First Light: Grandmother’s Rocking Chair

A disillusioned young man travels back in time to experience early Mormon history

First Light is an on-going feature highlighting early Latter-day Saint writing with speculative vibes.

While Nephi Anderson’s “Grandmother’s Rocking Chair” can be categorized as speculative fiction, it is also an attempt to use Mormon history to influence young church members to remain faithful to the church. Published in The Contributor in May 1890, just a few months following his first story’s publication, “Grandmother’s Rocking Chair” appeared early in the Home Literature movement, and just a year after Anderson’s popular A Young Folk’s History of the Church appeared.

Similar to Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, published just a few months before, “Grandmother’s Rocking Chair” suggests that the main character travels to the past by way of accident. While the timing is tight for Anderson to have been inspired by Twain’s novel, it also followed Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward (1888) and William Morris’s A Dream of John Ball (published serially in 1886 and as a book in 1888), both of which use similarly vague devices for sending a character to another point in time.

Despite the relatively short time since the publication of Anderson’s first story, “Grandmother’s Rocking Chair” shows improvement in Anderson’s writing. Ben, who seems to be somewhere between 10 and 16 years old, is acting rudely under the influence of friends. When his family is gone one night, he sits in his grandmother’s rocking chair and travels to November 1838, where he experiences the persecutions of the Mormon expulsion from Missouri. But before he suffers bodily harm, he is miraculously returned to his own time.

The evocative personalization of the historical events of the Missouri War overwhelm the concerns of Ben’s present life—perhaps undermining the plausibility of his initial grumpiness. And in the end, the story’s claim that Ben will feel grateful following his experience in 1838 Missouri doesn’t quite seem plausible, since it suggests that his gratitude comes from feeling the suffering of those who lived 50 years earlier.

-Kent Larsen

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Grandmother’s Rocking Chair

by Nephi Anderson

“What to be so thankful for, I can’t see.”

“Benjamin South, what ails you to-night? I have never seen you in such grumbling spirits before.”

“Well, I have never had so much cause to grumble, as you call it, before, I guess. That’s the reason. You are continually talking of being thankful, about what I don’t understand. If ever person had cause to complain, I have.”

“Why, Ben South, I’m astonished at you! Haven’t you enough to eat, good clothing to wear, a comfortable home, a good position, surrounded by the best of society and—well, I’m perfectly amazed—” and a pair of bright, blue eyes stared straight at the object of her wonder, and the exclamation came to a sudden stop as if in utter bewilderment.

Back in the corner of the room Grandma South sat listening to the animated discussion. She had even dropped her knitting on her lap, and sat looking at the disputants. Grandma was thoroughly aroused sure, as it took more than an ordinary occurrence to stop the click, click, of her needles.

“Well, now, don’t let it take your breath away, Sis; you’ll need it to enumerate all those blessings I enjoy.” Ben’s sarcastic tone had its effect on his sister. It pained her sensitive nature and grandma saw it and came to the rescue.

Ben greatly respected his grandmother. The wrinkled features crowned with snow-white locks combed back smoothly over her forehead, presented a beautiful and sacred appearance. No matter how much trouble Ben caused his mother and sister, when grandma spoke, he was conquered.

Grandma motioned Ben to sit down by her side, which he did, trying to smooth things over with a good-natured laugh.

“So my boy has nothing to be thankful for?” she said.

“Why, grandma, thanks giving is a long way off yet.”

“Is it? I thought it was with us always. Now I want you to tell me your troubles,” and she laid her hand gently on his arm. “Give me an account of your trials and sufferings that are afflicting you so, and I will try to secure a remedy.”

Appealed to thus directly, Ben was thrown into confusion, and he felt that his stumbling excuses were very poor explanations of what he had so grumbled about. Now the truth of the matter was that Ben had no more cause for discontent than the majority of Utah’s boys have. As his sister had said, he lacked for none of the necessaries of life, and enjoyed many of its comforts. The reason for this unsatisfied condition of his mind Ben hardly knew himself, and in the only place where it could be found, he failed to look, namely—within himself. True to human nature, that was the last place he would search. It was simply a case of neglected duty and the accompanying results—a loss of the Spirit of God. Ben had formed the acquaintance of some of the boys of the city who were not of the class that attend Sabbath schools and Mutual Improvement Associations. These companions had led him from his duty and enticed him into many of their ways, and Ben was in danger of becoming as wild and reckless as they. Mingling with these evil influences Ben’s mind became dark at times, and a feeling of doubt would often creep into his reasonings as to the truth of his religion. Of course this was only on occasions. He had not yet expressed himself in this way, but at the rate he was going, it would not take long to reach that point.

Grandma South was in the habit of talking to Ben on the principles of the Gospel; and as he sat by her side this evening she enumerated the blessings that he enjoyed, the greatest of all being the privilege of having the Gospel of Christ in its fullness and purity, and having access to its many blessings. She told him that in her youth this was one of the few advantages that she had enjoyed unmolested; which subject branched, as it usually did, to her early days, spent among the persecutions of Missouri and Illinois. Ben generally listened with a great deal of pleasure to these narratives of his grandmother’s, but this evening he found himself comparing her simple accounts with far different ones he had heard from his companions, and read about in books loaned him by them, which pictured the early events of the Church in very dissimilar colors. Poor fellow, he was not wise enough to decide between them, and so his mind became darker and the scene of greater confusion than ever.

“Come, Ben, are you not going to the party to-night? It is getting late,” called his mother from the doorway of the kitchen.

“No!” answered Ben abruptly.

Sister South (Widow South she was sometimes called, as she had been a widow for a number of years) was a little startled by her son’s answer; not so much by the tone, for, sorry to say, it was often harsh lately, as by the fact that he was not going to the dance, as he seldom missed a ward party.

Gertie’s escort now arrived, and soon departed with a partner. Brother Olsen and his wife called soon after and persuaded Sister South to accompany them to the party. Grandma gathered up her stockings and ball of yarn withdrawing to her own room and to bed.

The house became still, and Ben was left alone. He went to the hearth, and adding more fuel to the fire, drew grandma’s rocking chair up to the blaze, and seated himself comfortably. Now, grandma’s rocking chair was a coveted piece of furniture, and in consequence was seldom unoccupied. If you could have sat in it once, you would soon have found the secret of this. In the seat was the cushion which mother had stuffed with the best duck feathers, and Gertie had adorned with fancy work in the shape of borders and flowers. The high back covered with a neat tidy, made such an easy rest for a tired head. Then you could rock as gently or as vigorously as you pleased and feel perfectly safe. That chair was made to last; that was shown by its stout hickory frame and raw-hide seat and back. Oh, it was a wonderful household article! It had even crossed the plains, strapped on behind the ox cart; so it was a sacred heir-loom in the family.

The fire in the grate blazed up cheerfully and cast a rudy light throughout the room. Ben leaned back in his chair and watched the flames in their wild frolic. How they danced and leaped! now quivering near the glowing coals, and now leaping up into fantastic shapes. Now a fiery arm would reach out as if to grasp some unseen foe, and then playfully jerk it back again. Then it would strive to ascend the great, black chimney’s throat; up and down, back and forth, round and round went the capricious flames till they made Ben’s head fairly swim to look at them. Even grandmother’s rocking chair began to be disturbed. As Ben watched he saw the fire stretch out a flaming arm, and the chair, nothing loath, joined its arm with it, and they actually danced! That old, sensible, stay-at-home chair with its glowing partner waltzed and polkaed, and wheeled and spun round and round. Well, Ben hung on for dear life, frightened nearly out of his wits. At the same time he felt like laughing outright at the strange spectacle. He surely would, had it not been for the feeling that everything was scarcely right in this wild whirl.

At last they stopped, and Ben breathed easier. The old chair had stood the ordeal well. In fact it seemed to have gathered a newness of life in its dizzy flight. As Ben examined it, it certainly did look like a new chair, just out of the workshop. In the excitement the cushion and tidy had disappeared, and all the little draperies and ornaments had been shaken off. But now his attention was drawn to something else. The room itself had undergone a change; it had become smaller; the walls had become rougher as if made of logs; the pictures on the walls had diminished wonderfully in both quantity and quality; everything was as neat and scrupulously clean as ever, but Oh, how bare and cheerless it had become!

In wonder Ben stepped to the door and looked out. It was broad day. An autumn haze hung over the earth. The mountain which greeted him every morning was not there. On his right as far as the eye could reach stretched the rolling prairie. On the left was a dense forest about three miles wide, following the course of a river. Farmhouses dotted the landscape, most of which showed signs of having been recently erected; still they had an air of comfort and thrift about them. Much of the prairie had been brought under cultivation, and had been converted into fruitful fields and gardens. The ring of distant choppers came from the wood; the plowman had left his furrow, and the herd-boy was putting up the bars of the corral.

On the sunny side of the house Ben encountered two children, a boy and a girl. They were playing. Wrapped up in their innocent sport, they were enjoying themselves as only children can, as only age can appreciate. The little girl was dressed in a plain garment made of some home-made material. Woolen stockings and a pair of well worn shoes decked the pattering feet. A blue gingham sunbonnet lay on the grass. A pair of bright blue eyes looked out from under the fine, light-colored hair which the breeze tossed about her forehead. Not many summers she had seen, yet each had left a rosy kiss on her cheeks. The boy, her brother, had on an old straw hat set well back on his head. His unruly locks had stolen out through a rent in the crown and were waving majestically in the air. One suspender held up the pantaloons, a re-make of his father’s, and the bare, brown feet scorned the idea of being imprisoned in shoes.

A number of birds were flying overhead; they seemed to have found a comfortable retreat in the gable of the roof where the cornice should have been. The children were busy making a nest of mud as they had seen the swallows do in the spring. After a failure or two, they succeeded in making one stick to the log. As they stepped back to admire their work, the litttle girl said to her brother, “I think the birds might come and live in it. It will take them such a long time to build one, they’re so little you know.” At this they both retreated to give them a chance, but as no notice was taken of this proffered residence by the birds, the children, determining to have somebody live in it, set out chasing a gay butterfly that was lazily flitting by.

Someone motioned to Ben from the doorway; answering the summons, he saw a woman that he had seen before, but where or when he could not call to mind.

“Well, Benjamin, I see you’ve come. I’m glad of it. I am in need of someone like you just now—oh, don’t stare so—my name is Grandma South. Of course you don’t understand that now, but you will soon enough. Now won’t you go to the clearing and get some wood? then we shall have some supper.”