Writing PortfolioGood City Craft SchoolBYU, Susa Young Gates, George H BrimhallComment

Courage in the Face of Convention

Writing PortfolioGood City Craft SchoolBYU, Susa Young Gates, George H BrimhallComment
Courage in the Face of Convention

This essay won a $500 Honorable Mention in the George H Brimhall Memorial Essay contest at BYU in 2016.

“I’m going to drop out of BYU.”

As the words came out of my mouth, I could hardly believe them. I had been ranked #2 at my high school graduation and I was attending BYU with a full-tuition scholarship from a prestigious organization. I had also recently been accepted into BYU’s very competitive Industrial Design program and had all the hopes and expectations of parents, grandparents, friends and teachers riding on me… and I was going to drop out? Yet, as a wave of peace washed over me, I knew that was exactly what the Lord wanted me to do.

In 1872, at the age of 21, Susa Young Gates divorced her alcoholic first husband and made a new start at Brigham Young Academy, something of a radical move for her day. Had she had not made that choice, however, she may have spent the rest of her life seated with an ill-fitted companion who would have restricted her ability to fulfill the Lord’s mission for her life, a consequence a bit like what sticking with an ill-fitting degree would have been for me. Instead, Susa stepped forward with courage onto an unconventional path.

When she arrived at BYA in 1878, only three years after its official establishment, Susa found it somewhat lacking. Rather than allowing circumstance to define her experience, she took matters into her own hands, founding the music program and conducting a choir while attending as a student. She created the means for obtaining the education she desired. This courage to pioneer the way when pre-paved roads were lacking is a defining characteristic of Susa’s life, and inspires my own educational path.

My passion is for woodworking, but since BYU doesn’t currently offer a Furniture Design degree and classes dealing with this subject are limited, I, like Susa, decided to take my education into my own hands. Thus, after wrapping up the semester at BYU, I accepted my first full-time job as a builder at a custom door manufacturing company. My plan was to learn how to run a custom-order business from the inside out. However, it was with a little trepidation that I arrived on my first day realizing that I would be a lightweight, twenty-year-old girl—the only girl—working in a shop full of muscular, middle-aged men. I feared my femininity would preclude me from the experiences I needed to further my self-directed education. However, my determination to find my place motivated me to work hard and prove myself capable of equaling or bettering any male member of the shop. By the time I left the company to have my son, I had become a noted employee, outbuilding in speed and technical skill many of the veteran builders.

Susa found her place in a man's world in an exemplary way. She was an active participant in the women’s suffrage movement and an outspoken proponent of other women’s issues. She was offered the post of secretary to the National Council of Women by Susan B. Anthony and was a representative at many women’s congresses across the world. As a gifted stenographer, she also found herself a participant in many of the church’s important meetings and councils, by design as a secretary. However, her participation in these meetings led her to report: “I was once jokingly referred to by one of the Church authorities as the Thirteenth Apostle. He told me that if he could just [put] breeches [on] me, he would put me in the quorum.” Susa’s courage to “say what needed to be said,” to question the status quo and seek her own path served men and women worldwide as her unique talents were utilized to the fullest.

After finishing my education at the door shop, I discovered that there were more things that I needed to learn here at the Lord’s university, and so I am back again. It took courage to leave my studies when I thought I was stepping away from the academic world forever, but it has taken even more courage to return to it now that I’m a mother. New expectations and new responsibilities have followed me here, as well as a new understanding of my greater purpose. I am beginning to believe that the Lord’s path is rarely a well-traveled one, but with Susa Young Gates’ example, I have the courage to forge onward along whatever route, even if it’s an unconventional one.

 

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