We often visualize the 19th-century Latter-day Saint missionary as a solitary hero braving the world to preach the gospel, but we rarely consider the staggering domestic cost exacted from the wives they left behind. While early Church leaders framed this separation as a holy sacrifice, the lived reality for pioneer women was one of crushing physical labor, the terror of childhood illness, and, sometimes, profound social isolation. A fascinating new interview over at the Latter-day Saint history blog, From the Desk, features historians Jennifer Lund and Elizabeth Oberdick Anderson, who discuss the remarkably rare and unfiltered letters of Sarah “Sanie” Peterson Lund to her missionary husband (and future First Presidency counselor), Anthon H. Lund. The interview strips away the romanticized myths of cheerful pioneer sacrifice, revealing a woman who hated having to be “man and woman both” and whose “saucy” pen underlines the reasons for the later shift in the Church toward calling young, unmarried missionaries.
The Myth of the Cheerful Sacrifice
In the 1850s and beyond, millennial fervor drove Church leaders to call astounding numbers of married men on extended missions. The cultural expectation was that wives would view this as a holy act of religious devotion. However, the interview notes that Sanie Lund felt no such celestial connection in the moment.
She did not sugarcoat her experience or put on a brave face to protect her husband. Instead, she was brutally honest about the resentment and exhaustion she felt. While nursing sick children and trying to secure winter supplies alone, she wrote to Anthon:
“I do hate this being man and woman both. it does not agree with me. I dont like it but will have to like it or not another year… you say you are happy to be there because it is your duty to be there. well I supose your duty is a pleasant one it seems to be my duty to wait on sick children but I cant say I am happy to do so… I often wonder how President Lund would feel to [be] home nursing sick children one week out and another in and his wife in Denmark enjoying herself.”
The Isolation of the Home Front
Sanie’s letters vividly capture the extreme isolation of a missionary wife. Without antibiotics, 19th-century childhood illnesses were often a death sentence, or at least had little available to offer relief from symptoms. Sanie walked the floors for days on end without sleep, terrified that one of her children would die while she was solely responsible for their care.
Furthermore, simply attending church became an overwhelming chore. Attempting to manage a brood of rambunctious boys by herself in the pews was so exhausting that she often gave up and simply stayed home. Add to this the ever-present anxiety—common among missionary wives of the era—that her husband might return from Europe with a second, plural wife, and it becomes clear why Sanie’s letters were often “saucy.”
A Legacy Accidentally Preserved
One of the great historical ironies of this collection is that Sanie desperately wanted her letters destroyed. Deeply self-conscious about her education, she instructed Anthon: “burn this up you will not get any this week so you burn it for me please… do not let any one get a glimpse of the letters your ignorant Sanie writes.”
Thankfully, Anthon ignored her request and bound the letters into a book. His decision to preserve her voice had long-lasting ramifications for the entire Church.
By the 1890s, when Anthon Lund was serving as a mission president, the Church began openly debating whether to shift the missionary force from older, married men to young, unmarried elders. Most mission presidents preferred married men for their maturity, including Anthon Lund. He was, however, the main leader interviewed to note the hardships on the families of married missionaries left at home. Remembering Sanie’s letters, he pointed out that the wives left at home bore the “harder mission.”
For more on how Sanie Lund‘s budding feminist attitudes challenged the patriarchal confines of her era, the heartbreaking diary entries Anthon kept when tragedy later struck their family, and the broader economic power wielded by pioneer women, head on over to the Latter-day Saint history blog, From the Desk, to read the full interview.
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