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Up Against the Church
By April Anderson, Massachusetts
When Christopher Cain's "September Dawn" opens in theaters August 26th, the American public will get a crash history course on the 9/11 massacre of 1857 when 120 pioneers from Arkansas on their way to California were brutally killed by Mormon fundamentalists.
"For the descendants of the victims, the ruthless killing that took place that day is still deeply painful even today almost 150 years later." -April Anderson
For the descendants of the victims, the ruthless killings that took place that day are still very painful, almost 150 years later. Of particular anguish is the fact that their efforts to retrieve their ancestors' belongings, which are in the possession of Mormons, have been largely unmet.
"It's horrible, just horrible," said Patty Norris, a direct descendant of the victims of the Mountain Massacre and president of the Mountain Meadows Descendants Group that represents the descendants. "Besides stealing all of the property and using it, they even stripped clothing off of our families' dead bodies and washed the blood out of it and wore it. We have several accounts of that," Norris said.
While responsibility for any criminal wrongdoing has not been admitted publicly by the Mormon Church, the Church has agreed to meet with the Mountain Meadows Descendants Group in August to dedicate a mass grave site during a memorial service in Utah where the massacre took place. For Norris, access to the gravesite is only the beginning.
"At this time we have nothing left of those people," Norris said. "Even documents were stolen from the wagon train. And we would love to know just little things, just day-to-day things that they went through. You know the songs they sang on Sunday mornings at the service, just little things that would mean so much to us and would give us so much comfort."
The Mountain Meadows Group hopes to build a commemorative museum to those who were killed. The recovery of the items in question which, according to Norris have been passed down from generation to generation to the descendants of the perpetrators of the atrocity has complicated matters. The Mormon Church has not been so helpful, claiming "they can't do anything to help us find the property," Norris said.
For Norris' children and grandchildren, the event is already shaping their heritage. Even Norris' eldest grandchild, seven-year-old Cody is eager to hear about the event. "We're just telling him that our family left from here in April in wagons pulled by horses or oxen, and that they were going to California, and that they were on the trail five months," Norris said. "As time goes on and the grandchildren get older, we will tell them more of the story and take them to the site." Norris wants to ensure that her grandchildren always remember and that "they will have the story to pass on to their children."
