Dear Ellen

by S. George Ellsworth

Here are letters from the 1850s written by two girls named Ellen: Ellen Curtis Spencer (1832-96), who married Hiram B. Clawson of Salt Lake City, Utah Territory, and Ellen Sophronia Pratt (1832-95), who married William McGary of San Bernardino, California. Both were intelligent and talented daughters of prominent Mormons of their day. When the correspondence opens, the girls are twenty-four years old and have not seen one another for six years. They have been intimates since their days at Nauvoo, an early Mormon gathering place on the Mississippi River. These letters vividly open up two years of their lifelong association and reveal interesting aspects of Mormon affairs in Salt Lake City and San Bernardino during the eventful years of 1856 and 1857.