In This Issue

Engagement photograph, 1910, of Albertus Mulder, age twenty, and Foekje (Fannie), Visser, age nineteen, in Haarlem, Holland. Courtesy of William Mulder.

As Utah approaches the sesquicentennial of pioneer settlement, it is easy to conjure images of hardships and heroism along the overland trail and to neatly conceptualize that great drama as having happened a long time ago Accordingly, one's sense of history will likely be exercised upo n reading Foekje Mulder's account of her 1920 immigration, presented as the first selection in this issue, and realizing that even in the moder n age of ocean liners and automobiles the task of immigrating was never easy. Worries over money, health, language, and employment plagued Foekje and others like her, and the sadness occasioned by leaving loved ones and familiar homes far behind was no more easily abated in the twentieth century than in the nineteenth Yet there are moments of triumph as well, and the reader of this diary will undoubtedly come to love the determined and sensitive Foekje, pictured here with her husband Albertus, and to be touched by the historical experience in a profoundly personal way.

Melting pot dynamics affected not just the newcomers but the native people as well When, in the 1950s, the federal government sought political termination for the Utes, the explosive question of tribal membership erupted into acrimonious debate. Complicated by a very lucrative judicial award won by the tribe and some long-standing intratribal antagonisms, the issue had enormous implications for both the blooded Utes and those of mixed ancestry A dispassionate analysis of that controversy, much needed and long overdue, is offered in the second article.

As we draw the curtain on a most memorable centennial year, it is appropriate that we return to the era of statehood for our final two articles The first of these is a short biography of the talented singer, Emma Lucy Gates Bowen. A granddaughter of Brigham Young, she represents the advancement of Utah culture beyond the pioneer period to the moder n opera halls of Berlin, New York, Boston, and Chicago At the very time the young starlet was discovering and developing her musical ability, Utah was also reaching political maturity and knocking at the door of statehood. One of the leading figures in that quest, Charles W. Penrose, is the subject of the last article As the author reminds us, if a Utah statehood hall of fame were to be established, Penrose would be among its first dozen inductees This illuminating study leaves no doubt as to why.