggled to navigate the tensions of sisterhood among us, with no model of sisterhood to fall back on, they were often at a loss. When my sisters and I were in our teens, the combination of hormones, puberty, and periods knocked sister relations to a new low with slamming doors, accusations of clothes-stealing, and snide comments about pimples and dates. My sisterless, convert mother would occasionally say in a sort of bemused tone, “They say the best polygamous relationships were when […]

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"Traditions Into Modern Spiritual Practices" by Preethi Harbuck

“Traditions Into Modern Spiritual Practices”

Whenever anyone asks where I’m from, I never know quite how to respond. My parents grew up in India, but I was born in Connecticut. I spent most of my “growing up” years in Alabama, but never felt truly connected to it. Football is akin to a religion there, especially at my old high school, and while I now delight in the outdoors, team sports were never my area of comfort or confidence. Still, I balked at the idea of my family moving to Utah when I was 16. Utah?! I knew next to nothing about it, and only heard about Mormons […]

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"Burning the Diary" by Anita Tanner

“Burning the Diary”

You could be faulted for the impulse to burn in a wood stove your casual witnessing— small white book with your scribbles inside, feelings of meaning. Five years worth of words on thin lines under lock and key— teenage traumas, a passion here, an anger there, cursive straining for value between the lines together with a smallpox scab crisscross taped on a page, a few dog-ears, erasures, blackened sentences and finger smears. Just a kid trying to curve and punctuate identity— too much here, too little there, embarrassment for the ages. Weighed and found wanting you toss it in, owning […]

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“Bessie’s Time Capsule”

This quilted satin box belonged to my great-grandmother, Bessie. When Bessie died she passed the box to her daughter Maxine, who gave it to her daughter, Elaine. Elaine is my mother and when she passed away, the box — and all the things inside — became mine.I don’t believe Maxine or Elaine spent time going through Bessie’s box. They knew Bessie, so they knew the items, and they safeguarded them by not touching them. But I didn’t know Bessie. I wanted to touch and examine every part. I chose a quiet day to open the box. I was in no rush and […]

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"Hail Mary" by Michelle Magnusson

“Hail Mary”

I am fixated on getting a four-generation photo. I spend late nights scheming about how I could persuade the hovering nuns of her senior complex to make just one exception or how I might sneak my dad and my baby over a fence and through a hedge three states away to my Grandma’s tiny back terrace. I worry that I may never share my newborn daughter in person with my grandmother. We considered naming this long-awaited baby Molly — or Mary, as only the nuns call her — in grandma’s honor. We ultimately selected Neve, a phonetic version of the Irish […]

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"Choosing to Serve a Mission" by Kendra Bybee and Sareta Dobbs

“Choosing to Serve a Mission”

Imagine my astonishment when, after nosing through my mother’s old books and journals, I discovered that my mother, my introverted, fame-avoiding mother, was the first Black woman to receive her mission call for the church.

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