#would hire new arrivals to Utah and they’d work in the house for room and board and he called them ‘the men and girls who work with us’ not

[alliluyevas]

next stop was the Beehive House (on the right) and the Lion House (which isn’t open to the public but is right next door)—Brigham Young’s residences.

I feel very grateful that we got a tour guide who obviously knew a lot about the house and its residents and acknowledged the polygamist elephant in the room, because apparently not all of them do. The Beehive House was BY’s official residence as church president, where he had his office and personal bedroom and hosted visitors. The Lion House was where most of his wives lived—each window was a separate apartment with a wife’s bedroom and one for her children, with communal rooms for cooking and eating. There are 14 separate apartments. I actually did not know that there was one wife that lived in the Beehive House permanently—I knew that some wives lived separately, but apparently Lucy Decker Young (BY’s first plural wife) was the “official hostess” (according to our tour guide, his legal wife Mary Ann was shy and didn’t enjoy hosting) and lived in the Beehive House along with her seven kids. I feel like this gave me a bit more to ponder about with the family dynamic—it must have been a bit odd for Lucy’s children to be the only ones living full time under the same roof as their father, though of course their dozens of half-siblings were right next door.

Brigham’s bedroom

Lucy’s bedroom (the doll on the little chair belonged to her youngest child, Clarissa, born in 1860)

Smaller downstairs sitting room and larger upstairs “long hall”. The carpets are not original but the furniture is, apparently. The children’s bedrooms are not furnished but apparently the girls slept on the second floor, which was heated in the winter but stifling in the summer, and the boys slept in the attic, which was cold in the winter, and on the roof in the summer.

This is most of the Young-era Beehive House (dining room and kitchen are closed rn), but there was a later addition that I’ll discuss in a reblog!

#our tour guide was overall good but she was def Very Mormon in a lot of respects. she was like Brigham Young didn’t have servants but he #would hire new arrivals to Utah and they’d work in the house for room and board and he called them ‘the men and girls who work with us’ not #servants. like personally I for one would prefer being paid no matter what you called me screeeeam #Mormonposting tag #julia in utah 2023