True Sisters by Sandra Dallas

Saints, they found jobs. While Huldah took care of her mother and her sons and did the cooking in the boardinghouse in which they lived, which paid for their quarters, Louisa found work as a chambermaid. Although Louisa protested, her father, worn-out by the ocean voyage, nonetheless took a job in an oyster house.
    They all liked America, their large rooms in Brooklyn, the fresh air, but most of all, they liked the money they made. And after a few weeks, Louisa suggested it would be best to stay in Brooklyn and wait a year to make the trip to Utah. Not only would her parents be in better health, but the family would have saved enough money to outfit a wagon. Margaret would be able to ride to the valley instead of walking next to a handcart. Besides, the wagon would hold everything they had brought with them as well as what they expected to purchase with their wages—linens and crockery, a bureau, even a rocking chair. With such riches, they would be better prepared to set up housekeeping in the valley.
    Louisa wrote to Thales in Iowa City, telling him of the decision.
    It is a splendid plan, is it not? With the money we will make, we will not have to go to the Salt Lake Valley as beggars. And by then, Mother will be recovered from her disabilities. At this time, she can scarce walk a half mile, and I do not believe she could ever manage fifteen miles every day. Mother is so convinced of the rightness of our plan that she says she must have a revelation before she will make the journey this year.
    Then she added:
    I have talked with the church authorities here, and they seem to have no objection to our decision. Could you not inquire there whether you could join us in Brooklyn? Surely there is much work to be done here among the Saints, and you would be welcomed. You and I could be together, and I would not be so lonely for my dear husband.
    She was sure that Thales would approve of the decision to remain in Brooklyn. After all, he was a man of strong appetites, and the separation was hard for both of them. In fact, so confident was Louisa that she inquired of the woman who owned the rooming house whether there was a small room that she and her husband might share.
    Louisa was stunned, then, when she received Thales’s reply.
    I can scarcely believe that my wife, whom I never would have married had I known she prized the comforts of Babylon over her faith, has betrayed me by wishing to remain among the ungodly. I am resolved never to condone such an action. We are commanded to gather in Zion, and yet you are so weak that you place money before your duties to the Lord. I am ashamed that my own wife would wish to live amongst the heathen in that place of wickedness instead of with God’s chosen people in Utah.
    He rebuked her further.
    Does your mother not believe that God ordered her to make the journey when she joined the church? Does she demand more of Him? Does she believe our God speaks directly to her instead of through her betters? If she has only as much faith as a flaxseed, she will arrive in the valley without the least sign of sickness. It is only those who lack faith who perish by the wayside.
    And then, most hurtful of all to Louisa, Thales blamed her father.
    I put this at Hall Chetwin’s feet. He has not so much as one atom of the spirit of Zion but has much of the spirit of apostasy. He would make a shipwreck of his salvation. I had thought to write this letter to him, but I am so filled with anger that I do not trust what I might say.
    A stricken Louisa told her family, “Thales says we must go.”
    “What does he write?” her mother asked, reaching for the letter.
    Louisa would not give it up. Instead, she said, “It is personal. He says only that we are not to stay in New York, but must prepare to leave from Boston when the converts on the Horizon arrive.”
    The parents would not be put off, however, and her father insisted on reading Thales’s words himself. Hall turned white as he read the letter