FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                                        June 20, 2007

NORTHWESTERN PROFESSOR WINS LITERARY PRIZE

            The dramatic and intriguing life story of a frontier woman has brought the Evans Biography Award to Dr. Sandra Petree, associate professor of English at Northwestern Oklahoma State University.

            The book, “Recollections of Past Days: The Autobiography of Patience Loader Rozsa Archer,” received the award from the Mountain West Center for Regional Studies at Utah State University. It was selected as the winner from a field of 15 nominees and was reviewed by a panel of eight distinguished jurists. The award, which carries a cash prize of $10,000, will be presented to Petree Sept. 28 in Logan, Utah.

Dr. Sandra Petree, associate professor of English at Northwestern Oklahoma State University,  poses with a photo of Patience Loader Rozsa Archer--the subject of Petree’s award-winning book—and some of her family members. Archer is seated at the left.

            Petree edited a manuscript written by Archer (1827-1921) later in her life as part of a project to collect the life stories of pioneer Mormon women. She researched, verified and annotated the work.

            The book was praised by the Evans jurors, noting in the review that it “is a delectable study, rich in detail and exquisitely edited.”

            “The notes, alone…are a stunning scholarly accompaniment to the autobiographical text,” one juror wrote.

            Another said, “This [is] a book to be picked up time and again, rather than relegated to some cherished yet marginal ‘Mormon women biography shelf,’ simply because Patience comes across as a living and vivid figure.”

                 Patience Loader Rozsa Archer was born an Englishwoman in 1827 and joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as an adult, along with the other members of her family. She, five siblings and her parents sailed for the United States in December 1855, arriving in New York in February 1856.

Later that year, the family traveled by train to Iowa, then joined the Martin Handcart Company to Salt Lake City. The company is famous for being caught by early snows in Wyoming. Although the exact number of deaths is disputed, the group sustained “heavy losses,” including Archer’s father, before they were rescued by a party sent from Utah by Brigham Young.

In 1857, the U.S. Army sent troops to Utah to quell the “Mormon War” and Archer defied family (on both sides), church preference and military wishes when she married one of the soldiers and signed on as an army laundress so she could live at the military post. Petree said Archer’s husband John actually did the laundry. When the Civil War began, she followed him back east and ran a boarding house in Washington, D.C.

He deserted during the latter stages of the war, as did many others. Punishment was minimal and he later spent a year at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, working for the military. The family then went back to Utah. He died soon after, leaving Archer with three sons and a daughter to rear. She supported the family by cooking in the mining camps.

She later remarried, but never believed in the ideal of plural marriage. Petree said Archer didn’t speak against the practice, just didn’t participate.

“She was everything British in her later years,” Petree said. “She was almost a legend in her own time.”

Archer wrote her life story in the 1870s after Eliza R. Snow of the Mormon Relief Society issued a plea to pioneering Mormon women to write autobiographies so their stories could be preserved.

For an unknown reason, Archer stopped writing in the middle of recounting a trip down the mountain from a mining camp, although she lived to be 93, dying in 1921. Petree was working from a 1920s-era typescript of the autobiography, since the location of the original manuscript was unknown.

She said her biggest coup occurred when a descendent located the original manuscript stored in a cardboard box in the woman’s garage in Arizona. She had not known it was there until Petree had asked family members to search for it.

Altogether, Petree spent five years working on the book, researching every aspect of Archer’s life—Victorian England, mining camps, settlement of the American West, the Mormon War, the Civil War and many other events and places. She traveled to England, Wyoming, Nebraska, Missouri, Washington, D.C. and “all over Utah.” She also met many members of Archer’s family.

“It was such fun,” Petree said. “It also was a remarkable experience—almost a metaphysical experience. Many times it seemed like she was there, closer than the real people around me.”

The Evans Biography Award is designed to encourage fine writing about the people who have helped shape the growth and character of an important part of America. Books must fit at least one of the following criteria:

1.    A biography, autobiography or edited memoir of someone who lived a significant portion of his or her life in what might be termed “Mormon Country,” that region historically influenced by Mormon institutions and social practices.

2.    A history in which the biographical material concerning the principals is extensive and significant. Above geographical limits apply.

3.    A collection of biographical portraits in which the individuals fit a unifying theme and understanding. Above geographical limits apply.

4.    A biography or history with significant biographical content dealing with 19th century

Mormon history, including the Palmyra, Kirtland, Nauvoo and exodus periods.

“Recollections of Past Days” is the eighth volume published by Utah State University Press in the Frontier Women series edited by Maureen Ursenbach Beecher.

            Beecher asked Petree to edit Archer’s memoirs because she was familiar with the latter’s doctoral dissertation, “The Power of the Word: Self-Inscription in the Journals of Nineteenth-Century Mormon Women.”

            In the foreword to the book, Beecher calls Petree’s dissertation “superb.”

            “Recollections of Past Days: The Autobiography of Patience Loader Rozsa Archer” is available at the J.W. Martin Library on Northwestern’s Alva campus.

-NW-