The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 74, July 1970 - April, 1971 Page: 566

Southwestern Historical Quarterly

describe the problems of the family members who remained at home.
The book is soundly edited and beautifully designed. Professor
Bitton, who discovered the materials and did much of the research
while a member of the Department of History at the University of
Texas, has furnished ample explanatory footnotes, and provides ref-
erences to primary and secondary works which treat the same topics
as are related in the reminiscences and letters. The book is a worthy
contribution to Texas, Civil War, and Mormon history.
Utah State University LEONARD ARRINGTON
The Life and Times of Joseph Fish, Mormon Pioneer. By Joseph Fish.
Edited by John H. Krenkel. (Danville, Ill.: The Interstate Print-
ers & Publishers, Inc., 1970. Pp. 543. Illustrations, index. $7.00.)
Many Mormons kept diaries, but few recorded a greater variety of
experiences than Joseph Fish. During his long life, Fish described in
considerable detail how he earned his livelihood as a farmer, book-
keeper, teacher, lawyer, surveyor, freighter, clerk, mercantile-super-
intendent, soldier, and saw and grist mill operator. He also faithfully
reported service rendered to the Church as an elders' quorum pres-
ident, home missionary, high councilman, and ward, stake, and united
order clerk. In addition, he analyzed the frustrations and problems
of having four wives and twenty children under the "celestial law of
plural marriage." Fish also described the encounters he had while
serving in public office, as clerk and recorder, election clerk, justice
of the peace, and an Arizona territorial legislator. Nor did he neglect
recording his spare-time activities. He frequently acted in drama pro-
ductions and attended social functions. Late in life he became en-
grossed in historical research, composing some 3,ooo pages of manu-
script, which included "The Pioneers of the Rocky Mountains" and
a "History of Arizona."
The fact that Krenkel used Fish's most colorful descriptions makes
this edited version of Fish's journal a useful publication, despite the fact
that about one-third of the journal has been omitted. Furthermore,
Krenkel's incorporation of Fish's reactions to many significant aspects
of Mormon history makes the book especially useful to the scholar.
Krenkel included the author's bitter feelings regarding the Gentile,
persecution of the Saints in Illinois, Utah, and Arizona, and retained
his emotional responses to the arrival of Johnston's army and to the.

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