"Cleanliness found a way, for the puncheon floors were scoured white with home-leached lye and sand and the old-fashioned 'elbow grease.' This stuff called lye was the essence of the hickory and oak. The woman who failed to set up a 'leach' in her back yard was shiftless indeed. A few feet of hollow log set on the smooth split side with another log made this altar to the god of cleanliness. Into this was poured the ashes from the hearth and over it poured just enough water to keep the brown, strong essence of the ashes dripping into a vessel. . . The lye combined with waste fat made the supply of soap and helped whiten linen and sometimes was resorted to for medical purposes."
Lye Soap
By reason of conditions, they acquired skill in many things. They welcomed new born babies and with the most astounding skill attended were the issues of life were slender as a hair, and conquered, but not always; nay, they folded the lifeless hands, closed the eyes, and set the needle going to clothe the dead, while they comforted the living. . . . The household goods of the best of the home were few and often crude. . . .
Moving abut in house and garden we fancy these women remembered happier and more comfortable conditions, but never a brighter hope. We see them standing, the dispensing medium between the immense demand and pitifully small supply, counting mouths and dividing portions. . . .
They borrowed from the sun to dry their wild fruit, abundant and varied in Missouri then, and they made the smoking of meat an art. They learned the ways of nature and were wonderfully clever companions of the world old dame, working with her to the supplying of their needs, but they burned out many a high ambition in the white fire of sacrifice. The sun that rose on the far horizon of Far West's golden meadows. . . found women busy and as rule cheerful. There laughing children and lovers and all the wonderful and magical instincts of human life abounded with promise of prosperity, peace, and plenty. . .
These women of old Far West were women of graceful and noble bearing and they rode the old horse or mule with the ease of a circus queen. . . . Many of them were skillful in gagging the wild fowl, with the family firearms, as they were in parting the bones of the game and turning them before the glowing fire to a perfect brown. They gathered with swift and strong fingers the soft feathers on the wild duck and geese for future use in bedding. They utilized the skins of beasts for caps and mittens and cape linings.
They knew the value of shrub and tree for coloring matter and could slap the dirtiest garment clean in the running stream, armed only with a wooden paddle, a few feet of puncheon or a flat stone and their homemade soap.
They knew wonderful beauty secrets. The sleep of early hours, the swift action of limbs, the dip in the dew wet grasses and the night wash of buttermilk. The could estimate the relative value of a piece of venison or half a dozen partridge, a peck of meal and an unexpected crowd of hungry men and that, too, without cook stove. . . .
They were even under the necessity of themselves grinding by hand the corn for the meal at times. Corn meal hand many possibilities, but to many was a poor substitute...
The new country had no tannery and upon the mother often fell the work of clothing the feet of the children. The Mormon women were called “prudish... [or] [“clannish” by some of their neighbors]... but no one has ever said with a grain of reason that they were rough or unwomanly or cowards. When they visited their husbands and fathers in their places of ... [confinement] the carried spirits of cheerfulness and comfort. . . [Sidney Rigdon's daughter, Mrs. George Robinson], with her tiny babe stayed for weeks in the hateful prison room, nursing her sick and feeble father and comforting the whole body of prisoners...
It was the women of Far West who stood guard night and day over their honor and their homes... In the record of those months following the fall of Far West the list of mothers, wives, and sisters who “passed away” is appalling. Women in the flower of womanhood fell like storm-swept lilies before the breath of death. But over the golden meadows and wooden heights of Far West they left a deathless spirit.
- [Vida E. Smith, "Women of Old Far West," Journal of History, 11 (October 1918):429, 430].
It is the duty of a husband to love, cherish, and nourish his wife, and cleave unto her and none else; he ought to honor her as himself, and he ought to regard her feelings with tenderness, for she is his flesh, and his bone, designed to be an help unto him, both in temporal, and spiritual things, one into whose bosom he can pour all his complaints without reserve, who is willing (being designed) to take part of his burden, to soothe and encourage his feelings by her gentile voice. It is the place of the man, to stand at the head of his family, and be lord of his own house, not to rule over his wife as a tyrant, neither as one who is fearful or jealous that his wife will get out of her place, and prevent him from exercising his authority. It is his duty to a man of God (for a man of God is a man of wisdom.) ready at all times to obtain from the scriptures, the revelations, and from on high, such instructions as are necessary for the edification, and salvation of his household.
And on the other hand, it is the duty of the wife to be in subject to her husband at all times, not as a servant, neither as one who fears a tyrant, or a master, but as one, who, in meekness, and the love of God, regards the laws and institutions of Heaven, looks up to her husband for instruciton, edification and comfort, "Even as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, whose daughers ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement." 1st Peter, 3rd - 6th. [Reprinted in the Elders Journal, 4 (August 1838):61-62].
One day when the Prophet carried to my house a sack of flour he had borrowed, my wife remarked that he had returned more than he had received. He answered that it should be so; that anything borrowed should be returned always with interest to the lender. "Thus," he said, "the borrower, if he be honest, is a slave to the lender."
Some of the home habits of the Prophet—such as building kitchen fires, carrying out ashes, carrying in wood and water, assisting in the care of the children, etc.—were not in accord with my idea of a great man's self-respect. The above incident of the Prophet carrying the sack of flour gave me the opportunity to give him some corrective advice which I had desired to do for a long time. I reminded him of every phase of his greatness and called to his mind the multitude of tasks he performed that were too menial for such as he; to fetch and carry flour was too great a humiliation. "Too terrible a humiliation," I repeated, "for you who are the head, and you should not do it."
Sister Crosby was a very hardworking woman, taking much more responsibility in her home than most women take. Thinking to give the Prophet some light on home management, I said to him, "Brother Joseph, my wife does much more hard work than does your wife."
The Prophet listened quietly to all I had to say, then made his answer in these words: "If there be humiliation in a man's house, who but the head of that house should or could bear that humiliation?"
Brother Joseph replied by telling me that if a man cannot learn in this life to appreciate a wife and do his duty by her, in properly taking care of her, he need not expect to be given one in the hereafter.
His words shut my mouth as tight as a clam. I took them as terrible reproof. After that I tried to do better by the good wife I had and tried to lighten her labors.
[-"Stories from the Notebook of Martha Cox, Grandmother of Fern Cox Anderson," Church Historian's Library, Salt Lake City, Utah; Lee C. LaFayette, "Recollections of Joseph Smith," Church Historian's Library, Salt Lake City, Utah].