Doctor CamNC4Me wrote: ↑Sat Feb 18, 2023 5:08 pm
Marcus wrote: ↑Sat Feb 18, 2023 4:59 pm
Well, it took 10 to get a boy. I feel for his ever-pregnant wife. I have a relative who only had 3 girls before he got his son, and it was obvious why they stopped after that.
I think the real object lesson is how Dantzel was so psychologically affected by Mormonism she was having visions about having another kid, a boy. “Her revelation was only exceeded by her faith and her compliance …”. Compliance “… and her willingness to go into the valley of the shadow of death …” to get Russell his son.
The message to Mormon women, of course, is to pop out as many babies as possible, even if it kills you. Hubs will just marry another woman, anyway. -_-
Whatever the case may be, this whole book reads like one long deterministic Mormon fairy tale (for him, at least). Russell M. Nelson had his eye on the ball, that’s for sure.
- Doc
I have a different take on this. Remember that Nelson is the narrator of this little story -- not Dantzel. We only have Nelson's word that Dantzel said what he said she said. Even if we cut Russell a little slack and accept that for once he is telling the truth, what do we have? We are told that in 1957 during the second trimester of her sixth pregnancy, the son appears to Dantzel in a dream-vision. And the son looks "just like" Russell (except for eye color and facial features). Yet when Dantzel comes to full term, who pops out of the womb? Who is that child "coming down, coming down like gentle rain from darkened skies?" Another girl, unexpected and unannounced. For all we know, Dantzel may have thought that she was carrying a boy during those three months, and nested accordingly. Nelson informs us that Dantzel had periodic visits from the boy over the next decade, during which time three more girls slid under the radar screen without even making a visionary courtesy-call before they are born. When carrying them in the womb, how many times did Dantzel say to herself "This is the one, this is finally the promised son?" More importantly, how many times did
Russell think that his boy was finally coming? Russell is remarkably silent on this. The most spiritually attuned man on the planet, who's shared any number of visions in his autobiography, appears to have been downright agnostic on this issue. The heavens are shut to Russell's penetrating gaze. This is all on Dantzel. It's all Dantzel's baby. It's
her vision. It's all
her fault. And despite the fact that his wife was 46 years old and "not in the best of health," Russell is merely the meek observer, accepting uncritically that Dantzel's dream is prophetic, and passively admiring his wife's great faith as the drama unfolds until that blessed day when Dantzel cries "He's the one! He's the one that I have been seeing all these years!"
There are two times, once in 1964 and the next in 1970, when Dantzel was hospitalized. Far away from the madding crowd and prying eyes of Salt Lake City, she is quietly spirited away to spend almost a month alone at the prestigious Pennsylvania Hospital in Philidelphia -- Remember, Russell's book was privately printed and was supposed to have been written for his family and posterity -- So, here the Clan Matriarch, approaching middle age, is suffering from some unknown illness and Russell is silent as the tomb. No explanations. No mention of any concern. No mention of any priesthood blessings. One can only assume that this information is to be dispatched on a need-to-know basis and Russell's posterity just doesn't need to know. Yet, when a geriatric general authority gets sick, how tender Russell becomes! How concerned! How vividly he describes the scene! He devotes entire chapters to some of them. Remember the Paul Dunn episode? Remember when Russell awoke all agitated in the middle of the night? Do you remember how contemptibly he treated his wife? To hear him tell it, Righteous Russell wanted to leave NOW(!) to obey the promptings of the spirit, whereas Dantzel wanted to linger behind to enjoy the garlic and onions and fleshpots of the Broadmoor Hotel -- well nigh implying that she would have turned into a pillar of salt had she lived in another time and place. Well, that incident occurred just two years after this faithful woman gave Russell a son.
No. Nelson's lied about many things and there's no reason to believe that he's not lying here. And we have too many documented examples of Nelson throwing friends and family under the bus to serve his ego. I can see Dantzel having a dream of a little boy -- such things are not uncommon. I can also see Nelson holding it over her head like a bludgeon until she delivered.
