Description

"In the 1850s, Jean Rio, a deeply spiritual widow, was moved by the promises of Mormon missionaries and set out from England for Utah. Traveling across the Atlantic by steamer, up the Mississippi by riverboat, and westward by wagon, Rio kept a detailed diary of her extraordinary journey.

"In Faith and Betrayal, Sally Denton, an award-winning journalist and Rio's great-great-granddaughter, uses the long-lost diary to recreate Rio's experience. While Rio marvels at the great natural beauty of Utah, her enthusiasm for her new life turns to disillusionment over Mormon polygamy and violence against nonbelievers, as well as the harshness of frontier life. She sets out for California, where she finds a new religion and the freedom she longed for. Unusually intimate and full of vivid detail, this is an absorbing story of a quintessential American pioneer." (From back cover.)

Table of Contents

Jean Rio's Family Tree
Preface: An Extraordinary Woman of Ordinary Virtues

1. "Worth a Long Walk to See"
2. A Wine Cask on the Channel
3. These Latter Days
4. Committed to the Deep
5. Snags and Sawyers
6. The Crossing
7. A Life of Toil
8. Through the Veil
9. One Household of Faith

Epilogue: Peace at Last
Notes
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Index