Review: Mary Ella Engel. Praying with One Eye Open: Mormons and Murder in Nineteenth-Century Appalachian Georgia. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2019.

Authors

Jonathan David Hepworth

Keywords

Joseph Standing, Rudger Clawson, Mary Ella Engel, missionary, Georgia

Abstract

Tucked away on a mountainous road north of Atlanta is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ only historic property in the state of Georgia: the reputed field where missionary Joseph Standing was shot and killed. Standing’s companion (and later president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles) Rudger Clawson witnessed the murder, and narrowly escaped with his life. The 1879 incident has been the subject of numerous articles and book chapters, including one in a children’s book and a cameo in the second volume of Saints, the new multivolume history of the Latter-day Saints, but books on the murder are rare. Historian Mary Ella Engel’s Praying with One Eye Open is the first monograph dedicated to Standing’s killing since a polemic account written in 1886. Engel also adopts a quick pace—the body of the book tops out at 154 pages, and she develops suspense throughout. Even those familiar with Standing’s story will be engaged by Engel’s insights and writing.

BYU ScholarsArchive Citation

Hepworth, Jonathan David (2022) "Review: Mary Ella Engel. Praying with One Eye Open: Mormons and Murder in Nineteenth-Century Appalachian Georgia. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2019.," Mormon Studies Review: Vol. 9: No. 1, Article 26.
Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/msr2/vol9/iss1/26