Ina Coolbrith - Early Life

Early Life

Ina Coolbrith was born Josephine Anna Smith in Nauvoo, Illinois, the last of three daughters of Agnes Moulton Coolbrith and Don Carlos Smith, brother to Mormon Prophet Joseph Smith, Jr. Coolbrith's father died of malarial fever four months after her birth, and a sister died one month after that; Coolbrith's mother then married Joseph Smith, Jr., in 1842, becoming his sixth or seventh wife, depending on whether Fanny Alger is counted as a wife or as a lover. No children came of the union—Agnes felt neglected in her unfruitful Levirate marriage, the only such marriage of Smith. Over the next two years, Smith married some 20 to 30 more wives, angering non-Mormons in the area. In June 1844, Smith was killed at the hands of an anti-Mormon, anti-polygamist mob. Losing her faith and fearful of her life, Coolbrith's mother left the Latter-day Saint community and moved to Saint Louis, Missouri, where she married a printer and lawyer named William Pickett. Twin sons were born to the couple, and in 1851 Pickett traveled overland with his new family to California in a wagon train. On the long trek, Coolbrith read from a book of Shakespeare's works and from a collection of Byron's poems. As a ten-year-old girl, Coolbrith entered California in front of the wagon train with the famous African-American scout Jim Beckwourth, riding with him on his horse, through what would later be named Beckwourth Pass. The family settled in Los Angeles, California, and Pickett established a law practice.

To avoid identification with her former family or with Mormonism, Ina Coolbrith's mother reverted to using her maiden name, Coolbrith. The family resolved not to speak of their Mormon past, and it was only after Ina Coolbrith's death that the public learned of her origin.

Coolbrith, sometimes called "Josephina" or just "Ina", wrote poems beginning at age 11, first publishing "My Ideal Home" in a newspaper in 1856, writing as Ina Donna Coolbrith. Her work appeared in the Poetry Corner of the Los Angeles Star, and in the California Home Journal. As she grew into young womanhood, Coolbrith was renowned for her beauty; she was selected to open a ball with Pío Pico, the last Mexican governor of California. In April 1858 at the age of 17, she married Robert Carsley, an iron-worker and part-time actor, but she suffered abuse at his hands, and further emotional pain came from the death of the couple's infant son. An altercation between Pickett and Carsley resulted in a bullet mutilating Carsley's hand, requiring amputation. Carsley accused Coolbrith of infidelity, and she divorced him in a sensational public trial; the dissolution was final on December, 30 1861. Her later poem, "The Mother's Grief", was a eulogy to her lost son, but she never publicly explained its meaning—it was only upon Coolbrith's death that her literary friends discovered she had ever been a mother. In 1862, Coolbrith moved with her mother, stepfather and twin half-brothers to San Francisco to ward off depression, and changed her name from Josephine Donna Carsley to Ina Coolbrith.