Faith and Betrayal: A Pioneer Woman's Passage in the American West

by Sally Denton

The richly told story of a nineteenth-century woman–the author’s great-great-grandmother–whose religious faith was betrayed and regained on a journey across the American West.

In the 1850s, Jean Rio was a recently widowed English mother of seven. Rich, well educated, musically gifted, deeply spiritual, and increasingly dismayed by the social injustices she saw around her, she was moved by the promises of Mormon missionaries and set out from England for Utah. On her fifty-six-day Atlantic crossing, she began keeping a diary, and this extraordinary chronicle is the basis of Sally Denton’s book.

We follow Jean Rio from New Orleans, where she disembarks, up the Mississippi by riverboat, and, finally, westward by wagon train. We see her family transformed by necessity–mastering frontier skills, surviving storms, finding their own food, overcoming illness and injury–during the five months it takes them to reach Zion.

We see her initial enthusiasm turn to She is forced to surrender her money to the church. She realizes she has been lied to about polygamy–Mormons do practice it–which she detests. Acts of Mormon violence against nonbelievers repel her. Her musical skills are buried beneath the daily rigors of farming. Two of her sons flee to California. We witness her seventeen-year struggle to make peace with her situation before she, too, escapes to California–to freedom, a career as a midwife, and a new religion that fulfills her.

Dramatic and powerful, Faith and Betrayal is the moving account of one woman’s gamble in an emerging America, and a valuable addition to the history of both the Mormon experience and the long saga of immigrant pioneer women.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Biography, Religion, Mormonism, Memoir, Historical

240 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[Sue · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the story of a little known but remarkably resilient woman, Jean Rio Griffiths, who crossed the Great Plains via wagon train in 1851 to settle in the new Zion of Utah Territory. It is authored by Sally Denton, an author and investigative reporter who is also this pioneer woman's great-great-granddaughter. Ms. Denton's genealogical and historical research, coupled with extant copies of Jean's emigration diary, combine to reveal a most atypical ancestor that defies the stereotypical portrait of a pioneer woman.

Jean Rio Griffiths was born to the only surviving member of a French aristocratic family, most of whom met their fate at the guillotine during the French Revolution. In England, where her mother had escaped as a small child and then married well, Jean was raised to a life of upper class ease and then married well herself. Intelligent, musically accomplished, and wealthy, Jean balanced a life of musical performance in the concert halls of Europe with motherhood, bearing 8 children before her 40th birthday. And THEN -- insanity of monumental proportion took hold!! (That is MY interpretation and not the author's, who attempts to put the following event in historical context, but I continue to see it as a WHOPPER of a midlife crisis that Jean most surely lived to regret.)

But to continue, and THEN Jean is converted by Mormon missionaries and convinced to move to the new promised land of the Utah territory to live an exalted life for the Lord. She liquidates all her assets, kisses all of her friends and most of her relatives good-bye, and sets sail for America with her 7 children (having lost her husband and her youngest child to cholera before leaving). She makes the rugged journey across the American wilderness to finally arrive in a very young Salt Lake City to find that the missionaries had neglected to tell her a few important details. That fortune she has? It now belongs to the church. Her husband has died? Too bad, but this is an extremely patriarchal society, and as a widow, you have exactly no power. That expensive, one-of-a-kind concert piano that you have lugged across an ocean and most of a continent to play in your new home? Not gonna happen -- it belongs to Brigham Young now; God has told him so.

If you are seething with anger and righteous indignation right about now, you are in good company. I believe steam may have been leaking from my ears as I read this. The fact that Jean managed to cool her own anger, raise her children in a tiny cabin on the outskirts of the Utah Territory (she wasn't even allowed to stay in the "city" -- the Mormon fathers wanted her and her large family to farm), gain midwifery skills to supplement her meager income, and finally, finally -- ESCAPE -- is remarkable. I'm glad that Ms. Denton has plucked this uniquely resilient woman from obscurity and given her the respect she surely deserves!

[Kate Savage · Rating 3 out of 5]

Someone wrote a book about my great-great[-great?] granny.

Growing up, I learned her story as a Mormon faith-promoting tale. How she gave up her comfortable life in London and came across the ocean and plains to Utah. How she lost a child on the way, but kept the grand piano, which was the first one in the Salt Lake valley. And about that journal she kept -- truly stunning writing, where she celebrates the beauty of any landscape she's in. She stayed on the deck of the ship even during the storm because she couldn't bear to miss the lightning.

I knew about this. I saw her piano in the Church History Museum. But Denton adds big swaths I didn't know.

Like how the missionaries never told Jean Rio about that whole polygamy thing. She rolled into this valley as a rich widow, with no interest in becoming anyone's wife. The church took her wealth, and left her as dirt-poor farmer in an Ogden dugout. Brigham Young took her piano and gave it to his 27th wife. (One tiny moment of justice: the young wife later divorced Young and started a speaking tour on the damage done by polygamy).

I didn't know that rumors of the Mountain Meadows Massacre made Jean Rio decide she finally had to get out. I didn't know about her fear that the Danites would punish her if they caught her trying to leave. I didn't know her sons fled in the middle of the night by horseback but she had to wait years until the transcontinental railroad was finished and the hyperviolent Mormon 'reformation' had settled down before she could make it to California.

I didn't know that in California she became a midwife and joined a Congregationalist church that was notoriously progressive (the first church in the area to racially integrate, active in women's rights struggles).

And living in this valley that she fled and reading the things I didn't know, I had a strange, unprecedented sensation: connection to an ancestor.

I'm grateful to Denton for this book. I also have a few critiques:
-Biographies are boring. I wanted more memoir - I wanted to hear how the author felt about the story she uncovered.
-I worry about accuracy. Denton got some stuff wrong about the Book of Mormon that she would have known if she read it carefully. I worried what else was inaccurate. If you're being critical of a religion adhered to by millions, you should probably get some good fact-checkers.
-It feels bad to read about one lady's problems within an unacknowledged context of the genocide of the indigenous people in this area. I think it's an important grounding for any story of colonizers and pioneers.

[Kim Ess · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is so sad how these people got swindled into joining this bizarre religious cult. It's enlightening how the author describes what the Mormons practice to this day regarding their beliefs surrounding their celestial kingdom. It is an interesting read not just for the historical Mormon aspect of it but for the hardships endured by all those emigrating to settle the American west as well. And... Brigham Young stole her piano.

[Suzanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I came across this little gem used in an independent bookstore "Western History" section. Could pioneer women have been any more amazing?!

This story is ultimately tragic, but also life-affirming. British intellectual and socialite Jean Rio gave up an entire life in England to follow the half-truths and empty promises of 19th century Mormon missionaries. The author - a great-great-granddaughter of Rio herself - takes Rio's journals and family oral tradition to piece together decades of hardship, danger and disillusionment.

I learned a LOT about the founding, leadership, and practices of the Mormon "church." How this is still a mainstream "religion" worldwide is unimaginable given what's revealed in these pages - which is basically history that can be found anywhere.

The author wraps up the book beautifully with (my sampling) of these thoughts:

"The 21st century is undergoing...a clash of creeds more ferocious and dangerous than anything in Jean Rio's world. In search of fundamental Christianity, she came to the conclusion that fundamentalism was narrow and barren. She was one of the more notable apostates of the Mormon church, yet the church never acknowledges her apostasy...she is used as a recruitment and proselytizing tool in the History of the Church's video display. For so many years, Jean Rio was deprived of her voice. Then the church distorted it. My goal has been to restore it."

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gives a very detailed account of the woman's journey from England to Salt Lake City but details are scanty after she reaches SLC. Of course, the author explains the woman stopped keeping a journal for many years but, because I was so immersed in her story it was disappointing to have so little details of her later life. Definitely worth reading though.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

This biography will probably make many Mormons angry because it describes some of the terrible tyrannical conditions in early Utah. Denton is a adept researcher and wonderful writer. The truth is ugly,but based on other articles and books I've read, Denton is on target.

[Dana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great book if you are interested in American History and LDS history.

[Ellen Spes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting background on early Mormon church.

[Mike Worley · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.75 stars

[Just Judy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book, written by Jean Rio’s great-great-granddaughter, is a testament to a challenging life well lived. Jean’s mother, Susanna Ann Burgess, had been smuggled across the English Channel, ensconced in a wine cask. She was an infant at the time, placed in the cask by a devoted manservant during the French Revolution. It was expected that both her parents and all of her siblings would become victims of the revolutionists.
Twenty years later, Susanna married a well-to-do Scotsman, John Walters Griffiths. John, descendant from Scottish aristocracy, gave his only daughter, Jean Rio, every opportunity for learning: private lessons for harp and piano, education in the English classics, and a life amid shelves of good quality books written by respected and well-known authors. At age twenty-two, Jean married Henry Baker of London and presided over a house near St. Paul’s Cathedral. She gave Henry nine children. As was the custom at the time, child-rearing was left to governesses and the children were taught by private tutors.
Jean was left a substantial amount of cash and property by her paternal great-uncle, along with an annuity for life. While Jean lived in comfort, England was experiencing the most severe depression of the century. The poverty and degradation brought about by the Industrial Revolution was staggering. The Church of England was in a crisis as well. Reformers increasingly sought a separation between church and state. Neither the church nor the government were adequately addressing the appalling social conditions.
When looking at the England of her day, Jean saw a clear sign of the approaching end of time. When an Englishman, John Taylor, approached the family, he never mentioned he was the husband of eight wives living in America. What he told of the religion he preached was inviting: the glory of America, as well as the message of restoration and a new religion. Jean, along with her husband, was seduced by the promises of a return to a pure, honest, original, Christianity. Three months later, Jean lost her husband and a young daughter to cholera. In her heartbroken condition, she turned her full attention to immigration to America.
It would be a long journey from England to Salt Lake City and she planned to take her piano. First, there would be the train ride to the thriving port of Liverpool where the party would have their first glimpse of the ship that would carry them across the Atlantic. It was an impressive specimen seasoned with spruce and pine, fashioned into a sleek and elegant craft. She had been christened George W. Bourne by her builder two years earlier. The voyage from London to New Orleans was expected to take four to nine weeks. Then, there would be a one thousand mile riverboat excursion up the Mississippi to St. Louis, followed by a twelve hundred mile crossing of the great plains of North America. While many Englanders would book their passage thanks to the vessels and funds supplied by the Latter-Day Saints’ Perpetual Immigration Fund, Jean Rio paid for her family’s passage, as well as several of her relatives, and a few new converts.
It was proving to be a difficult journey. Jean Rio lost her four-year old son, Josiah, somewhere over the Atlantic. He had been sick when he boarded the ship. Jean had had hopes of his recovery, but felt that God intervened to end her child’s suffering. He was ceremoniously committed to the deep the following morning, one thousand miles out to sea.
At times, the water was tumultuous. When meat was scarce, the men killed one of the porpoises swimming alongside the ship. There were storms, hot weather, and flying fish. A baby was born, couples were married, small groups played music and sang. Jean did not suffer from sea-sickness as most of her companions did, but she noticed an aching in her bones that she attributed to incessant motion. Somewhere around the Bahamas, the harsh winds shifted to cool breezes and the cerulean hues of the Caribbean had a tranquilizing effect on the travelers. Then came prickly heat. Children were often covered from head to toe with an irritating rash. Adults suffered as well.
In March, the passengers saw their first glimpse of a stationary revolving light when passing within three miles of Little Turtle Island along the coast of Cuba. Then came the day when a steamship came out to meet the boat and pull it to anchor at the island of Belize. The next morning the steamer took the George W. Bourne in tow, pulling the vessel one hundred ten miles up the Mississippi River to New Orleans.
Jean was in love with scenery and wildlife, be it on the waters of the Atlantic or traveling up the river. She wrote long letters where she described the plantations, slave quarters, fruit trees, and animal life. Jean would spend two days at an opulent resident in one of the wealthiest cities in the country. Interestingly, while most of the inhabitants were Frenchmen, they were nearly all married to English women.
Jean enjoyed a five day ride of one thousand two hundred fifty miles up the Mississippi to St. Louis. She rented a house with the intention of staying for several weeks, a welcome respite for her family after months on the water. Her children were allowed some freedom to play with others their age, while she scouted the markets, stocked her kitchen, and prepared the family meals. When walking the streets, she found magnificent buildings, all sporting steeples, representing churches of every denomination. She attended several services, primarily to hear the music.
She bought passage on yet another steamboat, the Financier, which would take her and her recent purchases of wagons, livestock, and supplies, further up the Mississippi to Alexandria. From there, it was an overland trek across Iowa to meet a company of Saints at Council Bluffs. The two groups would travel together on the journey to Salt Lake City.
They were to follow the Mormon Trail, one thousand thirty-two rugged miles to their final destination. Their first day took them through country inhabited by Omaha Indians. Going forward, the party made its way to the Platte River where they halted for a day so the men could repair damage to the axles of several wagons. The women found this to be an ideal time to wash dirty linen.
They crossed deep chasms and swamps and climbed steep riverbanks to camp on high ground. They could hear the sound of a raging river. Several of the wagons were damaged in the crossing, forcing the party to halt for two days for repair. One woman, who traveled with Jean from London and appeared to be healthy, died suddenly. After the burial, the party continued their wearisome prairie lumbering.
They passed Ft. Kearny and came upon their first herd of legendary buffalo. The magnificent animals carried the threat of stampede. The group's Captain Brown had crossed the plains five times, which gave a sense of comfort to Jean and her fellow travelers. As they continued, flat land gave way to sand hills crawling with thousands of lizards, snakes, and grasshoppers. The wagons forged the Platte River valley through gentle rolling hills of sand. The trail became comparatively easy. The children found plenty of playmates and invented games along the way.
As they continued, dramatic bluffs and rock formations rose out of the ground on both sides of the river. When Jean found time to write, she poured out her awe and love in lush, lavish descriptions of fiery sunsets and streams that were swollen. Gentle bluffs melded first into foothills and then into mountain passes. At Fort Laramie, Jean Rio paid sixty-five dollars for a new yoke of oxen and four fine hams.
After bridging the North Platte River in Wyoming, the group found themselves surrounded by ridges covered with cedar and pine. They found loads of cherries and currants on the hillsides. Occasionally, Jean would employ her developing medical skills by acting as midwife to welcome a new life into the world. In August, this budding midwife lost her first mother. She found solace in the belief in a divine plan.
Once the trail entered the Rocky Mountains, Jean, ever the lover of nature, walked under overhanging rocks, between narrow cliffs, and up rocky ridges. They passed Hell’s Reach and Devil’s Backbone, and proceeded south along the Sweetwater River. The party continued along the Big Sandy River to its conjunction with the cottonwood-lined Green River. Soon, they reached Ft. Bridger where Jean purchased forty pounds of fresh beef at ten cents a pound. Two days later, they ascended the Great Basin.
Jean wrote: “beyond description for wilderness and beauty. We are indeed among the everlasting hills.” Weaving their way through a ninety mile chain of cliffs that cut into the Wasatch Range of the Rockies, the party reached the summit of the Bear Divide where they received their first glimpse of the Great Salt Lake Valley. Jean found herself enveloped by mountains of solid rock with huge evergreens growing in the crevices, sporting building-size boulders that had tumbled down in landslides. At one spot, the opening was so narrow they had to pass one wagon at a time. The trail turned and passed under massive overhanging rocks. At about sunset, they emerged from the canyon and Jean caught her first view of their future home. They camped in a hollow at the entrance of the Great Salt Lake Valley.
On October 6, Jean wrote: “I have purchased a small house with an acre of garden attached to it.” The garden had a patch of Indian corn growing, as well as potatoes, cabbage, carrots, parsnips and other vegetables. She bought a heifer for milk. Her elaborately carved and exquisitely inlaid Collar & Collard piano was the centerpiece of her parlor. She took on the responsibility of educating her young children.
Then, one day, Brigham gave the order that she must relocate from the relatively urban and sophisticated Salt Lake City to a remote and uncivilized area. She was permitted to purchase 20 acres of land in Ogden. She planned to build a small house on the land and move there with her children come spring.
By this time, Jean was aware plural marriage was being practiced by many of the Saints and virtually all of the hierarchy. Actually, polygamy was no longer a secret, neither in Salt Lake City or in the United States at large. Federal officials, appointed by President Filmore, visited the city the summer of 1851 and returned to the President with tales of plural marriage. Then, in preparation for the coming of the transcontinental railroad, government surveyors came to survey the land. One particularly bright young man, Lieutenant Gunnison, wrote a tell-all book, a study of the people and their religion. The book sold very well. In the months that followed, Lieutenant Gunnison was found murdered, presumably by renegade Indians.
Jean’s family became farmers. Three of her sons were required to join Brigham Young’s military force. When news came that the United States was sending military troops to Salt Lake, Brigham laughed at the idea. Later, he threatened the troops would never be allowed to enter his city. Even later, he publicly swore he would burn the city if troops should enter. He eventually acquiesced to being replaced as governor and allowed federal troops to build their fort and move in.
Two of Jean Rio’s sons fled to California. Jean went through changes as well. Her Ogden patch of ground proved eager to kill every seed she put into the ground. She moved into a small log house in Ogden City and became a dressmaker as well as a practicing midwife. She learned to be extremely
cautious in expressing any opposition to Mormon practices.
The U.S. army began posting advertisements directed at dissidents throughout Salt Lake City. They would accompany and protect any who cared to leave Salt Lake for California. Soon, California newspapers reported that thousands of fugitive Saints were making their way west. Jean was eager to leave her mountain prison but found herself reluctant to journey by horse and wagon to San Francisco. She held it in the back of her mind that the transcontinental railroad was to become a reality. One day, the final tie, uniting the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific tracks, was pounded into place and freedom became a new possibility for thousands of Saints.
Chauncey West, a longtime intimate of Brigham Young, had become a relative and close friend with Jean when his brother married her daughter. During the summer of 1869, Chauncey was having a crisis of health. He also had a need to travel to San Francisco to pick up some money needed to pay the men who laid the railroad tracks. Because of the nursing skills Jean had honed over the years, Chauncey asked Jean to accompany him on his journey. Jean jumped at the opportunity, eager to see her two sons that had left Utah years before. She packed her remaining belongings and boarded the train with her companion.
In San Francisco, Chauncy leased a suite of rooms on Powell Street. When the doctor examined his new patient, he described the infirmity “too deeply seated to respond to treatment.” A week later, Chauncey was dead and Jean Rio was free to begin her life anew. She settled in with her son, John, and his wife for a while, then relocated to Sherman Island, a booming settlement about fifty miles northwest of San Francisco. Eventually, her son, Walter, along with his wife and their eight children, left Utah and joined the family in California.
Jean Rio lived as a woman of means during her Antioch years. In 1875, she decided to return to Utah to visit another son. She was excited to see her family and know her grandchildren. William had settled into a picturesque farming community in Richfield. She remained with her Utah family for twenty-one months before returning to California with mixed feelings. Seven years later, at the age of seventy-three, Jean Rio died a peaceful death.
Jean Rio lived a full life, and the story told here is both compelling and informative. If you like biographical historical novels, or frontier fiction, this will surely be a pleaser.

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Faith and Betrayal documents the life of Jean Rio Griffiths Baker Pearce, a nineteenth-century woman whose life intersected in fascinating ways with the origins of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Utah. Jean Rio was converted by missionaries in London and gave up a comfortable life in English society to settle "Zion," a religious utopia that is now Salt Lake City. At the same time as Jean Rio's emigration, Brigham Young was consolidating power in Utah and positioning Zion as a de facto theocracy.

This book is interesting for reasons that have very little to do with the actual written content. The author, Sally Denton, is a direct descendant of Jean Rio and wrote Faith and Betrayal to reclaim her great-great-great-grandmother's legacy from the Church. (I know that "Mormon" is generally not an accepted term, and it looks "the Church" is the preferred shorthand used on their official websites.) To the Church, Jean Rio is a symbol of their pioneer history, a woman so strong in her faith that she was willing to give up everything for the greater good of the faith. To Denton, Jean Rio was a loyal follower who was betrayed, lied to, and taken advantage of by a powerful patriarchal organization; the Church appropriating her story as their own is just the final betrayal.

The story goes like this: after an arduous journey across the Atlantic, up the Mississippi River, and across the Great Plains, Jean Rio arrives in Utah to find herself an outsider as an independent, unmarried, wealthy woman. Life is not what she expected. She's ordered to move to a remote part of Utah to expand the Church's territory, scratching out a difficult living as a farmer in rugged frontier conditions. Her treasured positions and her money are taken by the Church or bartered away for food. Many repugnant rumors she'd heard about the Church prove true, especially the practice of polygamy. Her settlement in Utah also coincides with the "Mormon Reformation," a brutal period in which Brigham Young cracked down on so-called "apostates." She wants to leave Utah but lives in fear of "blood atonement," the rumored ritualized murder of apostates, especially following the Mountain Meadows Massacre, an alleged blood atonement killing of about 140 pioneers orchestrated and covered up Young himself. Ultimately, she leaves Utah and start a new life in California with most of her children.

The story is adapted from Jean Rio's diary, which covers only her journey to Utah and the records of her midwifery career in California. There is no known document of her seventeen years in Utah, and Denton says neither Jean Rio nor her children in California ever spoke of their time in the Church. The story is filled in by family history, so you have to take Denton at her word that Jean Rio left because she felt betrayed and misled by the Church.

Thankfully, Jean Rio is a remarkable woman regardless of what she thought about her religion. She began her life as a member of English society and worked as a professional musician, and she ended it as a midwife in northern California, something she learned entirely by sheer necessity on the Mormon Trail. Faith and Betrayal proves her to be an intelligent and resilient woman who met every challenge of frontier life with passion and adaptability. The book also takes care to show how most women were just like Jean Rio and often had to make difficult choices in a world where they were tremendously disadvantaged—Denton notes that their dresses alone made them more likely to have a serious wagon accident.

That said, I found too many instances where Denton uses Jean Rio's story to advance her own values and thoughts on the Church. She claims Jean Rio was disturbed by the lack of agency women had in Utah, "unable to vote, to hold office, or even to express opinions without facing public opprobrium," which were not things Englishwomen were able to do, either. Denton also says Jean Rio's diaries had no introspection and were simply contemporaneous documents of the journey; it's impossible to guess at what she thought either way. I finished the book feeling like Denton had done to Jean Rio's life story exactly what the Church had, just for the opposite purpose.

I found myself intrigued by the ways Jean Rio's life was so directly impacted by major historical events. Everything from the French Revolution to the Second Great Awakening to the life of Brigham Young to the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad shaped the direction of her life. It's a reminder that we're all a product of history and learning more about it can only help us better understand ourselves.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is an account of a well-to-do 19th century British woman, Jane Rio, who uprooted her life to pursue belief in Mormonism at its nascent only to be disillusioned on her arrival in Salt Lake City with the discovery of polygamy and unbridled authoritarianism. Her experience is summed up by the following (p.139).

"My 20-acre farm turned out to be a mere saleratus (sodium bicarbonate) patch, killing the seed which was sown instead of producing a crop," Jean Rio recalled years later in an addendum to her diary. Admitting defeat, she deserted her land, moving into a "small log house" in Ogden to learn dressmaking. "I have tried to do my best in the various circumstances in which I have been placed," she wrote. "I came here in obedience to what I believed to be a revelation of the most high God, trusting in the assurance of the missionaries whom I believed to have the spirit of truth. I left my home, sacrificed my property, broke up every dear association, and what was and is yet dearer than all, left my beloved native land. And for what? A bubble that has burst in my grasp. It has been a severe lesson, but I can say that it has led me to lean more on my Heavenly Father and less on the words of men."

Two of her sons left Utah territory as soon as they were able. "They could not stand poverty any longer so ran away from it." Later Jean married a Gentile in Utah who lived only six months. Her oldest son, William, who was devout and a polygamist was reinstated after being disfellowshipped for purchasing a pair of boots from a Gentile. She eventually left Utah with the remainder of her family, excepting William, to join her sons in California who had prospered. She became a member of the First Congregational Church and contributed to her community there. Jean made one 21 month long visit to spend time with her son William and his family in Richfield, Utah before returning to California to live out the rest of her life.

(p.180)"Wilford Woodruff issued the first edict against polygamy that forced William into hiding and ultimately result in his incarceration as a polygamist. Ordered to divide his property and cash among his two families, and required to provide for them financially, he found the task impossible. Despite his ample income, there was simply not enough to support two wives and eighteen children." [His second wife:] Nicolena suddenly found herself a forty-five year old mother of seven with little if any outside support. She, like hundreds of other polygamist women in her position, received no financial aid from the church." Nor was the husband she was depending upon to pull her "through the veil" able to provide much assistance." "When William died in 1901 he received a substantial obituary reflective of his longstanding stature in the community of Richfield. Neither Nicolena nor any of his children by her were named as next of kin. Like the thousands of other children of polygamists, they were treated as if they were illegitimate and in effect punished by disinheritance and social stigma by the very society that had sanctioned and encouraged the practice of polygamy."

[Cat. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been reading this on my lunch breaks at work for about a month. It's dovetailing a little bit in my current 'extra-curricular' family cataloging project, since it really is a well-written family history focused on one woman rather than the whole family. I suspect the whole family in this case would need several volumes.

So this book introduces us to Jean Rio Baker, a wealthy London widow and a descendant of Parisian nobility who barely made it out of France alive. After converting to Mormonism, she packed up her entire family in the early 1840s--including 7 children, in-laws and, I think, a couple of others--sailed across the Atlantic to New Orleans where she traveled up the Mississippi to Council Bluffs and wagon-trained across the plains to Deseret, i.e. Utah. All on her own dime. She brought with her, too, several ball-gowns and a case piano, the first to arrive in Utah, among other less-than-practical items. Within 5 years, she was effectively penniless, poverty-stricken, and trying to farm an alkali flat in the middle of the Utah desert.

Eventually, after the Mountain Meadows Massacre, she became so disaffected with Brigham Young's policies, she and most of her family left Utah for the Sacramento area where she lived the remainder of her days, supporting herself by midwifery and general nursing (although she may have had some financial help from friends and family in London as well).

Stories about women like this, like my grandmother in many respects, remind me that I really do come from "good pioneer stock" as my sister says, a family in the largest sense of strong women who truly could--and frequently did--do anything.

[Kathleen (itpdx) · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting piece of American history told by a descendant of Jean Rio Baker Pearce. Jean Rio was a very well-off English woman who converted to Mormonism in England, and after being widowed, headed to Salt Lake City with her seven children. The author, Sally Denton, Jean Rio's great, great grand-daughter has copies of Jean Rio's journal covering her journey to Utah and some notes made after she left for California 17 years later. Unfortunately, she was unable to uncover much of Jean Rio's story while in the Mormon Zion, only a few memories of some of Jean Rio's grandchildren. The story of one of Jean Rio's daughters-in-law (and Denton's great grandmother) was an interesting addition.
This made for an uneven book with some intense personal experiences and some general Mormon history that Denton tried to keep tied to the Baker family.
I was not aware before I read this book how much effort the Mormons put in to converting and recruiting in Europe during their early settlement phase in Utah. And I was not aware of the large number of former Mormons who had moved on to California (according to the author, the numbers even surpassed the number that had arrived during the gold rush).

[Wendy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Okay, I could not get through the first few chapters. I understand Mormonism is a religion that seems very weird and cultish. But I could not continue to read things that the author presented as facts that were just out and out lies. Her tone we degrading and insulting. I finally stopped reading when the author stated that Mormons practiced "blood atonement" (the killing of sinners). I prefer my nonfiction novels to be in fact, non fiction. I agree with some of the other reviewers that I would have found this book far more readable if I could have read Jean Rio's words. I would have liked to heard her input and reactions. I would have loved to hear the "faith and betrayal" that Jean felt in her words. Denton even bashes her great great grandmothers choice of writing in that she spends too much time writing about the weather and she is over descriptive.

Since I couldn't even get through to Rio's baptism, this book only gets 1 star. I will be looking for a less biased account of Jean Rio's life.

[Shirley J · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you've read books by Erik Larson or Hampton Sides, then you were spoiled, like me, having read non-fiction that read as easily as fiction. So I did start this book with a similar expectation. Even though I found the history of the Latter Day Saints interesting, the writing style definitely reads like a textbook and the continual inserts of references sources was irritating. Considering the diary that was the foundation for the book had no entries while Jane Rio Griffiths lived with the Mormons in Utah, it was a stretch for Ms. Denton to convey her great-great-grandmother's life with a factual account. Rather than gleaning Jane's perspective on her life experiences, the book is primarily documents the orgin and culture of Mormon society during her Jane's lifetime.

I don't regret reading the book, I'm just not sure how I'd feel about reading a follow-up of her work. Can't help but wonder if the book would have been more entertaining if it were written as fiction.

[Mary Reed · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love books about religious cults and this one was no exception. Fascinating true story about a wealthy English woman who was recruited by the polygamist branch of the Mormons to leave England and settle in the Western part of the US during a period of time in England and in Europe when many people were rejecting traditional religions and looking for a way to have a more direct relationship with God. Mormonism offered that connection although the recuiters failed to provide the people they recruited with impt. details -- like that they believed in multiple marriages and were anti-women. Story tells of woman's trip via boat with her family across the Atlantic, her steamboat trip down to New Orleans, her arduous journey via wagon to UT, her ultimate disillusionment with the religion, the loss of her fortune to the polygamist leaders, and her ultimate decision to flee for CA.

[Marilyn · Rating 1 out of 5]

Could have been SO much better. The author constantly editorializes about the Mormons and their beliefs, but lacks hard evidence of what the subject of the book (Jean Rio) was actually thinking and experiencing during a large and crucial period of the timespan covered in the book, as YEARS of diaries are missing. Sally Denton speculates over and over about what Jean was feeling and doing, but the book just lacks any ability to convince the reader, even though anyone could draw the conclusion that the woman was afraid of retribution. For a better feel of what it was like to be a pioneer woman during this period, read The Indifferent Stars Above by Daniel James Brown--he includes much more detail of the problems they faced and really makes you understand what they felt without resorting to wild speculation.

[Jennifer Fredin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating biography of Jean Rio, a British woman converted by Mormon missionaries. In 1853 she left England with 10 others including her 7 children, and other converted relatives by ship to come to America. Being a woman of some wealth, she paid for transport of her party to New Orleans and then to St Louis and beyond and then via several wagons, yokes of oxen, and provisions - all of which she paid for - and then across the plains by wagon train to Salt Lake City. After many hardships and disappointments, no one had mentioned polygamy for instance she worked incredibly hard for many years raising her children while the "church" took whatever money remained and her grand piano. As she arrived in her 60's she was finally able to leave Utah and lived the remainder of her life in California. The biography was written by a great-granddaughter. An amazing life, an an admirable one.

[Heather B Blair · Rating 1 out of 5]

I love history and love learning more about the pioneers. I have spent a lot of time reading and studying different journals and resources of the period so I was excited to read this book. Boy was I disappointed!
This was an amazing woman with an amazing story and I wish I could have read it! For someone who as an avid journal writer, there is very little of her journal in this book. I would have rather read the journal and drawn and drawn my own conclusions without having them shoved on me. As if that wasn't enough, she wasn't even factually correct on some things, like her whole thing about handcarts (which wasn't even part of Jean's story!)Someday I would like to read more of Jean's journal!

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very interesting book and I really enjoyed the in-depth history about the Mormons settling in Utah. There were a lot of things I didn't know and a lot of things that really amazed me, especially regarding Bringham Young and way he treated his people. Many things that you don't hear about from the mainstream Mormon Trail history. You could tell that the author was very against the Mormons which sometimes made it difficult for me to distinguish the facts from from her somewhat bitter opinion. But all in all, I really liked it. I like reading about this time period.

[Beverly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book interesting on 2 bases. The first is seeing the peril with which settlers were exposed to in deciding to leave Europe then traveling to the wilds of North America's mid-west. Jean Rio Baker may have been well-off (thus had the means to a few more comforts than the other travelers), but she also lost family members and had to slog through the same mud. The second was how familiar the Mormon life was in the early days to what is seen in FLDS communities of today. Just as deserters are hunted down today, they too were hunted down in the early days.

[Melyni · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although the book was disturbing for me in may ways, I read the whole thing. The author put a negative view on the early mormon religon in the West. I will not believe some of the things she discussed but I found the entirety of the story interesting. Sailing from England and the main character's experience traveling to the Salt Lake Valley was very interesting and made the book worth the read. I really wouldn't recommend the this book to anyone.

[Gemmy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an amazing story written in a narrative style by the great great granddaughter of a wealthy English aristocrat who was convinced to sell all she owned and migrate to Salt Lake City to join the Mormon Church when it was in its infancy. It was written based on her actual Diary, in the author's possession.

[Liz · Rating 1 out of 5]

The premise for this book is very interesting, but I was disappointed by the author's DRY style. Faith and Betrayal read like a dreary history book. It was also uneven; too much information during her tangents, and too little information where it really matters - Jean Rio's personal experience in Salt Lake.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

With faith in a new religion, Jean Rio emigrated to the US from London in the 1800's. Little did she know what was in store for her, both in pioneering the land and understanding Mormonism. Faith and Betrayal by Sally Denton an eye opener for this less than versed reader of Mormonism. Looking forward to reading other Denton books.

[Doug · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really great story of one woman's brave adventure from a wealthy life in England to Utah. Lured by the lies told by Morman "missionaries". Finally arriving in Utah she finds none of what was promised, but find's out Brigham Young is a thief among everything else.

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book about a woman who converted to Mormonism, immigrated to Utah and found that she had been deceived. She lived an admirable life of kindness and courage and found things in herself she never knew she possessed. Overuse of the word "recalcitrant".

[Denise · Rating 3 out of 5]

Biography that delves into the Mormon faith. Great stuff about the emigrations the trip was the best part of the book. Most of it is a tribute to her own family and does not look favorably on the Mormons. But if you put that aside the book is a great story to read of a real life pioneer heroine.

[Joy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very interesting history of one family's experience in the American West and with the Mormon church. It was a good read as it was a personal history, not just a church history, and written by a descendent of the individuals in the story. I highly recommend it.