Missed a day, but have plenty of post fodder

I spent Thursday and Friday on the campus of Utah Valley University at a conference on Mormon outmigration and pursuit of education.

It was a pretty interesting conference, headlined by the work of Wesley and Marian Johnson who interviewed hundreds of Mormons, many of whom left Utah to pursue educations elsewhere.

In the crowd of attendees Thursday, there was a striking older woman who caught my attention. She had on an elegant two-piece yellow dress with a gored skirt, carried a fabulous beaded purse, had a broach pinned to her collar, and had on a lovely straw hat with a silk rose on the brim. Hard to miss.

I saw her again at the reception before the final evening session at BYU Library and went up and complimented her on her amazing style. We introduced ourselves and walked into library auditorium while she told me more about herself. She introduced me to her husband and said "You must sit with us!" and said we'd need to go up front because she'd forgotten her hearing aids. I happily obliged.

Throughout the lecture, she leaned whispered asides to me; she's a costume designer and told me the approximate year a photo was taken based on the subject's facial hair or the color of the woman's dress. She was also related to a couple of the outmigrants being discussed and was long-time friends of the Johnsons and others who had presented on the conference program. It was quite interesting to have her as a seatmate.

When the presenter finished and entertained questions from the audience, my seatmate noted that many of the men who left Utah to get educations or who settled outside of Utah for work often left behind families in Utah or weren't as able to participate in family life because of school or work. (She has heard similar complaints from some women she visit teaches who feel isolated or neglected by their busy husbands--kind of like the old adage "If mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy"). Given the long separations, how could these men or their wives be happy about living arrangements that precluded intimacy and sex?

Well, that pretty much stumped the presenter.

He stammered an answer, indicating that there were divorces and unhappy families under those circumstances. He quickly looked around for another raised hand/question so we wouldn't end with a sex question. (At the Lord's University--gasp!)

After the last question and closing prayer, my seatmate said it was lovely to meet me (likewise!), collected her husband, and breezed away homeward. I giggled with the conference organizers about her question and the difficulty of obtaining posthumous data on historical figures' sex lives.

It was one of the funnest--and funniest--parts of the conference.