Editing Ina Coolbrith (section)

==Early life==
[[File:Ina Coolbrith teens.jpg|thumb|left|upright|alt=A soft photographic portrait of a girl approximately 11 years old, shown from the neck up, wearing a simple dark garment with no collar, her hair parted in the middle and falling straight to frame her cheeks, turning to ringlets at her neck and shoulders, the head tilted slightly to the right, the eyes looking directly forward. The image shows loss of detail from wear.|Coolbrith in her youth]]
Ina Coolbrith was born '''Josephine Donna Smith''' in [[Nauvoo, Illinois]], the last of three daughters of Agnes Moulton Coolbrith and [[Don Carlos Smith]], brother to [[Joseph Smith]], the founder of [[Mormonism]].<ref name=Egli215>Egli, 1997, p. 215.</ref> Coolbrith's father died of [[Malaria|malarial fever]] four months after her birth,<ref name=Herny20>Herny, 2008, p. 20.</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=The Bohemians: Mark Twain and the San Francisco Writers Who Reinvented American Literature|last=Tarnoff|first=Benjamin|publisher=Penguin Books|year=2014|pages=32–36}}</ref> and a sister died one month after that;<ref name=Egli215/> Coolbrith's mother then married Joseph Smith, in 1842, becoming his [[List of Joseph Smith's wives|sixth or seventh wife]]. No children came of the union—Agnes felt neglected in her unfruitful [[Levirate marriage]], the only such marriage of Smith. In June 1844, Smith was killed at the hands of an anti-Mormon 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, the young Ina read from a book of Shakespeare's works and from a collection of Byron's poems. As a ten-year-old girl, Ina entered California in front of the wagon train with the famous African-American scout [[James 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'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 general public learned of her origin.<ref name=Redman/> Coolbrith did keep in touch with her Smith relations, however, including a lifelong correspondence with her first cousin [[Joseph F. Smith]] to whom and for whom she frequently expressed her love and regard.<ref name="Hales">"The Poet and the Apostle: The Correspondence of Ina Coolbrith and Joseph F. Smith" by Scott Hales. [[Mormon History Association]]. June 10, 2016</ref>

Coolbrith, sometimes called "Josephina" or just "Ina", wrote poems beginning at age 11,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf4m3nb0qt/ |title=Guide to the Ina Donna Coolbrith Collection |work=[[The Bancroft Library]] |publisher=Online Archive of California |access-date=February 19, 2010}}</ref> first publishing "My Ideal Home" in a newspaper in 1856, writing as Ina Donna Coolbrith.<ref name=NewAnthology/> 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 (dance)|ball]] with [[Pío Pico]], the last Mexican governor of California.<ref name=Taylor>{{cite journal|last=Taylor |first=Marian |date=November 1915 |title=Congress of Authors and Journalists at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition |journal=Overland Monthly |volume=LXVI |issue=5 |pages=439–447 |url=https://archive.org/stream/overlandmonthly2665sanfrich#page/446/mode/1up }}</ref> 

In April 1858, at the age of 17, Coolbrith married Robert Bruce Carsley, an [[iron worker]] and part-time actor. However, she experienced abuse at his hands,<ref name=NewAnthology/> and suffered further emotional pain 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.<ref name=Egli215/> Carsley accused Coolbrith of infidelity,<ref name=Herny22/> and she divorced him in a sensational public trial; the dissolution was finalized on December 30, 1861.<ref name=Egli215/> 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 that she had ever been a mother.<ref name=Egli215/> 

In 1862, Coolbrith moved with her mother, stepfather and twin half-brothers to San Francisco to ward off depression. She also changed her name from Josephine Donna Carsley to Ina Coolbrith.<ref name=Egli215/><ref name=":0" /> In San Francisco she found employment as an English teacher.<ref name=":0" />