Presented to: William G. Hartley
For: My Best for the Kingdom: John Lowe Butler, A Mormon Frontiersman
My Best for the Kingdom, William G. Hartley's recent biography of Mormon convert John Lowe Butler (1808-1860), has all the trappings of historical treatise: forty-nine pages of notes, an index, and over five hundred items of bibliography. But it differs from the historical norm in its text: with verve and dash, Hartley bodies forth one of Mormonism's ordinary men living an extraordinary life. His lively, almost colloquial style, matching the never-quiet life of an unexceptional pioneer, makes us participants in the everyday pioneer Mormon experience. For this he deserves a prize in life writing.
Writing a life is an impossibility comprised half of documentary evidence, half of intuition, and half of devil-may-care daring with words. Quoting generously from a ninety-nine page handwritten autobiography, Hartley brings his subject into our world, lets us know him, his fears, hopes, disappointments, failings, and faith. When near the end of his short life Butler proclaims "I have done my best to help roll forth the Kingdom of God," we understand what that meant, and mourn his untimely death. Hartley has made him our neighbor, friend, brother. We applaud his achievement.