Three examples:
Page 42 - Endnote 141
The first week of April 1837, Wilford joined with other men in the temple to
be instructed and to prepare for the ordinances of washing and anointing. On April 3 and 4, just as Joseph
Smith had directed those who had participated in the
ordinances one year earlier, these men followed the Old Testament pattern of cleansing their bodies with water
and perfuming themselves, prior to the ceremonial anointings and blessings.141
141 Wilford
Woodruff’s Journal, 1:128-29, April 3, 1837. On
this occasion, the Elders first washed “from head to foot” with soap and water,
second with “clear water,” and then with “perfumed spirits.” (See also Doctrine
and Covenants 89:7 for reference to practice.) On other occasions only water
was used for washing and perfumed oil was used for anointing.
Page 94 - Endnote 345
At least ten women in Nauvoo chose to be sealed to Joseph
Smith spiritually (for eternity, not mortality) in order to be connected to his
priesthood lineage, yet remained physically with their husbands.345 Some of these women were married to men who
supported the Church but were not baptized members. Others were married to men
who were members of the Church but were not Church leaders. One was the wife of
an apostle. Joseph’s assurance to these women was that being sealed to him and
adopted into his
priesthood line would ensure their own exaltation and benefit
their husbands and children as well. After Joseph Smith’s death four more women
chose to be sealed to their husbands for mortality only and to Joseph for
eternity. (One was sealed to him before his death and resealed posthumously.)
345 Several of the women sealed to Joseph Smith for eternity only were married to men who did
not join the Church: 1) Ruth Vose Sayers, 2) Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner, and perhaps 3) Sarah Kingsley Howe
Cleveland. Prescindia
Lathrop Huntington Buell’s husband had been baptized but was no longer
participating in the Church,
and Sylvia Sessions Lyon’s husband was excommunicated from the Church from 1842
to 1846. Four women had husbands who were faithful members of the Church: 1) Patty Bartlett Sessions, 2) Marinda Nancy Johnson Hyde, 3) Elvira Annie Cowles Holmes, and 4) Zina Diantha Huntington
Jacobs. Mary,
Prescindia, and Zina were resealed to Joseph Smith for eternity and to Brigham
Young for mortality; Sylvia was resealed to Joseph for eternity and to Heber C.
Kimball for mortality; and Elvira was resealed to Joseph for eternity and her
husband Jonathan for mortality in the Nauvoo Temple in 1846 (see infra endnote
391). Patty was resealed to Joseph Smith for time and eternity in 1867.
Page 106 - Endnote 391
Five women were sealed to Joseph Smith posthumously
for eternity when they were sealed to their husbands for mortality in the
Nauvoo Temple.391 However, there is only one recorded posthumous
priesthood adoption of a man to
Joseph Smith in Nauvoo. John M. Bernhisel wrote that on February 3, 1846,
he was sealed to
Joseph Smith “to become his son by the law of adoption and to
become a legal heir to all the blessings bestowed upon Joseph Smith pertaining
to exaltations.”392 The fact that John was sealed by adoption only to
Joseph, not to Joseph and Emma as a couple,
may explain the reason this was a singular occurrence. Emma Smith did not
participate in the temple ordinances after her husband’s death.393
391The five married women who chose to be sealed
to Joseph Smith (by proxy) for eternity and their husbands for mortality in the
Nauvoo Temple were: Jane Tibbetts Luddington, Phoebe Watrous Woodworth,
Cordelia Calista Morley Cox, Elvira Anne Cowles Holmes, and Lucinda Pendleton
Harris. See Anderson and Bergera, eds., The Nauvoo Endowment Companies 1845–1846, 423, 464, 505, 581.