Sorry for the lousy picture but this is the book I read last week. A friend of mine picked it for our book group for March. I really enjoyed it a lot and recommend it to anyone. This book was put together after Marjorie Hinckley died, by her family. The book is entirely composed of letters that she wrote to family members. The first section was letters to her parents in 1945 when she lived in Denver while her husband worked for the railroad. She lived in Utah for almost her entire life and I think this was the only time when she lived away. I enjoyed this section the most. It would have been great to read more about this time in her life when she had two small children and was pregnant with her third and how she coped with the challenges of war-time rationing, living away from home, etc. The other sections were letters from later in her life when her children moved away (particularly her oldest daughter) and she was writing to them. Letters from her trips to Asia with her husband came later in the book along with letters to her grandchildren in faraway places.
Things I liked:
1. Marjorie Hinckley comes across as a regular person. She loved to shop, get her hair done, be with her family, etc. She didn't really like to be called on to speak when she went to conferences with her husband. She used some of the more popular language of the time which was entertaining, ie. "Think it is swell-er-ee that Dorene and Joanne stayed home."
2. You get a glimpse of her sense of humor. She wrote to her daughter, "If you think you are miscast in the Cub Scout program, try this on your violin--Dad has just been made adviser to the Tabernacle Choir." That was my favorite line of the book.
3. She had challenges and was realistic about them but didn't dwell on them. Her year in Denver was hard with two (and then three) small children and no car to transport them places. Her second child had rheumatic fever and she worried about him and wondered if the doctor knew what he was doing. (I guess that child did fine because he is still alive at the age of 70.) Traveling to Asia meant long plane trips and little sleep. She confessed that it was hard to have her husband be gone every weekend as a general authority for the LDS church but didn't dwell on it. She worried about her budget. "The June wedding invitations are pouring in. My budget is going to look sick."
My only complaint was that throughout the latter part of the book, most people besides relatives are referred to by their initials. I found it somewhat distracting. I suspect that this was done for reasons of privacy and/or permission.
I really liked getting to know this woman better who sacrificed so much to share her husband with the church. At the end of the book, they included an essay written by President Hinckley as a tribute to his wife included in a book about her published in 1999. I loved that essay; Pres. Hinckley has such a distinctive style. They had a wonderful marriage and were an example for the whole world. And I hope I can be as supportive of my husband in his church callings as she was of her husband.
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