The travels and tales of a Young Ladies' Mutual Improvement Association president

Traveling as an LDS young women leader in the early 20th century, Ruth May Fox spanned Utah by horse-and-buggy and the United States by airplane. Her great-great-great-granddaughter, Brittany A. Chapman, has studied her life in detail and Thursday, Oct. 14, presented an account of Sister Fox's "well-lived" life in a lecture at the Church History Library in Salt Lake City.

"From the young girl just about to cross the plains to an impassioned leader among her peers to a seasoned member of the general board working with young women, to a fearless centenarian, she left a great impact on all in her sphere of influence, both among her posterity and the young women she was able to reach," said Chapman, a historian with LDS Church History Department.

A celebrated poetess, Sister Fox is perhaps best known today as the author of the well-known Mormon hymn "Carry On," (Hymns, No. 255). But in her day, she was familiar to LDS Church members as the general president of the Young Ladies' Mutual Improvement Association from 1929 to 1937 and a member of the general board for nearly 40 years. Moreover, she was a tireless champion of the women's suffrage movement whose work helped ensure that Utah entered the union as a state in 1896 with a guarantee that its female citizens had the right to vote.

"It was part of her purpose to educate women, to help them to feel greater freedom and that equality among the genders would be 'an entrance into that golden time upon which the best tho

ughts of the ages have

been centered,'" Chapman said quoting Sister Fox's own words.

"That was the attitude with which she became part of the young women organization. She became the young women president in her ward and this was the thought she empowered young ladies. That attitude lasted through her 39-year tenure on the young women general board, which included eight years as general president."

Born in England in 1853, she was 5 months old when her family joined the LDS Church. Her mother died about a year later due to complications in childbirth. At age 13, she fulfilled a dream to come to Zion with her family, crossing the ocean and, ultimately in 1867, the plains to Utah with family members.

Chapman read this account from Sister Fox's autobiography: "At last the long journey was ended. We had pulled up the hill out of Parley's Canyon just as twilight shrouded the valley. We could still catch a glimpse of the city below. But I confess to some disappointment as I asked, 'Did we come all this way for that?' This, however, was my first and last disappointment."