Susa Young Gates

Susa Young Gates appears in Kyle’s book notes as a daughter of Brigham Young and a writer who anchors the “women’s agency, record-keeping, and home literature” thread. In Saints — No Unhallowed Hand, she is the figure “writing before six a.m. with three children underfoot,” held up alongside Eliza R. Snow under the discipline of careful record-keeping (Kyle’s margin: note taking). The counsel she tried to live by — Snow’s charge to “never write a line or a word that is not calculated to help and benefit this kingdom” — Kyle reads “as a personal note to a writer,” connecting it to his own Note-taking / Writing and Stewardship themes.

In Brigham Young — Pioneer Prophet she surfaces as the source cited on Eliza Snow’s role in the temple — Young’s daughter who recorded that “Aunt Eliza… was the high priestess in the temporary House of the Lord,” documenting how Snow and other of Young’s wives gained official ecclesiastical status through temple ritual work.

Context: Susa Young Gates (1856–1933) was a daughter of Brigham Young, a prolific Latter-day Saint author, editor, and genealogist, founder of the Young Woman’s Journal, and a prominent figure in the church’s early women’s organizations.

Where this appears

• Saints — No Unhallowed Hand — the early-morning writer who lived by Eliza Snow’s “home literature” counsel; anchors the women’s-agency / note-taking thread
• Brigham Young — Pioneer Prophet — Young’s daughter, cited on Eliza Snow’s role as “high priestess” in the temple