Divorce, Shaker Style

I recently finished reading The Great Divorce : A Nineteenth-Century Mother's Extraordinary Fight against Her Husband, the Shakers, and Her Times by Ilyon Woo and it made me more curious about the life of Nancy Runyon Ryan.  

Nancy, at age 20, had married Thomas Ryan in 1807. Within a few years the majority of her family had joined the Society at Pleasant Hill and Nancy and Thomas were busy with twin boys Lawson and Wesley, born in 1808. An interview conducted in 1835 reveals what happened next.

"Mr. Crouch had a sister that married a Ryan. That sister's son, living in Mercer [County, Kentucky] married into a family of Runyons. Runyons lived on this side of the Kentucky River, between there and Lexington. The whole family joined the Shakers, and younger Ryan's wife thought she must go too. She left twins lying in the cradle and went. This brought Ryan into conflict with one, whom he beats himself severely. Another one, that came to his house, he beat nearly to death. The man thought to go to the law but the magistrate advised him to keep away and let Ryan alone."

The interview certainly paints Nancy as a woman who has abandoned her babies but the Shaker journals help explain. They tell us that Nancy became a Believer in 1810, so Thomas' run-in with the brethren must have happened in 1810 when the twins were still quite young. Perhaps they had visited Thomas to proselytize, hoping to persuade him to try the Shaker way of life.  The journals also tell us it was another five years before Nancy was able to live among the faithful at Pleasant Hill. 

Having given birth to a daughter (Nancy Jr., born in 1812) during those years we can speculate that she soon returned to Thomas' household. Was she trying to convince her husband to join with her? Did the Church leadership offer Nancy help or advice based on similar experiences in other communities? Did Thomas die during this time? We know only that she arrived in the Spring of 1815, and that her children joined her there in May of that year. Who brought the children? 

We will likely never know the specifics but, like the protagonist in The Great Divorce, it seems Thomas was vehemently opposed to the idea of joining a celibate commune. 

While Nancy's saga was taking place in Kentucky, Mother Lucy Wright was consulting with the Elders at the community of Watervliet outside Albany. There, James Chapman had left his family to become a Believer. He soon returned home for his children against his wife's wishes. Eunice Chapman, had no legal rights to their children but was not going to give them up without a fight. This is the subject of The Great Divorce. In the NPR clip below, the author explains how women of this period, upon marriage, became "civilly dead." 

At Pleasant Hill, Nancy Runyon Ryan lived to age 65 and died a Believer. Her three children were raised among the Shakers, presumably with no further objection from their father. Each left Pleasant Hill separately while in their teens. 

I'll leave it for you to discover whether James Champman and his children remain Shakers or "go to the world."

Listen to a 6-minute NPR interview with the author here: