Juanita Brooks

Settling in St. George, Utah, she became an instructor of English and Dean of Women from 1925-1933 at the LDS-backed Dixie Junior College.[9] While on a sabbatical from Dixie College from 1928-1929, she obtained a master's degree from Columbia University.[10] In the same year, 1933, the state of Utah discontinued funding for parochial Mormon secondary education.[9] She resigned from the college after the program was cut and married a widower named Will Brooks. She became stepmother to his four sons. Within five years the couple added a daughter, Willa Nita, and three sons to their family. Juanita Brooks had affectionate relationships with all of her children, including her step-sons, describing her family as "compound-complex". She would sometimes complain that she lacked time to write because of her family, but she also stated that her loved ones were essential to her happiness.[11] Her children spoke highly of their mother at her funeral, telling stories of her nurturing character.[8]

Brooks assisted Nels Anderson, while the latter was a graduate student at Columbia doing field work in sociology in Southern Utah, by researching the experiences of Brooks' grandfather Dudley Leavitt. In 1934, while Anderson was on the U.S. [[National Labor Relations Board]], he facilitated Brooks' assignment to start and manage a branch of the Emergency Relief Administration in southern Utah. Brooks fulfilled this objective by paying individuals to transcribe local pioneer's diaries.[12] Brooks continued to devote herself to unearthing diaries and records of early settlers and organizing a Utah library of Mormons; and, in 1947,[13] she joined the Board of the Utah Historical Society.

According to Shannon Novak, Brooks had been told stories about the massacre from family members as she was growing up and later began collecting diaries from the area during the time period so that she could gather more information about the events that occurred.[14] The diary-collecting project was started under the Works Progress Administration during the Depression of the 1930s; the project's transcripts were eventually cataloged at the Library of Congress.[15] This work brought her into contact with Dale Morgan, who was the supervisor for the Utah Writer's Project under the Works Progress Administration.[6] She continued this work for the Huntington Library as a field fellow in the 1940s.[2][3] These diaries were preserved for others use due to Juanita's diligent pursuit and copying.[15] Dale Morgan introduced her to historian Fawn Brodie, with whom she corresponded for many years.[16]

Per the encouragement of Dale Morgan, Brooks' colleague in the Works Project Administration, Juanita began writing her autobiography, Quicksand and Cactus in which she describes her childhood and early adulthood through a mix of first and third point narrative. She began the manuscript in 1944 and attempted to get published multiple times through 1949 before temporarily abandoning the project to focus on the publication of The Mountain Meadows Massacre. During her revisions of the script, she took advice from Morgan to concentrate on the chapters on her childhood, as the chapters on her later life showed little enthusiasm from editors. Discouraged by rejections from publication firms, she also chose to fictionalize herself in the later versions of the script, substituting herself for a fictional character, Sal, a revision that has been subject to much controversy in the authenticity of her recount. Brooks defended her revision in a letter to D.L. Chambers stating, "While I can see that it may lose something in authenticity, I hope that it may gain in vitality. I had felt that, to justify the book, the subject of an autobiography should have achieved distinction in some field, while a good story may just be a good story."[17]

Brooks revisited the book in 1970 after returning to Salt Lake City after the death of her husband Will Brooks. The next five years were painstaking to finish the book as Brooks found it challenging to stick to it for long periods of time, and her memory began to falter in regards to her first marriage and early widowhood. In 1977, her children moved her back to St. George and boxed the manuscripts, essentially marking the end of her writing career. The rest of the publication was left up to Trudy McMurrin, Brooks' assigned developmental editor at the University of Utah Press. McMurrin pieced together chapters and ideas, but a lack of dates and unity in style and themes and despite her best efforts, she deemed the work unfit to publish. Juanita's son Karl Brooks took the matters into his own hands and hired Richard Howe to prepare and publish the work. Howe consulted McMurrin, studied Juanita's correspondence with Morgan, and evaluated consistencies among the paper and typewriters used by Brooks to logically order chapters for its final publication. Thus, the autobiography is unfinished by Juanita herself, a tribute to an unfinished quality of Brooks' living personality.[18]

Brooks' study of diaries and other personal journals enlivened her historiography, and her subsequent works reflected her scrutiny of such sources. Brooks went on to write numerous historical articles as well as a variety of family narratives including a biography of her pioneer grandfather Dudley Leavitt and a biography of her sheriff husband, Uncle Will Tells His Story.[2] Brooks' notable books on Mormon history include The Mountain Meadows Massacre (1950) and John D. Lee: Zealot, Pioneer Builder, Scapegoat (1961). She also edited Hosea Stout's diaries. Brooks' book on the Mountain Meadows Massacre broke new ground. It was the first comprehensive account of the incident using modern historical methods. Juanita would write after the kids were in bed, often starting at 11:00 PM or midnight, and working for a few hours, then sleep but still get up with the family in the morning to get them all off to school and work. She would write while they were away by keeping her ironing handy; when someone would come over she would cover the typewriter with ironing and then iron until the visitor left. She seemed to have a great deal of ironing, and never seemed to get it finished.[15] This inspired Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, a famous historian and professor: "For a young Mormon mother struggling to define an intellectual life, it was great to know that a renowned historian had once hid her typewriter under the ironing. Juanita Brooks' example taught me that housewives could be thinkers, too." [19]

Brooks' interest in the Mountain Meadows Massacre impacted her life in a good way. The topic "gave unity to her life very much like the unity a plot gives a novel."[11] More importantly, it has led her to receive a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. This helped her to further her research on the Mountain Meadows Massacre and other topics.[2]

While living near the area in Southern Utah where the massacre occurred, Brooks investigated the events thoroughly but found no evidence of direct involvement by Brigham Young. However, she did charge Young with obstructing the investigation and with provoking the attack through his incendiary rhetoric, calling him "an accessory after the fact."[20] Brooks suggested that Young became so fearful of federal invasion that he created a hothouse atmosphere where the militia saw threats everywhere.[21]

Brooks was a lifelong member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but anticipated excommunication upon the publication of the Mountain Meadows book.[6] Although Church authorities discouraged Brooks from pursuing her study of the Mountain Meadows Massacre, her book on the subject received critical acclaim.[22] No disciplinary action was taken against Brooks by the Church. Brooks perceived an atmosphere of disgrace which descended upon her and her protective husband and for a time she was ostracized from both her local congregation and Church officials for her investigations.[8][23][24] She was no longer published within official LDS Church periodicals.[2] Levi S. Peterson, Brooks' biographer, wrote that while she would state her opinion fearlessly, she often felt conflicted and guilty in her choice to oppose church leaders.[25] Confronted by two great virtues which had come into conflict- the good name of the Church on the one hand and truth on the other Juanita chose truth. She later went on to address why she published her work despite the backlash she was receiving; Brooks stated, "This study is not designed either to smear or to clear any individual; its purpose is to present the truth. I feel sure that nothing but the truth can be good enough for the church to which I belong."[8]

She received a distinguished service award from the Utah Academy of Arts, Sciences, and Letters.[2] In honor of Juanita Brooks, a scholarship endowment is being established at Dixie State University, formerly Dixie College.[26]