Parents
|
Relationship
|
Marriage/sealing
|
Divorce
|
Prior marriage
|
Subsequent marriage
|
|
Phebe Whittemore Carter
Mar 8, 1807-Nov 10, 1885
|
Ezra Carter
Sarah Fabyan
|
Wilford met Phebe in Kirtland, Ohio
|
Married April 13, 1837 in Kirtland, OH/Sealed Nov
11, 1843 in Nauvoo, IL
|
N/A
|
N/A
|
N/A
|
Mary Ann Jackson
Feb 18, 1818-Oct 25, 1894
|
William Jackson
Elizabeth Lloyd
|
Woodruffs met Mary Ann on their mission in England
|
Aug 2, 1846 in Cutler’s Park, Nebraska then
Resealed Dec 1878?
|
May 11, 1848
|
N/A
|
David J. Ross
Dec 13, 1857
|
Sarah Elinor Brown
Aug 22, 1827-Dec 25, 1915
|
Charles Brown
Mary Arey
|
Wilford met the Browns on his mission in Maine
|
Aug 2, 1846 in Cutler’s Park, Nebraska
|
Aug 29, 1846
|
N/A
|
Lisbon Lamb
Feb 15, 1849
|
Mary Caroline Barton
Jan 12, 1829-Aug 10, 1910
|
William Allen Barton
Mary Ann Swain
|
None known
|
Aug 2, 1846 in Cutler’s Park, Nebraska
|
Aug 29, 1846
|
N/A
|
Erastus Curtis
Feb 4, 1848
|
Mary Meek Giles
Sept 6, 1802-Oct 3, 1852
|
Samuel Giles
Elizabeth Reith
|
Woodruffs met Mary on their mission in Massachusetts?
|
Mar 26, 1852 in Woodruff’s home in Salt Lake City, Utah
|
N/A
|
Nathan Webster
|
N/A
|
Clarissa Henrietta Hardy
Nov 20, 1834-Sep 3, 1903
|
Leonard W. Hardy
Elizabeth Harriman Nichols
|
Woodruffs served with Leonard on their mission in
England 1844-45
|
Apr 20, 1852 in Brigham Young’s East Office in
Salt Lake City, Utah
|
June 4, 1853
|
N/A
|
Alonzo H. Russell
Dec 11, 1853
Thomas W. Winter
Feb 11, 1867
|
Sarah Brown
Jan 1, 1834-May 9, 1909
|
Harry Brown
Rhoda North
|
Wilford met Harry Brown in New York in 1834
|
Mar 13, 1853 in Endowment House in Salt Lake
City, Utah
|
N/A
|
N/A
|
N/A
|
Emma Smith
Mar 1, 1838-Mar 4,1912
|
Samuel Smith
Martisha Smoot
|
Wilford met the Smiths on his mission in Kentucky
|
Mar 13, 1853 in Endowment House in Salt Lake
City, Utah
|
N/A
|
N/A
|
N/A
|
Sarah Delight Stocking
July 26, 1838-May 28, 1906
|
John Jay Stocking
Catherine E. Ensign
|
Woodruffs knew the Stockings in Nauvoo
|
July 31, 1857 in Endowment House in Salt Lake
City, Utah
|
N/A
|
N/A
|
N/A
|
Eudora Lovina Young
May 12, 1852-Oct 21, 1921
|
Brigham Young
Lucy Bigelow
|
Wilford met Eudora in St. George, Utah
|
Mar 10, 1877 in St. George Utah Temple
|
Nov 25, 1878
|
Moreland Dunford
|
Albert Hagen
March 1, 1879
|
Note: On January 23, 1857, Wilford wrote a letter to Lydia Maxline through her Bishop regarding marriage and recorded that he was granted permission by Brigham Young to marry her (see Wilford Woodruff’s Journal 5:11). However, I have found no evidence that she accepted his offer or that they were subsequently married. D. Michael Quinn and E. Carmen Hardy include Lydia Mary Olive von Finklestein Mountford (“Madame Mountford”) as another plural wife of Wilford Woodruff. Although Mrs. Mountford was a close friend of Wilford and Emma Woodruff, and they corresponded frequently, I have found no evidence that a marriage took place. In fact, Wilford was on a boat traveling from San Francisco to Portland when Madama Mountford was lecturing in San Francisco so they could not have been married on the boat as has been hypothesized. (See Thomas Alexander's book Of Things in Heaven and Earth, 327-329.) After their deaths, however, they were sealed by proxy.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
PHEBE WHITTEMORE CARTER
(March 8, 1807-
November 10, 1885)
Phebe,
Wilford's first wife, was born in Scarborough, Maine, on March 8, 1807. She
was the sixth of eleven children born to Ezra Carter and Sarah Fabyan.[1]
Phebe
was converted to the Church in 1834 at the age of 27, against her parents'
wishes. When she left her family behind to gather with the Saints in
Kirtland, Ohio, she said she was, "sustained only by my faith and trust in
Israel’s God. My friends marveled at my course, as did I, but something
within impelled me on. My mother’s grief at my leaving home was almost more
than I could bear; and had it not been for the spirit within I should have
faltered at the last. My mother told me she would rather see me buried
than going thus alone into the heartless world, and especially was she
concerned about my leaving home to cast my lot among the Mormons. ‘Phebe,’ she
said, impressively, ‘will you come back to me if you find Mormonism false?’ I
answered thrice, ‘Yes, mother, I will.’ These were my words well remembered to
this day; she knew I would keep my promise. My answer relieved her trouble; but
it cost us all much sorrow to part. When the time came for my departure I dared
not trust myself to say farewell, so I wrote my good-bye to each, and leaving
them on my table, ran down stairs and jumped into the carriage. Thus I left my
beloved home of childhood to link my life with the Saints of God."
(Phebe's mother, father, three sisters and one brother were later baptized
members of the Church.[2])
Phebe
received her patriarchal blessing from Joseph Smith, Sr. on November 10,
1836. She was working as a school teacher when she was first introduced
to Wilford Woodruff on January 28, 1837. They were married less than three
months later, on April 13, 1837, at the home of Joseph Smith. Joseph had
planned on performing the ceremony for them but was "under the necessity
of fleeing" for several days because of the actions of certain
"wicked and ungodly men." Instead Phebe and Wilford were
married by Frederick G. Williams, 2nd counselor in the First Presidency of the
Church. The following month, Wilford left for a mission to the Fox Islands
off the coast of Maine. Phebe understood the sacrifices that might be
required of them as they consecrated themselves and their lives to God.
Phebe later wrote of Wilford, "I can truly say I have found him a worthy
man with scarcely his superior on earth. He has built up a branch of the Church
wherever he has labored. He has been faithful to God and his family, every day
of his life. My respect for him has increased with our years, and my desire for
an eternal union with him will be the last wish of my mortal life."
Their first child, Sarah Emma, was born on July 14, 1838 in
Scarborough, Maine, where Phebe was staying with her family. Wilford was
able to be with them for a month before returning to his missionary work in the
Fox Islands. By the time they left Maine to gather with the Saints in
Missouri, Governor Bogg’s extermination order had forced the Saints to seek
refuge in Illinois. Their journey almost cost Phebe’s life. The
story taken from Wilford’s writings exemplifies Phebe’s strength and the faith
they shared. “On
the 23rd of November my wife, Phebe, was attacked with a severe headache,
which terminated in brain fever. She grew more and more distressed daily as we
continued our journey. It was a terrible ordeal for a woman to travel in a
wagon over rough roads, afflicted as she was. At the same time our child was
also very sick.”[3]
Wilford
tried to find places for her to rest, but Phebe’s health continued to decline,
and Wilford wrote, “December 3rd found my wife very low. I spent the day in
taking care of her, and the following day I returned to Eaton [a nearby town]
to get some things for her. She seemed to be gradually sinking, and in the
evening her spirit apparently left her body, and she was dead. The
sisters gathered around her body, weeping, while I stood looking at her in
sorrow. The Spirit and power of God began to rest upon me until, for the first
time during her sickness, faith filled my soul, although she lay before me as
one dead.”[4] Wilford said he laid his hands upon her and, in the name of
Jesus Christ, “rebuked the power of death and the destroyer, and commanded the
same to depart from her, and the spirit of life to enter her body. Her
spirit returned to her body, and from that hour she was made whole; and we all
felt to praise the name of God, and to trust in him and keep his
commandments.”
Afterwards
Phebe told him that her spirit left her body, and she saw her body lying upon the
bed, and the sisters weeping. While she looked at them, at her husband, and her
baby, she said two personages came into the room. “One of these messengers
informed her that she could have her choice: she might go to rest in the spirit
world, or, on one condition she could have the privilege of returning to her
tabernacle and continuing her labors upon the earth. The condition was, if she
felt that she could stand by her husband, and with him pass through all the
cares, trials, tribulations and afflictions of life which he would be called to
pass through for the Gospel’s sake unto the end. When she looked at the
situation of her husband and child she said: ‘Yes, I will do it!’”[5] It
was at the moment she made her decision that her spirit re-entered her tabernacle.
Three days later, on December 6th, Wilford wrote that the Spirit said, “‘Arise,
and continue thy journey!’ and through the mercy of God my wife was enabled to
arise and dress herself and walk to the wagon, and we went on our way rejoicing.”[6]
Phebe and Wilford arrived in May 1839 and lived temporarily across
the Mississippi River from Nauvoo in the abandoned army barracks of Fort Des
Moines in Montrose, Iowa. Leaving Phebe in these terrible conditions,
Wilford was called to serve another mission with the other members of the
Quorum of the Twelve, this time to the British Isles. While he was in
England (August 1839-October 1841), Phebe gave birth to their first son,
Wilford, Jr., in March 1840, and four months later suffered alone through the
death of their daughter Sarah on July 14, 1840.
When
Phebe wrote to Wilford, on May 4, 1840, she expressed her continued faith: “I
know that it is the will of God that you should labor in his vineyard;
therefore, I feel reconciled to his will in these things. I have not been left
to murmur or complain since you left me, but am looking forward to the day when
you shall return home once more to the bosom of your family, having fulfilled
your mission in the love and fear of God. You are always present with me when I
go before the throne of grace, and when I am asking for protection and
blessings upon myself and children, I claim the same for my dear companion, who
has gone far from me, even to a foreign nation, to preach the fulness of the
gospel of Jesus Christ.”
Six
days after Wilford returned from England he purchased a log house in Nauvoo,
ferried their belongings over from Iowa, and for the first time in their
married life they lived under their own roof. He began building a brick
house for them, but they were not able to move into the house until 1844 and
then only lived in it sporadically for a total of less than 100 days.
By 1843, the temple ordinances revealed to Joseph Smith included
baptisms, washings and anointings, the endowment, and sealings. Between 1843 and 1844
Joseph administered or directed the administration of these ordinances to both
men and women. Wilford and Phebe were sealed
on November 11, 1843. On that day Wilford wrote that Hyrum Smith “sealed
the marriage covenant between me and my wife Phebe W. Carter for time and
eternity …” On December 2, 1843, Wilford received his endowment
and three weeks later Phebe received her washings, anointings and endowment
under the direction of Emma and Mary Fielding Smith. Phebe testified
that Joseph Smith "was one of the greatest prophets the Lord ever called,
that he lived for the redemption of mankind and died a martyr for the
truth." It was after the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith in
June 1844 that Phebe accompanied Wilford to Europe so he could preside of the
missionary work there. Their son Wilford Jr., remained in Nauvoo
and they left Phebe Amelia in the care of Phebe’s sister, only taking
one-year-old Susan Amelia with them. While living in England Phebe gave
birth to Joseph Carter on July 18, 1845.
They
returned to Nauvoo in April 1846 in time to assist in the dedication of the
Nauvoo Temple before leaving to join the Saints in Iowa and escape the ongoing
persecution. Mary Ann Jackson had traveled with the Woodruffs from
England and was sealed to Wilford on August 2, 1846 in Winter Quarters,
Nebraska. The winter of 1846 was a tragic one for the Woodruffs.
Wilford was seriously injured while felling trees to build a cabin for his
expanding family and, within days after his accident, their one-year-old son
Joseph died on November 12th.[7] Phebe was pregnant at the time and gave
birth to another son, Ezra, prematurely on December 8, 1846. He died two
days later. Of her seven children, only three remained alive: Wilford
Jr., Phebe Amelia and Susan. Wilford’s tribute to Phebe on their
departure from Nauvoo explains her ability to endure. He wrote, “Phebe
possesses too much firmness and faith in God and confidence in God to put her
hand to the plough and look back or to wholly give way to such trials. She is
determined, like Ruth, to forsake her kindred and country for Christ's sake and
my own, and the cause in which she is engaged. As I behold this principle
beaming in her daily walk, heart and countenance, it binds my whole soul to her
stronger than death or the bars of a castle."[8]
In
the spring of 1847 Phebe remained in Iowa with their three children while
Wilford accompanied the first pioneer expedition to the Salt Lake Valley.
On April 3, 1847, Wilford wrote in his journal: “I have never felt more weight
upon my mind at any time while leaving my family to go on a mission than now.
My prayer to God is that He will sustain myself and family to meet again on the
earth as He hath done in the many missions I have taken on the earth in the
vineyard of the Lord.” Four days later his family watched him as he
departed on a 2,500 mile journey that would take him away for six months.
On
October 28, 1847, three days before he returned to his family in Council Bluffs,
Phebe delivered a baby girl, Shuah. Shortly after
his arrival, Phebe and Wilford were asked to move with their family to preside
over the missionary work in and gathering of the Saints from the Eastern
States. This mission lasted almost two years
and was significant for the Woodruffs in several ways. Wilford and
Phebe’s sacrifices included the death of their nine-month-old daughter Shuah
as they traveled east. On the other
hand, they were living in Cambridge, Massachusetts, about 100 miles from
Phebe’s hometown, and were able to share the gospel with members of Phebe’s
extended family. Wilford baptized over 20 individuals, including Phebe’s
father. On March 22, 1849 Wilford wrote that he baptized Ezra Carter in
the ocean. He then recorded, “This is a great consolation to my soul.”[9]
Ezra was 76 years old and Phebe accompanied her father to the water and back
again.
When
the Woodruffs left Maine in the spring of 1850, they had gathered about 100 Saints,
among them Phebe’s sister, Sarah Foss, and her family. Their company was
later joined by another 125 Saints and they arrived
in the Salt Lake Valley on October 14, 1850. They moved into the
cabins Wilford had built in 1847 in preparation for their eventual arrival, and
he later built an adobe house. Phebe was finally able to establish a
permanent home, later named the Valley House, where she lived for the rest of
her life. It was located on the corner of South Temple and West Temple
streets (where Abravanel Hall now stands in downtown Salt Lake City). Wilford’s
father Aphek owned the lot next to the Valley House, and Phebe’s sister Sarah
lived two doors down.
Phebe
gave birth to her fifth daughter Beulah in 1851, and her fourth son in 1853,
but he died within a few hours. Of her nine children, only five lived
beyond the age of two years. That same year Wilford married two
additional wives, Sarah Brown and Emma [Smoot] Smith. The Valley House briefly
held four generations of the Woodruff family (after Susan married in 1859 and
bore Phebe’s first grandchild, Eugenia, in 1860), and the families of four of
Wilford’s wives: Phebe (with 3 children), Emma (with 2 children), Sarah (with
3 children), and Delight (with 1 child).
At
the organization of the 14th Ward Relief Society in 1856, Phebe was chosen by
Bishop Abraham Hoagland as President. Under her leadership more than 75 women
in the 14th Ward embroidered or appliqued a quilt block to make a beautiful
commemorative quilt that was raffled to raise money. Those who contributed to
the effort included Phebe's sister Sarah Foss and Sarah’s daughter Rhoda;
Phebe’s daughters 14-year-old Phebe Amelia, 13-year-old Susan Cornelia, and
even 6-year-old Beulah; and three of Wilford’s plural wives – Sarah Brown, Emma
[Smoot] Smith, and Delight Stocking (who was sealed to Wilford in
1857).[10] Phebe’s square was the centerpiece of the quilt. It
featured a beehive on top of a table surrounded by flowers, bees and
butterflies. Underneath the table she embroidered, “By industry we
thrive” and below that, “Phebe W. Woodruff President of the 14th Ward Female
Relief Society.” The Deseret News article published May 20, 1857, stated
that, to date, the Society had raised $200.01 of which $126 was donated to the
Perpetual Emigration Fund.
When
Phebe wrote her short autobiography she included her thoughts on polygamy:
"When the principle of plural marriage was first taught, I thought it was
the most wicked thing I ever heard of; consequently I opposed it to the best of
my ability, until I became sick and wretched. As soon, however, as I became
convinced that it originated as a revelation from God through Joseph, knowing
him to be a prophet, I wrestled with my Heavenly Father in fervent prayer, to
be guided aright at that all-important moment of my life. The answer came.
Peace was given to my mind. I knew it was the will of God; and from that time
to the present I have sought to faithfully honor the patriarchal law."
In
January 1870 when Congress was considering legislation against polygamy she was
among the women protesting. She spoke at a mass meeting held in Salt Lake
City and said, in part, "I am proud that I am a citizen of Utah, and a
member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I have been a member
of this Church for 36 years, and had the privilege of living in the days of the
Prophet Joseph, and heard his teaching for many years. He ever counseled us to
honor, obey and maintain the principles of our noble Constitution ... President
Brigham Young has always taught the same principle. This glorious legacy of our
fathers, the Constitution of the United States, guarantees unto all the
citizens of this great republic the right to worship God according to the
dictates of their own consciences, as it expressly says, 'Congress shall make
no laws respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free
exercise thereof.' Cullom's Bill is in direct violation of this declaration
... Shall we, as wives and mothers, sit still and see our husbands and
sons, whom we know are obeying the highest behest of heaven, suffer for their
religion, without exerting ourselves to the extent of our power for their
deliverance? No; verily no! God has revealed unto us the law of the patriarchal
order of marriage, and commanded us to obey it. We are sealed to our husbands
for time and eternity, that we may dwell with them and our children in the
world to come; which guarantees unto us the greatest blessing for which we are
created. If the rulers of the nation will so far depart from the spirit and
letter of our glorious Constitution as to deprive our prophets, apostles and
elders of citizenship, and imprison them for obeying this law, let them grant
this, our last request, to make their prisons large enough to hold their wives,
for where they go we will go also." The following month Phebe was
named to a committee to promote women's suffrage.
In
her later years as her children began families of their own, Phebe served on
the Deseret Hospital Board of Directors and was an official worker in the
Deseret Agricultural and Manufacturing Society which Wilford had helped
establish in 1852. She was also one of the presiding board of the Ladies’
Cooperative Retrenchment Association (the precursor of the Young Ladies’ Mutual
Improvement Association now called Young Women’s or Mutual). In addition,
Phebe was elected one of the Executive Board of the Deseret Hospital in
1882.
Phebe
lived to the age of 78, dying after a fall caused a serious head injury.
Wilford had been in hiding, but risked arrest to visit her after her
accident. On November 9, 1885, realizing her serious condition, he
“blessed her and anointed her for her burial." His wife of more than
48 years died a few hours later. Under these difficult circumstances,
although he watched from the office window, he wrote, “I was not permitted to
attend her funeral without being arrested for my religion, and imprisoned … I
saw the procession as it passed the office, I saw the hearse that carried my
wife … to the grave. … Persecution is raging against the Latter Day
Saints. I am perfectly willing for my wife to lie down and go to sleep
and be freed from any of the persecution from the wicked. I hope I may
prove true and faithful unto the end that I may meet with her and our friends
in the Celestial Kingdom of God ….”
Wilford
also wrote this poem in her honor:
“Sleep
on Dear Phebe, but ere long from this;
The
conquered tomb shall yield its captive prey;
Then
with thy husband, children, friends and Prophets and Apostles;
Thou
shall reign in bliss as wife, queen, mother, and Saint to an eternal
day."[11]
Sources
Carol
Holindrake Nielson, The Salt Lake City 14th Ward Album Quilt, 1857: Stories
of the Relief Society Women and Their Quilt.
Edward
W. Tullidge, The Women of Mormondom.
Wilford
Woodruff’s Journals,
1:139-41, 1:164-65, 1:167-69, 1:181-85, 1:188-89, 1:192-93, 1:216, 1:219-20,
1:224-25, 1:230-33, 1:236-37, 1:240-41, 1:243, 1:254, 1:271-72, 1:274,
1:281-83, 1:285-86, 1:288, 1:294, 1:298, 1:303-305, 1:311, 1:338, 1:342, 1:344,
1:346, 1:348-49, 1:353, 1:358, 1:365-66, 1:370, 1:372-73, 1:403, 1:413, 1:426,
1:443, 1:454-55, 1:471, 1:483-84, 1:486, 1:488, 1:494, 1:497, 1:541-42, 1:545,
1:551, 2:24, 2:28-29, 2:37, 2:105, 2:120-21, 2:157, 2:177-78, 2:188-89,
2:259-60, 2:272-73, 2:278, 2:305, 2:307, 2:327, 2:332, 2:344, 2:412, 2:422,
2:455-56, 2:458, 2:477, 2:561, 2:600, 2:624, 3:8, 30, 65-66, 68-69, 97, 99,
104, 263, 288-89, 343, 359-60, 367, 370, 377-80, 433-34, 587-88, 4:211, 281,
442, 5:28, 53, 185, 251, 261, 339, 391-92, 412, 461, 6:14, 37, 44, 46, 68, 129-31,
137, 165, 174, 177, 192, 209, 239, 298, 326, 330, 348-49, 387-88, 392-94, 408,
443, 457, 462, 489, 504, 521, 532, 535, 537, 545, 566, 7:27, 32, 44, 68, 74,
76-77, 84, 99, 107, 121, 126, 138, 142, 144, 152, 156, 159, 169, 174, 186, 188,
193-96, 206, 213, 218-19, 237, 248, 264, 267, 279, 286, 292-94, 320, 341-42,
345, 375, 380, 382, 404, 433, 450, 454, 475, 478, 481, 484, 489, 491-92,
496-97, 512, 516, 518, 526, 528, 532-33, 557, 562, 564, 576-77, 586, 591, 605,
608, 8:3, 9, 11, 15, 17-19, 26, 31, 36, 42, 45, 64, 89, 111, 113, 121, 140,
156-58, 168, 172, 185, 206, 225, 229, 232, 234, 237, 251, 273-74, 276-78, 280,
284-85, 289, 299-302, 308, 310-11, 314-16, 320, 322, 326, 332-35, 338-39,
342-44, 354, 381, 429, 465, 9:141, 292, 534-36, 426, 534-35, 553.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
MARY
ANN JACKSON[1]
(February
18, 1818 – October 25, 1894)
Mary
Ann Jackson, Wilford’s second wife, was born on February 18, 1818 in Liverpool,
England. She was the daughter of William
Jackson and Elizabeth Lloyd, the second of their four children. Her mother died in 1837 and her father died
1840. She was baptized May 2, 1843, by Elder William Cooper. She was the only member of her family to join
the Church, although she had two brothers and a sister.[2] Mary Ann met the Woodruffs when they were
living in England and Wilford was serving as President of the European
Mission. She began working for them as a
housekeeper in August 1845.[3] She left England on January 16, 1846 with
Phoebe and forty other British Saints, arriving in Nauvoo in April 1846. She was present when the Nauvoo Temple was
dedicated and traveled with the Woodruffs when they left Nauvoo in May 1846 to
begin the trek west.
Wilford
and Mary Ann were sealed by Brigham Young on August 2, 1846, in Nebraska Territory. Wilford did not openly write about
plural marriage at the time, so his journal record makes only a vague
reference: “During the evening President Young and Dr. Richards called at my
tent. President Young delivered an
interesting lecture upon the priesthood and the principal of sealing. There being present: Phebe W. Woodruff,
[Mary] Caroline Barton, [Sarah Elinor] Brown, Mary [Ann] Jackson.” On the same page of his journal he drew a
large heart with four keys, a symbol reportedly used to indicate patriarchal
marriage before the doctrine was preached publicly in 1852. (He also drew a picture of a heart with four
keys in his journal on January 28, 1844, the day his marriage to Phoebe was
sealed by Hyrum Smith in Nauvoo.)
Mary Ann wrote, “On May 25, 1847, my baby was born, a son. We called him James Jackson Woodruff.”[5] On the 13th of June I began the journey to follow the pioneers when he was nineteen days old.” She joined the Abraham O. Smoot-George A. Wallace Company of 223 pioneers escorted by Wilford’s father, Aphek. Mary Ann and Aphek had two wagons, two horses, a cow and eight oxen. One wagon was for the family and their provisions; the other was loaded with the machinery to set up a flour mill in the Salt Lake Valley.
Of the journey she recorded, “dear old father, Aphek Woodruff, blessed be his name, for in the hands of the Lord, he was the means of saving my life.”[6] Apparently while they were traveling she wanted to get out of the wagon to walk alongside it. She stood on the hounds [length of wood on the side] and tried to jump down. Her skirt caught and kept her dangling between the wheels. She was able to use her hands to keep from being crushed by the wheels until one of the men were able to stop the team of oxen.
In
September their company was met by Wilford and the other Apostles headed east,
back to Winter Quarters. Wilford saw his
son James for the first time. Of this
occasion James later recorded, “We met Father on his return journey from Salt
Lake and he named and blessed me at the Sweetwater [River].”[7]
The
Smoot Company arrived in Salt Lake on September 26, 1847. Since Wilford had been sent east from Winter
Quarters to gather more Saints, Mary, James, and Aphek wintered in the two-room
cabin Wilford had built in August. (It
was located in the fort.) 2,000 other
Saints had survived the journey that year and lived in similar conditions until
they could start building in the spring.
Wilford was not able to return to Salt Lake until his mission in the
Eastern States was completed in 1850.
This separation was apparently too much for Mary Ann and she divorced
Wilford before his return.[8]
In
1857 Mary Ann asked Wilford if he would remarry her, but he declined based on
their past experience, saying “we have not rendered each other happy.”[9] Mary Ann married David James Ross, a widower
with three children, December 13, 1857.[10] Initially James Jackson went with her to live
with her and the Ross family. David and
Mary Ann had two children together, William in 1858 and John in 1860.[11] After a disagreement with Brigham Young,
David left Utah abandoning Mary Ann in the 1860s.[12] On May 29, 1863, James, who was then 16,
moved to Wilford Woodruff’s home.
Wilford recorded in his journal, “My son James Jackson, who had been
absent for several years, returned to live with me."[13]
James Jackson married Fanny Lloyd December 21, 1868.
[14]
Although
Mary never lived with the Woodruffs, she remained close to Wilford and his
families throughout her life.[15] In a cryptic note in his journal on December
2, 1878, Wilford asked Mary Ann to be resealed to him. Then in November 1886
she asked President Taylor if she could be sealed to the Prophet Joseph
Smith. Her letter was referred to
Wilford Woodruff.[16] Although they lived separately, Wilford
helped support her until her death on October 25, 1894. Her obituary says that she died of paralysis.[17] It also stated, "She died as she had
lived, a faithful Latter-day Saint."
Wilford spoke at her funeral on October 28, 1894, and she was buried in
the Woodruff family plot in the Salt Lake City Cemetery. She is included as one of Wilford’s wives on
his tombstone, along with Phoebe, Sarah, Delight and Emma.
Sources
"A
Brief Sketch of the Life of James Jackson Woodruff," was written July
24, 1926 and can be found in
Chronicles of Courage, 8 vols. [1990-97],
2:127-29.
L. John Nuttall’s Journal.
Mary Ann Jackson
Woodruff Biographical Sketch by James Jackson Woodruff, April, 1-2, 1917.
Ogden
Standard, (Ogden City, Utah), page 5, September 7, 1909.
Wilford Woodruff’s Journals, 3:42, 65-66; 6:113, 582; 7:294, 441;
8:411, 479-84, 486, 488, 491, 494, 496-97, 499, 507, 509, 513-17, 520, 523-25,
528-29, 531.
Willard Richard’s Journal.
Some historians state Mary Ann
Jackson and Wilford Woodruff were sealed in the Nauvoo Temple
by Brigham Young on April 15, 1846. This
was impossible because Brigham Young was in Iowa at the time, and Orson Hyde
was the only apostle present in Nauvoo when Wilford and his family were
there. Alternatively, others state the
sealing occurred in Winter Quarters in April, which is equally impossible
because Wilford and his family remained in Nauvoo until May. In addition, some records erroneously give
James’ birth date as March 25, 1847 instead of May 25, 1847. James began the journey to Salt Lake City in
June when he was 19 days old.
James Jackson Woodruff , “A Brief Sketch of the Life of James Jackson Woodruff,
Pioneer of 1847,” July 24, 1926.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
MARY
CAROLINE BARTON
(January
12, 1832 – August 10, 1910)
Mary
Caroline Barton was born January 12, 1832, in Wilmington, Delaware, the daughter
of William Allen Barton and Mary Ann Swain. Her parents were converted to
the Church and gathered with the Saints to make the journey to Utah.
In Nebraska Territory – near what became known as Cutler’s Park – Mary was sealed to Wilford
Woodruff by Brigham Young on August 2, 1846, along with Sarah Elinor Brown and
Mary Ann Jackson.[1] Wilford Woodruff obliquely references the occasion
in his journal, simply stating that Brigham Young and Willard Richards came to
his tent that evening and “President Young delivered an interesting lecture
upon the priesthood and the principal of sealing. There being present:
Phebe W. Woodruff, [Mary] Caroline Barton, Sara [Elinor] Brown, Mary [Ann]
Jackson.”[2] Six days later he recorded that he
rebaptized Phebe twice and then also rebaptized Mary Caroline, Sarah, Mary
Ann, and Rosetta King.[3]
The
personal lives of the three women sealed to Wilford that day were very different.
Both Mary Ann’s parents were deceased. Sarah Elinor’s father had died on
the journey from Maine to Illinois in 1839. Both Mary Caroline’s parents
were members of the Church and living among the Saints in the Iowa camps.
Mary Ann Jackson had known the Woodruffs for about a year and had worked as a
housekeeper for them when Phebe and Wilford were living in Liverpool,
England. Wilford Woodruff had introduced Sarah Elinor Brown’s family to
the gospel on his mission to Vinalhaven, Maine in 1838 and the Browns had been
part of the group of Saints from the Northeast that he led to Nauvoo. On
the other hand, I have not been able to determine his long-term relationship,
if any, with the Barton family.
Mary
Ann Jackson was 29 years old in August 1846, Sarah Elinor was 18 and Mary
Caroline was 17. The age of the two younger women at the time of the
sealing was apparently a factor in their subsequent behavior. It is not
clear if they considered their sealing a spiritual one – not an earthly or physical
union – or if they simply chose to continue socializing with others their own
age regardless of their marital status.
According
to Wilford Woodruff, Mary Caroline and Sarah Elinor spent 15 nights straight,
sometimes until 2:00 am, in the company of three young men in camp: Daniel
Barnum, Jack Clothier, and Peletiah Brown.[4] Wilford forbade them
from such “night ramblings” and said they would be expelled from his family if
they continued their unrighteous behavior.[5] On August 28, Mary Caroline
and her parents were at a meeting with Wilford Woodruff, Brigham Young and
Willard Richards where both Mary Caroline and Sarah E. Brown were given the
option to stay and follow the rules, or leave.[6] Both Mary and Sarah
chose to leave. Mary returned to her parents’ and Sarah was sent to live
with the Bakers. The three young men were whipped for their alleged
sexual misconduct with Mary and Sarah. Hosea Stout carried out the
punishment and felt it was just given the fact that he believed the punishment
for their actions under territorial law was death.[7]
Sometime
between August 1846 and February 1848, the Bartons moved to Georgetown,
Ohio. Mary Caroline married Erastus Curtis there on February 4,
1848.[8] Erastus and Mary Curtis then moved to Holt, Missouri where their
first child, Oceania was born in 1850. Their second child, Phebe Martin
Curtis, was also born in Holt, Missouri on February 2, 1852. Phebe
traveled with them when they made the journey to Utah later that year. They
were part of the 365 Saints in the company led by Erastus’ father, Uriah
Curtis.[9] They started from Council Bluffs, Iowa, on June 24, 1852 and
arrived in to Salt Lake City October 1, 1852.
Erastus
and Mary Caroline Curtis had a total of eleven children between 1850 and
1872. Their third child, Matilda Caroline was born in 1853 in Parowan,
Utah before they moved with Mary Caroline’s parents to help settle San
Bernardino, California. Their fourth child, William Barton, was born in
San Bernardino in 1856. (Mary Caroline’s parents remained in San
Bernardino until their deaths.) However, Erastus and Mary Caroline
returned to Utah, and their fifth child, Erastus, was born in Springville in
1858. Emmaline Joan, their sixth child, was born in 1860 in Spanish Fork,
Utah.
Erastus
was the Marshal of Moroni, Utah and later the Sheriff of Emory County. He
married a second wife, Joanna Price Fullmer, in 1860 in Moroni. Erastus
and Mary Caroline had five more children while living in Moroni: Florilla Ann
in 1862, Eliza Jane in 1864, Rosetta Parthenia in 1866, Joseph Boulden in
1869, and Homer Franklin in 1872. Erastus and Joanna had eight children
together.[10]
In
October 1877, Erastus, Erastus Jr., and William joined five other men who were
responding to the call by Brigham Young to leave Sanpete County and settle in
Castle Valley. Erastus and his sons built a cabin on Cottonwood Creek in
what became the town of Orangeville, Utah. Erastus, Jr. and William
remained there for the winter and the rest of the family joined them in
1878.[11] The Curtis family later settled in Mackay, Custer County,
Idaho. Erastus died there on January 20, 1902. Mary Caroline died
there August 10, 1910. They are both buried in the Barton Flat Cemetery
in Custer County, Idaho.
Deseret
News,
October 24, 1863.
Frank
Ellwood Esshom, Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah.
Juanita
Brooks, On the Mormon Frontier: The Diary of Hosea Stout 1844-1861.
Journal
History, Supplement to 1852.
Leonard
J. Arrington, Latter-day Saint Settlement of Eastern Utah: A Story of Faith,
Courage and Tolerance.
The
Manuscript History of Brigham Young
Wilford
Woodruff’s Journals.
Journal
of Willard Richards.
William
Clayton’s Journal.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
SARAH ELINOR BROWN
(August 22, 1827 -
December 25, 1915)
Sarah
Elinor Brown was born to Charles and Mary Arey Brown August 22, 1827 in
Vinalhaven, Maine.[1] Sarah was the second of their five children. Her
older sister Rebecca was born in 1825, her only brother Thomas was born in
1830, and her younger sister Susan and Mary were born in 1833 and
1836.[2] Captain Charles Brown and his family were converted to the
gospel by Wilford Woodruff on his mission to Vinalhaven, Maine in 1838.
Charles Brown was baptized on January 1, 1838.[3]
When
Wilford Woodruff left the New England states with a group of converts to join
the Saints in Missouri he learned that the Saints had been expelled from
Missouri. Due to their late start, the Woodruffs and several other
families, including Charles Brown’s, decided to spend the winter in Northern
Illinois and go on to Commerce, Illinois in the spring. Charles and his
oldest daughter Rebecca died in Rochester, Illinois in June 1839.[4]
Mary
and her four remaining children went on to join the Saints in Nauvoo. The
Woodruffs helped them get established. According to Harriet Jane Lamb, to
help support the family, “Sarah found employment as a waitress at an inn or
tavern house near the jail in Carthage. She was working there when the Prophet
Joseph Smith was brought there and imprisoned by his enemies. The day before he
was martyred many of the mob came into the tavern to make their plans and
bolster up their courage with drink Anti-Mormon feeling was running high. A man
brandishing a pistol threatened Sarah with death if she would not deny her
religion, but she said, "I am a Mormon." The drunkened mob would not
let him kill her, saying she was too pretty to die, but they tried to get her
to renounce her faith. They made her leave the tavern and she went back to
Nauvoo, very frightened and upset. She warned the brethren of the plans to kill
the prophet. All her life she vividly recalled what the mobsters had told her
they were going to do to ‘Joe Smith’.”[5]
At
the age of 18, Sarah received her endowment in the Nauvoo Temple on February 7,
1846, two weeks after her mother Mary.[6] Mary was sealed to Loren W.
Babbitt on February 6, 1846. Loren’s wife Almira Castle died in 1845
leaving four young children and combined with Mary’s four children they had
eight. Six months later, in Nebraska Territory near what became known as
Cutler’s Park, Sarah was sealed to Wilford Woodruff, three weeks before her
nineteenth birthday. Brigham Young performed the ceremony on August 2,
1846, and also sealed Mary Caroline Barton and Mary Ann Jackson as Wilford’s
plural wives.[7]
Wilford
Woodruff obliquely references the occasion in his journal, simply stating that
Brigham Young and Willard Richards came to his tent and “President Young
delivered an interesting lecture upon the priesthood and the principal of
sealing. There being present: Phebe W. Woodruff, [Mary] Caroline Barton,
Sara [Elinor] Brown, Mary [Ann] Jackson.”[8]
The
personal lives of the three women sealed to Wilford that day were very
different. Mary Ann Jackson had known the Woodruffs for about a year and
had worked as a housekeeper for them when Phebe and Wilford were living in
Liverpool, England. Wilford Woodruff had introduced Sarah Elinor Brown’s
family to the gospel on his mission to the Fox Islands off the coast of Maine
and known them since 1838. On the other hand, I have not been able to
determine Wilford’s long-term relationship, if any, with the Barton
family. Both Mary Ann’s parents died before she was introduced to the
gospel. Sarah Elinor’s father had died on the journey from Maine to
Illinois in 1839 and her mother had been sealed to Loren Babbitt in 1846.
Both Mary Caroline’s parents were members of the Church and living among the
Saints in the Iowa camps.
In
August 1846, Wilford Woodruff was 39 years old, Mary Ann Jackson was 29, Sarah
Elinor turned 19 on August 22, and Mary Caroline was 17. The ages of the
two younger women at the time of the sealing was probably a factor in their
subsequent behavior. It is not clear if they considered their sealing a
spiritual one, not an earthly or physical union, or if they simply chose to
continue socializing with others their own age. Apparently Wilford did
not believe Sarah and Mary’s personal conduct in camp following their sealing
on August 2, was in compliance with the established rules.
Six
days after their sealing, Wilford recorded rebaptizing Phebe twice and also
rebaptizing Mary Caroline, Sarah Elinor, Mary Ann Jackson, and Rosetta
King.[9] He does not explain why he rebaptized those five women,
but rebaptism was considered a symbol of recommitment to the gospel principles,
used to symbolize a new beginning, and a method of healing or restoration of
health. In Phebe’s case the rebaptism was for health, but does not make
it clear if their conduct in camp was the reason for rebaptizing Sarah and
Mary.
According
to Wilford, Mary and Sarah spent 15 nights straight, sometimes until 2:00 am,
in the company of three young men in camp: Daniel Barnum, Jack Clothier, and Peletiah
Brown.[10] They played the fiddle and danced and Wilford believed
that led to other things. He forbade Sarah and Mary from continuing such
“night ramblings.” Two days later, on August 28, a meeting at Wilford’s tent
included Sarah, Mary, Mary’s parents, Wilford Woodruff, Brigham Young and
Willard Richards. Both Mary and Sarah were given the option to stay and
follow the rules, or leave Wilford’s family. Wilford recorded the meeting
in his journal: “I called my family together and I laid before them the conduct
of [Mary] Caroline Barton and Sarah Brown in their night ramblings with
unprincipled young men. Many things were said upon the subject.
They manifested a disposition to live elsewhere and I wished them to do so if
they would not conduct better. Elder Richards prophesied to them in the
name of the Lord that they would see the day that they would be willing to have
their right arm severed from their body if that would restore them to the place
and station they were now losing. But, in consequence of their bad
conduct, I sent Caroline to her father and mother, and Sarah . . . went to
Brother Baker’s until she could get [a place].”[11] The three young men
were whipped for their alleged sexual misconduct with the Mary and Sarah.[12]
I
have not found any clear records of the next few years in Sarah’s life.
Sarah’s mother divorced Loren Babbitt at some point, and the next documented
event in Sarah’s life was her marriage to Lisbon Lamb on February 15, 1849 in
Kanesville, Iowa.[13] Lisbon served as a private in the Mormon Battalion
and returned to Winter Quarters in October 1847.[14] Lisbon and Sarah are
listed in the 1850 census of Pottawattamie County, Iowa. Lisbon’s
occupation was “grocer.”[15] They apparently met and courted while preparing
to follow the Saints to Utah. In the meantime, Lisbon’s parents had
worked their way to Kanesville, Iowa and Abel had established a bakery.
Abel and his sons sold cakes, pies, crackers and bread and earned enough money
to head west with the Johnson Company on June 12, 1850.[16]
After
reaching the Salt Lake Valley in September, Sarah and Lisbon initially lived in
Salt Lake City. They had three children together. Two sons, Don
Lisbon born July 2, 1855 in Salt Lake City, and Albert Marion born on May 5,
1857 in Lamb’s Canyon. Lisbon worked in Lamb’s Canyon with his father
Abel, who was also a cooper. They made things like barrels, washboards,
churns and water buckets.
In
the summer of 1857, Lisbon and Sarah did not move south with the
rest of the Saints in anticipation of the approach of Johnston's Army.
They remained in Lamb’s Canyon and served as “lookouts.” Lisbon then joined Lot
Smith's “raiders,” a group that worked to thwart the progress of Johnston’s
Army. Among other things they burned the army’s supply wagons, stampeded
their cattle, set the grass on fire so their animals would have nothing to eat.
After the new governor of Utah Territory was peacefully installed and the “Utah War” was over, Lisbon and Sarah moved to Farmington, Utah with their two sons. Lisbon’s parents were also residents to Farmington. Lisbon was a cooper, and his family built and operated a sawmill. On March 12, 1862 Sarah’s only daughter, Mary Jane, was born in Farmington.
Four
years later, on February 3, 1866, Lisbon married Subrina Catherine Smith, and
they had six children. The two families lived in the same house together.
On the 1870 census for Farmington, Utah Lisbon and Sarah are listed with their
three children, Don age 15 – a laborer – Alfred, age 13, and Mary, age 8.
Sarah’s occupation is “keeping house” and Lisbon is listed as a
cooper.[17] In the 1880 census Lisbon at age 52, is listed as a
carpenter. Both Sarah, age 52, and Subrina, age 33 are listed as his
wives. Don, now 24 is a teamster, Alfred or “Ally” age 23 is a lawyer,
and Mary, age 18, is “assistant house keeper.” Subrina’s children are George,
age 13, Ann, age 11, Lucy, age 9, Charles, age 7, Catherine, age 5, Alonzo, age
3, and Brigham, age 10 months.[18] Lisbon died later that year, on
October 19, 1880, at the age of 53.
Sarah
lived to be 87 and died in Farmington on December 25, 1915. Her obituary
in the Davis County Clipper dated January 1, 1916 read in part, “she experienced all the vicissitudes and hardships incident to early
Church history and arrived in Utah in 1851 … Lifelong associates of hers have
said they never saw her angry nor had they ever heard her talk about
anybody.” She was survived by her three children, many grandchildren, and
22 great grandchildren.
References
to Captain Charles Brown in Wilford Woodruff’s Journals, 1:219-20, 223,
241, 277, 293, 302, 352.
Davis
County Clipper,
January 1, 1915.
Heart
Throbs of the West,
Volume11.
History
by Harriet Jane Lamb Stradling.
Juanita
Brooks, “On the Mormon Frontier: The Diary of Hosea Stout 1844-1861,”
Manuscript
History of Brigham Young.
Nauvoo
Temple Endowment Register.
Treasures
of Pioneer History,
Volume 6.
Wilford
Woodruff’s Journals.
William
Clayton’s Journal.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
MARY MEEK GILES
(September 6, 1802 –
October 3, 1852)
Mary Meek Giles,
Wilford’s fifth wife, was born in Marblehead, Essex County, Massachusetts on
September 6, 1802. She was the 10th child born to Samuel and Elizabeth “Betsy” Giles.[1] Mary was christened in St. Michael’s Church
in Marblehead on September 26, 1802.[2] This is the same church where Mary’s grandparents,
Samuel Giles and Elizabeth Meek, were married in 1756.[3] The marriage date of Samuel and Elizabeth
Reith Giles was 1784, although the church is not listed.
Samuel and Elizabeth (Reith) Giles had 12
children between 1786 and 1812.[4] Four
died as infants, then Hannah died at the age of 21, Alice died at 32, and
Samuel Jr. died at the age of 45. So,
when Mary was introduced to the gospel in 1842, only four siblings – Elizabeth Giles
Jones, Lydia Giles LeMarsters, John Reith Giles, and Ruth Jane Giles – were
still living.[5]
Mary was taught the restored gospel by Erastus
Snow and he baptized her on September 4, 1842.
Erastus Snow, with companions Benjamin Winchester then Freeman Nickerson,
preached in Boston, Salem, Marblehead and surrounding towns from 1841 to 1843.[6] At this point in time Mary probably lived in
Salem.[7] Erastus Snow also performed Mary’s marriage
to Nathan Webster.[8] With the exception of Ruth Jane Giles, it
does not appear that Mary’s other siblings joined the Church.
According to Ruth’s records, she was also
born in Marblehead, Essex County, Massachusetts to Samuel and Elizabeth Giles.[9] Ruth’s son Jacob Omner Turley wrote that his
mother had an older sister named Mary, and two brothers, John and Samuel, who
were shoemakers.[10] There are no records of Ruth traveling to or
arriving in Nauvoo, but she could have traveled to Nauvoo with Erastus Snow in March
1843 or with the Ashby family, also converted by Erastus Snow, who left Salem
for Nauvoo on October 14, 1843. (Nathaniel’s wife Susan Hammond was a native
of Marblehead, and Nathaniel was a shoemaker in Salem, Massachusetts.) The first indication that Ruth was in Nauvoo,
was the birth of her son, Joseph Orson, on July 12, 1845. Ruth was endowed in the Nauvoo Temple
February 6, 1846. Later, according to Benjamin Ashby, Ruth was staying
with the Nathaniel Ashby family in Nauvoo during the early months of 1846 as
the Saints began leaving the city.[11] Ruth made the journey to Salt Lake sometime
between 1846 and 1850[12]
because she became the plural wife of Theodore Turley in Salt Lake City on June
18, 1850.[13]
There are no records documenting Mary’s journey
from Massachusetts to Utah, and she is not listed in any of the overland trail
databases under her maiden name Giles or her married name Webster. However, from two letters written to her in
1850, it is clear that Mary traveled from Massachusetts by way of St. Louis,
Missouri and Kanesville, Iowa to Utah in 1850.
The letters, written by Mary’s friend Anne Elizabeth Holman Wilson in
January and Mary’s husband Nathan Webster in July, indicate she left Boston
between those two dates. Nathan’s letter
includes a response to a letter he received from Mary on June 18, 1850
indicating she had already passed through St. Louis and had written him before from
Kanesville.[14] Several individuals kept records of the
exodus of Boston area Saints, including Leonard Hardy, William Henry Branch[15],
and Wilford Woodruff. Wilford Woodruff
left Boston on April 9, 1850 with about 100 people from the Massachusetts area.
They arrived in New York the following day and were joined by another 100
Saints. In Cincinnati the group had
grown to 213. They arrived in St. Louis
on May 1st and the Deseret Depo near Kanesville, Iowa on May 15th. Wilford Woodruff’s Company left Kanesville on
June 15, 1850 and arrived in Salt Lake City on October 14, 1850.[16] Mary was most likely part of this group of
Saints.
In
any case, Mary arrived in the Salt Lake Valley sometime between July and November
1850. She received her Patriarchal
Blessing in Salt Lake City from John Smith on November 23, 1850.[17]
In it Patriarch Smith said Mary had passed through “many trials, losses, and
crosses to dwell with the Saints,” yet she had not departed from the ways of
righteousness. He told Mary that God was
pleased with the integrity of her heart and had given His angels charge to
protect her and deliver her from danger.
She was promised that she would enjoy her “companion in the blessings of
the fullness of the Gospel,” that she was a “lawful heir to the priesthood
which would be conferred upon her in due time with her companion” and she would
be given power to heal the sick.[18]
Nathan’s
letter to Mary, dated July 14, 1850, includes a note, “remember me to Ruth and
all that ask after me” which could be a reference to her sister Ruth Jane Giles
or to Ruth Vose Sayers[19] –
another member of the Church from the Boston, Massachusetts area.[20] The April 1851 Census of Salt Lake City, Utah,
shows Mary was living with Ruth Vose and her husband Edward Sayers. Mary received her endowments in the Council House on June 21, 1851.[21] On March 28, 1852, Mary was sealed to
Wilford for time and eternity in the Woodruff’s home.[22] Wilford wrote that Mary “took up her abode”
with Wilford and Phebe at that time.
Five
months later, on September 13, Wilford became ill with erysipelas, a bacterial
infection that causes fever, chills, blisters, and skin lesions. A week later Mary, Phebe, their daughter
youngest daughter Beulah also became ill.
By the 27th Wilford was getting better, but still weak,
Phebe was “feeble,” and Mary was “sinking.”[23] Tragically, Mary died on Sunday, October 3,
1852. That day Wilford recorded in his
journal: “I sat by her at her last moments and closed her eyes.”[24] Her funeral, held
the following day at the Woodruff’s home, was attended by four of the apostles. Erastus Snow, who had baptized her ten years
earlier, preached Mary’s funeral sermon and she was then buried in the Woodruff
plot in Salt Lake City.[25]
Sources
Benjamin Ashby's Autobiography, published 1941.
Catharine E. Mehring Woolley's Journal, Salt Lake Telegram, published serially January 7-11, 1935.
Catharine E. Mehring Woolley's Journal, Salt Lake Telegram, published serially January 7-11, 1935.
Diary
of Erastus Snow, 1842.
MS
2081 0000740s in the Emma Smith Woodruff Collection, Church History Library.
MS
2081 0000731 in the Emma Smith Woodruff Collection, Church History Library.
Vital
Records of
Massachusetts, 1639-1915
Walter
Turley’s application for membership in the Sons of the American Revolution.
Wilford
Woodruff’s Journals,1:209; 4:103, 148-49; 6:349; 7:107; 8:18.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
SARAH BROWN
(January
1, 1834 - May 9, 1909)
Sarah Brown was born January 1, 1834 in
Jefferson, Henderson, New York. She was the fourth of seven
children.[1] Her parents, Harry Brown and Rhoda North were taught the
gospel by David W. Patten and joined the Church in June 1833.
On April 1, 1834,
three months after Sarah’s birth, her father Harry Brown accompanied Parley P.
Pratt on a mission to Richland Township, New York to recruit volunteers to help
aid the Missouri Saints. Wilford Woodruff was one of the recent converts they
met with. Wilford immediately made arrangements to settle his affairs in
New York and accompanied Harry Brown and Warren Ingles back to Kirtland, Ohio
on April 11, 1834.[2] Sarah’s father Harry and Wilford were among those
who participated in the march from Ohio to Missouri that became known as Zion’s
Camp.[3] After Zion’s Camp disbanded, Harry Brown was one of Wilford’s
missionary companions to Missouri, Tennessee, and Arkansas in January 1835.[4]
While her father was gone, Sarah’s mother
moved the family from New York to Jefferson, Ohio (about 35 miles from
Kirtland). Four more children, two sons and two daughters, were born
while the Brown family was living in Ohio, between 1837 and 1849. Ohio is
also where Sarah began her schooling at the age of six. She completed
regular school at the age of 14, then studied for two more years so she could
earn a teaching certificate in 1850.[5]
In December 1851 the Brown family sold
everything to join the Saints in Utah. Harry and Rhoda along with their
children Ira, Sarah, Mary, and Jane, took a steamboat from Cincinnati, Ohio to
Louisville, Kentucky. There they waited for three months until the river
thawed enough for them to make it to St. Louis, Missouri. On March 30,
1852 the Browns joined other Saints and were among the 175 passengers on the
steamboat Saluda when it left St. Louis. The ice in the
Mississippi River delayed their journey for several days and they had to stop
at Lexington, Missouri. On April 9, when Captain Francis T. Belt decided to get
started, the dry boilers exploded disintegrating the hull. The boat sunk
within minutes.[6]
One hundred of the 175 passengers were killed
or injured, and Sarah’s family members were among them. Sarah was knocked
unconscious by flying debris, her brother Ira’s teeth were knocked out, his
face was cut, and his leg was broken. Sarah’s mother and her two sisters
were not harmed, but her father’s injuries were so severe that he died two
weeks later, on April 24, 1852.
Rhoda Brown continued on their journey to Utah
with her children. On July 12, 1852 their company departed from Council
Bluffs. Rhoda, Ira, Mary and Jane spent the winter in Laramie, Wyoming
because Ira’s injured leg became so infected it had to be amputated.[7]
Sarah, at 18 years old, continued the journey in Henry Miller’s Company and
arrived in Salt Lake City on October 1, 1852. [8]
Sarah was sealed to Wilford Woodruff on March
13, 1853, the same day Wilford was sealed to Emma [Smoot] Smith.[9]
Although Sarah’s mother and siblings arrived in Salt Lake City later that
summer, they left a year later to return to Ohio and Sarah did not see her
family again.[10]
Initially she lived with Phebe and Emma in
the Valley House in Salt Lake City. Her first son, David Patten, was born
there April 4, 1854. Then, the following year, she taught school in
Weber. When she returned to Salt Lake she taught school in the 14th
Ward. Sarah had six more children while living in Salt Lake City:
Brigham Young (1856 - 1876), Phebe Arabell (1859 - 1939), Sylvia Melvina
(1862-1940), Newton (1863-1960), Mary (1867-1903), and Charles Henry
(1870-1871).
After her son’s Brigham’s birth in 1856,
Sarah learned how to make gloves. The cloth for the gloves was made from
the flax they grew. They also used flax to make other things including
carpets, linens for the kitchen, and bedspreads. In her autobiography
Sarah wrote that “Aunt Phebe” was a good tailoress and taught her how to make
dresses as well as clothes for the men.[11] Phebe was Relief Society
President, and Sarah contributed a square for the 14th Ward quilt
which the Relief Society auctioned off in 1857 to raise money for the perpetual
emigration fund.[12] Sarah’s square featured two birds tending a nest
using appliqued fabrics and she embroidered her name as “Sarah
Woodruff.”[13] Ten years later Sarah learned millinery, and began to make
hats and bonnets. She was very proud of her work and the fact that all
the materials were homegrown, except the silk thread she used to embroider the
gloves and the silk used to decorate the hats and bonnets.
Sarah’s oldest son David was a horse
enthusiast and Wilford wanted to support David’s interest in raising stock
horses. Wilford purchased 20 acres in Randolph, Utah – about 75 miles
northeast of Salt Lake City – and moved Sarah’s family there in May of
1871. Wilford then spent weeks there building fences, plowing, and
planting with his sons David, who was 16, and Wilford, Jr. – Phebe’s eldest –
who was 30 years old.[14] Reflecting on Wilford’s work ethic, Newton’s
son Wilford Weeks Woodruff said his grandfather "worked so hard he'd make
himself sick. He didn't stop until he got through with a job. He'd
go like crazy till he got through.”[15]
Sarah was sad to leave Salt Lake City and her
close association with Wilford’s first wife, Phebe, who had become a second
mother to her. In her autobiography Sarah wrote that Phebe “was a noble
woman and a loving mother to us all … She would administer to the sick children
and give us good counsel and advice in all things.”[16] It was also hard
for Sarah to leave her second oldest son, Brigham, behind in Salt Lake City,
but he stayed so he could pursue an education at the University of Deseret.
Sarah’s daughter, Arabell, wrote the
following about the move to Randolph: “This was a severe trial for me.
There were no good schools or teachers in Randolph. I arrived there on my
twelfth birthday [May 30]. We lived in a tent for six months. I
went boat riding with my sister in a tub on Little Creek. In the fall we
moved into a new home, the only home in Randolph with an upstairs. Mother
taught school two years and was secretary in the Relief Society. I often
attended these meetings with her.”[17]
Wilford, David, and Wilford Jr., built a 20 x
40 foot cabin on the farm in Randolph. For five years, Sarah’s family of
five children shared the Randolph cabin with Wilford, Jr. and his wife Emily
and their children. Wilford lived in Randolph periodically between 1872
and 1876. On Sarah's 39th birthday, January 1, 1873, Wilford recorded
that he installed two floors. He also wrote that, "Sarah was very
poorly through the night."[18] A month later, Wilford and Sarah's eighth
and last child, Edward Randolph, was born on February 2, 1873. He died
six days later and Sarah wrote that she “came very near following
him.”[19]
Wilford records farming, fishing, and hunting
with his sons in Randolph, particularly during the summers. One
entry, from September 6, 1873, tells of taking both Sarah’s family and his
daughter-in-law Emily’s family in a wagon on a day trip. He caught 30
trout, three ducks and two sage hens.[20] During this time Sarah
also accompanied Wilford when he traveled around the area meeting with the various
wards and branches. On one occasion, in May of 1874, he was responsible
for organized the settlements into the United Order.
On June 14, 1875, Sarah’s daughter Phebe
Arabell was married to Jesse T. Moses, and Sarah became a grandmother in April
of 1876. That fall the Moses family moved back to Salt Lake City and
Wilford traded some of his cattle for 40 acres with a house in Cache Valley
that David wanted. So Sarah moved to Smithfield with David, Sylvia,
Newton and Mary. A few months later, on February 17, 1877, David was
married to Arabell Hatch.
In June of 1877 Sarah’s son Brigham graduated
from the University and traveled to Smithfield to visit his mother. The
following day, June 16, he went duck hunting with his brothers and drowned while
swimming in the Bear River to retrieve one of the ducks. His body was not
found for five days. At this time Wilford was in St. George presiding
over the new temple there and received the tragic news by telegram.[21]
Sarah wrote that, because she did not have Wilford’s company to help her cope
with Brigham’s death and burial, she was grateful the people of Smithfield “did
all in their power” to comfort her.[22]
Two years later Sarah’s daughter Arabell’s
family moved to Arizona, her son David’s family moved to Ashley, Utah, and her
daughter Sylvia married Heber J. Thompson and moved to Liberty, Idaho.
1879 was also the year that Wilford began his exile in hiding to avoid arrest
by federal Marshalls for practicing plural marriage. Sarah helped support
her remaining children by making hats and dresses. The next time Wilford
was able to come visit them was for the dedication of the Logan Temple in 1884.
Sarah’s youngest daughter Mary left for
college in Logan in 1885. She felt another great loss when Phebe
Woodruff died in 1886. Sarah was grateful that Arabell moved back home
from Arizona in 1887 and when Mary returned to Smithfield to teach school after
graduating from college in 1888.
In 1889 Wilford Woodruff was sustained as
President of the Church and that same year Sarah moved to Coalville with Mary
while Mary taught school in the Academy. Sarah and Mary lived in
Farmington, Utah for two years and Mary taught school. In 1892 they moved
to Provo so Mary could teach in the Brigham Young Academy, and she remained
there for nine years. While she was living in Provo, Wilford Woodruff
died September 2, 1898. She wrote that this was another severe shock to her.
And on February 5, 1903 she lost her daughter and close companion, Mary who
died suddenly. Sarah tried to stay in her home in Provo so she could be
near her grandchildren, but when her health began failing Newton and Arabell
moved her back to Smithfield where she lived until her death in 1909.
Sarah was the mother of eight children, but
suffered the death of two children in infancy, Brigham’s death when he was 20
years old, and Mary’s death at age 36. Sarah died May 9, 1909 at the age
of 75 and was buried in the Woodruff family plot in the Salt Lake City
Cemetery. At her death she had 34 grandchildren and 24 great
grandchildren.
Sources
Biographical
Sketch of Sarah Brown Woodruff, written in Smithfield, Utah, dated April
15, 1909. MS 13106, Church History Library.
Carol Houndrake Nielson, The Salt Lake
City 14th Ward Album Quilt, 1857: Stories of the Relief Society
Women and Their Quilt, The University of Utah Press, (Salt Lake City,
2004).
Interview of Wilford Weeks
Woodruff quoted in “Restored cabin a remnant of faith,” article by John L.
Hart, Church News, May 29, 1993.
Millennial Star 27 (1865), History
of Wilford Woodruff, (From His Own Pen).
"Sarah Brown Woodruff," Kate
Carter, ed., Our Pioneer Heritage.
Wilford
Woodruff’s Journals,
1:205, 209, 3:71-73, 75, 4:199, 211, 304, 366, 448, 5:9-10, 28, 180, 341,
411-12, 6:7, 37, 44, 135-36, 213, 216, 326, 387, 457, 510, 521, 571, 582,
7:6-7, 20, 24, 38, 40, 43, 45-46, 53, 59, 61, 71, 77, 79, 89, 91, 98, 107, 119,
121-22, 125, 127-28, 131, 133, 147-48, 153, 156, 159, 162, 7;164, 171, 182,
193, 196, 207-208, 213, 225, 267, 273, 288, 295, 412-14, 433, 448, 475, 482,
494, 548, 559, 564, 582, 586, 589, 593, 602-603, 608, 8:8, 12, 18, 25, 34-36,
43-44, 71-72, 85, 88, 90, 110-11, 115, 117, 127, 129, 134, 141, 147, 152-53,
159, 170, 194-96, 200, 205, 208-209, 222-224, 242, 248, 251, 276, 298, 300,
304, 307, 309-10, 312, 315, 317, 319, 321, 328-29, 331, 337, 341, 348, 350,
372, 374-75, 378-81, 8;383, 385-86, 388, 390, 392, 394, 397, 400-402, 407-408,
411-12, 414, 423, 425-26, 428, 430, 432-33, 436, 451, 456-57, 468-69, 481,
484-86, 492, 495, 499, 504, 509, 514, 517, 522, 9:3, 12,14, 39, 43, 51, 54, 59,
66, 69-70, 72-73, 80, 84, 88, 90, 101, 108, 112, 122, 129, 134-35, 137-38, 142,
146, 149, 161-62, 165-66, 176, 182, 184-86, 201, 213, 222, 226, 237, 244-45,
256, 258, 270, 283, 292, 303, 319-20, 322-23, 339, 344-45, 353, 363-64, 369,
378-79, 381, 387-89, 395, 397-401, 403, 411, 415-16, 446, 450, 453, 459, 472,
483, 496, 505, 515-16, 532, 536, 552, 555.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
(March 1, 1838 –
March 4, 1912)
Emma,
Wilford’s seventh wife, was the daughter of Samuel Smith and Martishia Smoot, the
oldest of their four children. Samuel and Martishia were married January 25, 1835 and taught the gospel by David W. Patten and Warrren Parrish. Samuel
and Martishia were baptized March 22, 1835. Martishia’s brother, Abraham
O. Smoot, was also baptized in March and served as one of Wilford’s missionary
companions in 1836 when he was preaching in Kentucky and Tennessee.[1]
Wilford writes about staying in the home of Samuel and Martishia Smoot Smith
while on his mission in April 1836.[2]
The
Smoot and Smith families left in February 1837 to migrate to Missouri.
(See Abraham O. Smoot’s Journal, February 20-21, 1837.) They named their
first child Emma, after Joseph Smith’s wife. Emma was born in Spring
Hill, Adam-ondi-Ahman, Missouri on March 1, 1838. They lived in
Davies County until they were expelled by order of General Wilcox on November
1, 1838. They relocated to Caldwell County, but were expelled from there
a few months later, in February 1839, after Governor Boggs issued his
extermination order. The Smiths moved first to Quincy, Illinois, for
several months then Zarahemla, Iowa until 1841. Emma’s sister Sarah Ann
was born on December 19, 1841.[3] The Smith family finally settled in
Nauvoo, Illinois.
In
1843 Samuel Smith was asked to work in the mill in Wisconsin to help produce
enough lumber to finish the temple in Nauvoo. The Smith family spent a
year in Wisconsin. Emma’s younger brother Joseph Samuel, named after the
prophet Joseph Smith, was born there March 19, 1844, just three months before
Joseph and Hyrum Smith were murdered.[4] The Smiths returned to Nauvoo in
July 1844.
After
the Nauvoo Temple was dedicated, Samuel and Martishia Smith received their
endowments in the Temple on December 25, 1845. They then left Nauvoo with
the first wave of Saints that followed Brigham Young in the exodus in February
1846. However, their journey to Utah was delayed four years. Why
they left the camps in Iowa is unclear, perhaps to earn additional money for
the journey, but they were in Missouri or Kentucky when Emma’s youngest
brother, Abraham Owen, was born on August 15, 1849.[5]
Emma’s
family then began the trek across the plains June 15, 1850, in the Wilford
Woodruff Company. Over 400 Saints were part of the gathering Wilford
Woodruff accomplished between 1848-1850 when he was sent East from Winter
Quarters to bring more Saints to Utah. When they joined Wilford
Woodruff’s Company, Emma was 12 years old, her sister Sarah was 8, her brother
Joseph was 4 and Owen was only 10 months old.
When
the company reached Salt Creek, Nebraska on June 27, her father became ill with
cholera and died a few hours later.[6] He was only 43 years old.[7]
Two weeks later, on July 12, 1850, Emma’s mother gave birth to their fifth
child, Martishia Rosalia. They continued their journey and Emma helped
her mother and younger siblings.[8] The company arrived in Salt Lake
October 14, 1850.[9]
Two
and a half years later, when Emma was 15, she was sealed to Wilford Woodruff on
March 13, 1853. In his journal Wilford recorded that he was sealed at
7:00 pm to both Emma Smith and Sarah Brown by Brigham Young. Emma
received her endowments in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City on March 17,
1854.
Initially
Emma lived with Phebe and Sarah and their children in the Valley House.
She may have been more like a daughter to Phebe, because Phebe’s daughters
Susan and Phebe were 10 and 11. In the summer of 1857, when their Relief
Society made the 14th Ward quilt to auction off to raise money for the
Perpetual Emigration Fund, Emma and Phebe Amelia used the same fabric to
create the flowers they included in their squares.[10] Later that year,
on October 4, 1857, Emma bore her first child, Hyrum Smith Woodruff. He
only lived for 14 months.
In
1866 Wilford built a second home on his farm and Emma lived there, perhaps with
Sarah, until Sarah moved north to Randolph, Utah in 1871. Emma bore
another seven children between 1860 and 1879, and six of them lived to become
adults: Emma Manella (1860-1906); Asahel Hart (1863-1939); Anna Thompson
(1867-1867); Clara Martishia (1868-1927); Abraham Owen (1872-1904); Winifred Blanche
(1876-1954); and Mary Alice, (1879-1916).
Following
Phebe Woodruff’s death in 1885, Wilford moved to Emma’s home on the
farm. He built it in 1859-1860, and it was a log home covered with
adobe. Emma was his "public" wife for the remainder of his
life. Because of the laws against polygamy, Wilford could not be seen in
public with his other wives, Sarah and Delight. However they and their
children were part of private gatherings and celebrations held in Emma’s
farmhouse and later the Woodruff Villa after it was completed. (Wilford built
the Villa in 1891 next door to Emma’s farm house. They lived together in
the Villa from 1892 until his death in 1898.)
Emma
and her daughter Mary Alice accompanied Wilford St. George during the winter of
1886 and 1887. Her mother Martishia died November 3, 1886. There
Mary Alice was baptized in the St. George Temple on January 4, 1887, two days
after her 8th birthday.[17]
Emma
also accompanied Wilford and several others on a vacation to Northern
California in the spring of 1889 and British Columbia that fall. Their
last trip together was along the West Coast from Portland, Oregon to San Diego,
California in August and September, 1896. They were accompanied by George
Q. and Caroline Cannon, among others. In San Diego they stayed at the
Hotel del Coronado for three days and spent time fishing from the
pier.[18] They also spent a day deep-sea fishing off the coast and caught
about 600 pounds of fish.[19]
Wilford
took a final trip to San Francisco in the fall of 1898. It was while on
this trip that he died unexpectedly on September 2, of complications from a
surgical procedure. His body was returned to Salt Lake City, where he was
buried on September 8, 1898.
Emma’s
life was then filled with her continued service as an ordinance worker in the
Salt Lake Temple and the care of her children and grandchildren. After
the death of her daughter-in-law Helen and then her son Abraham Owen in 1904
from small pox, Emma helped raise their four children: Wilford Owen, June, Rhoda,
and Helen.[20] Her eldest daughter and namesake, Emma, died in November
1906. Her granddaughter Rhoda died at the age of three in 1907.
Emma Smith Woodruff died of anemia and nephritis on March 4, 1912. She
was 81 years old.
On
June 5, 1905, Emma wrote her testimony. She included her participation as
a charter member of the first Relief Society organized in Salt Lake City, her
service as president of the Farmer's Ward Relief Society, member of the General
Relief Society Board, and Relief Society President of the Granite Stake.
She also spoke of her memory as a child sitting on the Prophet Joseph Smith’s
knee and said she had never forgotten how he looked. She concluded by
stating, “I am a firm believer in every principle of the gospel and bear my
humble testimony that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God.”[21]
Carol
Holindrake Nielson, The Salt Lake City 14th Ward Album Quilt, 1857: Stories
of the Relief Society Women and Their Quilt, 50.
Wilford
Woodruff’s Journals, 1:209, 4:199, 211, 305, 366, 373, 407, 5:28, 105-106, 180,
242, 244, 373, 471, 573, 6:44, 95, 100, 158, 186, 210, 228, 326, 335-36, 347,
416-17, 436, 504, 510, 521, 528, 575, 582-84, 7:93, 122, 194-97, 203, 217,
246-47, 271 277, 293-94, 320, 357, 395, 404, 416, 426, 429-30, 447-48, 451,
456, 475, 478, 486, 494-95, 569, 611, 8:31, 88 140, 173, 184, 211, 213-15, 232,
237, 277, 289, 300-301, 305, 308, 310-13, 316-17, 320, 323, 343-45, 347-48, 373,
375, 377-78, 380, 382-83, 385-86, 387, 390, 394, 397, 400-402, 404-407, 408,
410-14, 419-23, 425-30, 432-34, 446, 449-51, 454-55, 457, 464-66, 469, 471,
474, 484-87, 493, 497, 502, 509, 511-12, 521, 527, 530-31, 9:3, 5-6, 10, 15, 17-18,
23, 31, 40-42, 47-48, 50, 60, 66, 69, 71-72, 80, 85, 99, 102, 104, 106, 110-12,
120, 126, 128, 133, 139-40, 147, 151, 155, 157, 164, 166, 171, 175, 177,
181-82, 186, 188, 190-91, 195, 198-99, 200, 203, 205, 208, 210, 214, 218, 223,
229, 241-42, 249-50, 252, 254, 257, 259, 263, 272, 286, 288-89, 291, 293-95,
297-98, 300, 306, 311, 313, 315, 317, 322, 324, 326, 328-29, 335-36, 338-39,
341-42, 344, 346, 348, 350-53, 355, 357-58, 364, 366, 369-70, 376, 388, 391-92,
395, 399-401, 403-404, 406, 412-13, 415, 417-18, 421-23, 425-26, 430, 432, 449,
453-54, 456, 458, 460-61, 472, 474, 476-82, 484, 486-87, 493-94, 496-97,
499-500, 503, 506-507, 511-12, 515-17, 520, 531-34, 536-38, 545, 549, 552-53,
556. 558-60.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
SARAH DELIGHT
STOCKING
(July 26, 1838 – May
28, 1906)
Sarah
Delight Stocking, known as Delight, was born July 26, 1838, in Canton,
Bloomfield County, Connecticut. She was the fourth of five
children. Delight’s mother, Catherine Emeline Ensign, died in February
24, 1841, when Delight was only two years old. Her father, John Jay
Stocking, then married Catherine’s younger sister Harriett Ensign on October
11, 1841. Harriett raised Delight and her siblings.
John
and Harriett were converted to the Church in Westfield, Massachusetts by Edwin Woolley in February 1843. On July 21, 1844, when he was in Westfield, Wilford Woodruff records receiving $1 from John Stocking as a contribution
toward building the Nauvoo Temple.[1] The family moved from Massachusetts
to Nauvoo in September 1844 and Sarah's father worked as a tailor among other
jobs to support their family.
John
and Harriet received their endowments in the Nauvoo Temple on February 2, 1846,
four days before ordinances ceased there.[2] Then the Stocking family joined
the first group leaving Nauvoo the following week. But they faced extremely
difficult circumstances and struggled for years in Iowa and Nebraska. Several
members of their extended family died in Iowa, including Delight's half-sister Mary and her maternal
grandmother, Mary Bryant Ensign.[3] Delight noted in her
autobiography that they had to take bark from a tree at Mt. Pisgah to make her grandmother’s
coffin. Her sister Catherine, her half-brother James, and her grandfather Isaac Ensign
died in Winter Quarters in 1847.
Delight was baptized at the age of 8, in 1847, in the Missouri River by Edward Stephen and then confirmed by her father. The Stocking family finally joined the Warren Foote Company leaving Kanesville (Council Bluffs), Iowa for Salt Lake City on June 17, 1850. The one memory of their journey that Delight wrote about in her autobiography was the effect of cholera. Many in their company contracted cholera and died. Delight became very ill and asked her father to baptize her in the river to heal her. He was afraid it would kill her, but she insisted and was healed.[4]
Delight was baptized at the age of 8, in 1847, in the Missouri River by Edward Stephen and then confirmed by her father. The Stocking family finally joined the Warren Foote Company leaving Kanesville (Council Bluffs), Iowa for Salt Lake City on June 17, 1850. The one memory of their journey that Delight wrote about in her autobiography was the effect of cholera. Many in their company contracted cholera and died. Delight became very ill and asked her father to baptize her in the river to heal her. He was afraid it would kill her, but she insisted and was healed.[4]
Delight
was 12 years old when they arrived in the Salt Lake Valley on September 12,
1850. She received her patriarchal blessing when she was 14 and was promised
that she would be able to help the sick and believed she fulfilled that role
during her life.[5] Her family initially stayed in West Jordan, but then moved
further south in 1853 with several other families to help establish what became knows as Fort Herriman.[6]
On
July 31, 1857, when Delight was 19, she was sealed to Wilford Woodruff in the
Endowment House in Salt Lake by Brigham Young.[7] Delight initially moved
into the Valley House with Wilford’s three other wives: Phebe, Emma, and
Sarah. She was there when the 14th Ward Relief Society made a quilt to
raffle as a fundraiser for the Perpetual Emigration Fund. Delight’s
square was a picture of a colorful bird and a butterfly. Her embroidered
signature was, “Sarah D. Woodruff.”[8]
In
1860, Wilford bought a house in Randolph, Utah, where he moved his wife Sarah
Brown. Delight gave birth to her first child, Marion, in 1861 in Salt Lake
City.[9] She recorded that the birth was so difficult that she died after
he was born, then her spirit returned to her body and she came to life
again.[10] At the age of 56 she wrote about the experience and said when
she died of old age, if she was as happy as she had been in1861, then she would
be a “happy woman.”[11]
In
July of 1862, Wilford moved Delight moved to Herriman to be near her family and
help look after Wilford's cattle herd there.[12] (Although the Fort had
been abandoned in 1858 at the direction of Brigham Young because of the
Johnston's Army, the Stockings and some of the other settlers had returned and
established the town of Herriman.) However, she was back in Salt Lake in
July 1863 for the birth of her second child Emeline,[13] and her son Ensign in
December 1865.[14] Jeremiah, Delight’s fourth child, was born in Herriman on
August 29, 1868, but died 16 months later.[15] Her fifth child Rosanna,
born April 17, 1871, only lived 18 months.[16] Her sixth child, John Jay,
was born August 14, 1873.[17]
In 1869 Wilford bought a farm on Third East near Thirteenth South and he moved Delight into her new house January 3, 1876.[18] Her seventh child, Julia Delight, was born there June 28, 1878.[19] Wilford deeded the farm to Delight and her children in 1882. Ten years later she had the farm subdivided to become the North Waterloo Addition and sold it.[21] When Julia married in 1896, Delight moved to Big Cottonwood where she lived with her unmarried son, John Jay. (John did not marry until 1903.) She died on May 28, 1906, at the age of 67, and was buried in the Woodruff family plot in the Salt Lake City Cemetery.
In 1869 Wilford bought a farm on Third East near Thirteenth South and he moved Delight into her new house January 3, 1876.[18] Her seventh child, Julia Delight, was born there June 28, 1878.[19] Wilford deeded the farm to Delight and her children in 1882. Ten years later she had the farm subdivided to become the North Waterloo Addition and sold it.[21] When Julia married in 1896, Delight moved to Big Cottonwood where she lived with her unmarried son, John Jay. (John did not marry until 1903.) She died on May 28, 1906, at the age of 67, and was buried in the Woodruff family plot in the Salt Lake City Cemetery.
Sources
Carol
Holindrake Nielson, The Salt Lake City 14th Ward Album Quilt, 1857: Stories of
the Relief Society Women and Their Quilt, 56.
Kate
Carter, ed., Our Pioneer Heritage, 10: 236-38, by Julia Woodruff Parks.
Sarah
D. Stocking Woodruff's Autobiography, written December 26, 1894.
Wilford
Woodruff’s Journals,
1:209, 5:70 sealing, 225, 279, 336, 373 405, 6:37, 120, 122-23, 195, 210, 326,
398, 404, 408-409, 412, 458-59, 478, 498, 504, 509-10, 581; 7:80, 89, 92, 128,
136, 213, 228-29, 261, 265, 416, 424-26, 456, 475, 491, 516, 579; 8:3, 36, 152,
173, 232, 298, 310, 312, 331, 341, 343, 347-48, 372, 380, 386, 412, 451,
455-56, 469, 484, 492, 504; 9:10, 52, 98, 118, 137, 212, 230, 245, 301, 320,
445, 485, 499.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
EUDORA LOVINA YOUNG
(May 12, 1852 –
October 21, 1921)
Eudora
Lovina or “Dora” was the eldest of three daughters born to Lucy Bigelow and
Brigham Young.[1] She
was born May 12, 1852 when her mother was living in the Beehive House
in Salt Lake City, Utah. She was baptized at the age of 8 on June 13,
1860 and received her endowments on August 25, 1866, at the age of 14.
When Dora was 18 she eloped to marry Moreland “Morely” Dunford October 3, 1870.[2] Dora and Morely had two sons, Frank in 1873 and George in 1875. Due to Morely’s alcoholism she divorced him and returned to St. George to live with her mother in 1876.[3] Dora’s sister Susannah “Susa” married Morely’s cousin Alma B. Dunford in 1872. Alma also suffered from alcoholism and Susa subsequently divorced him and also returned to live in St. George.[4]
When Dora was 18 she eloped to marry Moreland “Morely” Dunford October 3, 1870.[2] Dora and Morely had two sons, Frank in 1873 and George in 1875. Due to Morely’s alcoholism she divorced him and returned to St. George to live with her mother in 1876.[3] Dora’s sister Susannah “Susa” married Morely’s cousin Alma B. Dunford in 1872. Alma also suffered from alcoholism and Susa subsequently divorced him and also returned to live in St. George.[4]
In
January 1877, when the St. George Temple was dedicated, Brigham Young asked his
wife Lucy Bigelow to preside over the female temple workers. Lucy’s
daughters Dora and Susa assisted her in the temple in January and
February. In fact, Susa was the first person to serve as a proxy for
baptisms in the St. George Temple, and Wilford Woodruff officiated in baptizing
her. Lucy, Dora and Susa were among the 154 women who helped Wilford
Woodruff complete proxy work for his family members on March 1, 1877.
Dora was sealed to Wilford on Saturday, March 10, 1877.[5] Dora received
her second anointing with Wilford on March 21, 1877 and continued to do temple
work with him for several months.[6] Dora moved to Salt Lake City later that
year after Wilford returned following Brigham Young’s death in August
1877. Dora and Wilford had a son born
April 1, 1878, Wilford records that the baby only lived a few hours.[7] They named their son Brigham Young Woodruff and he was buried in the St. George Cemetery.
Dora
left Wilford later that year to marry Judge Albert Hagan. At the time Albert Hagan and his wife Mary were living in Ann Eliza Young’s boarding house in Salt Lake City.[8] Albert Hagan was a
California mining attorney who moved to Utah in 1873 to form the firm Smith, Tilford, & Hagan. Albert was not a member of the Church.[9] Albert was one of the attorneys who assisted Ann in her infamous divorce from Brigham Young.[10] He and his wife Mary had two daughters.
The
newspaper accounts of the scandal caused by Albert’s relationship with Dora are
contradictory. Over the years the various papers stated Albert and Dora
were married in Seattle[11], and that Albert’s law partner Frank Tilford moved
their law firm to Denver and Albert followed. After Albert and Dora left, Albert’s wife and daughters moved back to Pennsylvania. The date for Albert and Dora's marriage is given as March 1, 1879 after Albert's wife Mary was committed to an insane
asylum under suspicious circumstances. (Only after intervention by someone
within the institution Mary was released 25 years later.)[12]
According to Albert's eulogy, the law frim of Tilford and Hagan dissolved shortly after relocating to Denver and Albert and Dora settled in Leadville, then Socorro, New Mexico. Their first son Albert Hagan, Jr., was born in
Chicago, Illinois August 13, 1882 and died December 3, 1883 in Lakeview,
Illinois.[13] They moved to Spokane Falls, Washington in 1886 where their second son Harold Raymond was born May 20, 1886, then moved to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho where their two daughters were born: Mabel Clara
May 15, 1889 and Lucy Mary on June 13, 1891. Lucy died three months later. Albert established himself as a
well-respected attorney in Kootenai County, Idaho and represented the mine
owners in the Coeur d’Alene strikes of 1892. He died there June 23, 1895 at the age of 53.
Dora lived a full life as a mother and grandmother. She eventually returned to Salt Lake City and lived there until her death at the age of 69 on October 21,
1921.[14] The name entered on her death certificate was Dora Mary Hagan
and she was buried in the Mount Olivet Cemetery in Salt Lake City.[15]
Lineage Book -
National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution -# 2632 Estelle
Kathleen Hagan Wholley.
Milwaukee Journal, October 21, 1904.
Salt Lake Herald, February 3, 1905.
"The Utah Genealogical and Historical
Magazine".
Utah
Death Certificates, certificate number 1564.
Wilford Woodruff’s
Journals, 7:330, 7:338-341, 345, 347, 363.