August 4, 2016
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Thank you, thank you Scott. I’m delighted to be here today. I’m going to begin with a short statement from an article Eliza R. Snow wrote in April of 1868 that was published in the Deseret News, entitled “Female Relief Society”:
This is the name of a Society which was organized in Nauvoo, on the 17th of March, 1842, by President Joseph Smith, assisted by Elders Willard Richards and John Taylor.[1]
I find this an interesting introduction to Relief Society because it is so basic, but Eliza was introducing Relief Society to second-generation Latter-day Saints and hundreds of immigrants and converts who knew little or nothing about the long-lapsed organization. In 1868, it was long-lapsed.
In Nauvoo, in March 1842, Latter-day Saint women had been organized by and through Joseph Smith’s prophetic authority, had selected as their name the “Female Relief Society of Nauvoo,” and had expanded their membership to over 1,000 members; but their institution functioned only two years. March 16, 1844 marked its last recorded meeting.[2] The Female Relief Society of Nauvoo had accomplished much in succoring Nauvoo’s poor and needy. In the Society’s final gatherings, however, Emma Smith expressed opposition to plural marriage as introduced by her husband Joseph and apparently she attempted to unite Relief Society members in resisting it. Emma’s actions precipitated conflict with her husband Joseph, and certainly with his successor, Brigham Young. Questions flared regarding the limits of Emma’s authority, the limits of female authority, and the role of the Relief Society within the Church. On March 9, 1845, Brigham Young officially suspended Relief Society meetings, declaring
When I want Sisters or the Wives of the members of this church to get up Relief Society I will summon them to my aid but until that time let them stay at home & if you see Females huddling together veto the concern ….[3]
In Utah, beginning in 1854, Brigham Young asked bishops to organize ward Relief Societies to sew clothing for Native American women and children and aid arriving immigrants. Due to the Utah War, most of the early Utah societies lasted just a few years. These events are discussed in some depth in the documents, introductions, and annotations featured in Parts One and Two of The First Fifty Years of Relief Society: Key Documents in Latter-day Saint Women’s History, published earlier this year by the Church Historian’s Press.[4]
Both parts in their entirety now appear on the Church Historian’s Press website, and hopefully continuing research will further enlarge our understanding of this very freighted story.
Let us look now to December 1867 and the beginning of the new era of Relief Society that will be my focus today. I will be examining some of the work and thought of Eliza R. Snow during the twelve months between December 1867 and December 1868, the time when the reinstated Relief Society spread rapidly throughout Utah Territory. While men and women cooperated in this important initiative, I suggest that many women moved forward with a particular emphasis, an emphasis that is evident in the thought of Eliza R. Snow.
On Sunday, December 8, 1867, Brigham Young stood at the pulpit of the Old Tabernacle and issued an invitation:
Now, Bishops, you have smart women for wives, many of you; let them organize Female Relief Societies in the various wards. We have many talented women among us, and we wish their help in this matter. Some may think this is a trifling thing, but it is not; and you will find the sisters will be the mainspring of the movement.[5]
The invitation was part of Church leaders’ comprehensive and long-term post-Civil War thrust to intensify their building of the kingdom of God through expanded colonization, organizational refinement, temple completion, and spiritual fortification. In the short term, Young needed help in caring for the poor. He anticipated a significant surge of immigrants in 1868 and had recently declared that the poor should receive aid through their bishops rather than through the general tithing office, whose goods were now to be reserved for those constructing the temple in Salt Lake City. He had also recently established the School of the Prophets with the hope of promoting economic cooperation, (the transcontinental railroad was well underway), and providing a forum for theological instruction.
A number of bishops organized the women of their wards shortly after Brigham Young issued his December 8, 1867 request. The Fourteenth Ward Society was organized immediately, on December 12th. The Salt Lake City Eighth Ward bishopric organized a Relief Society “for the benefit of the poor” on December 18th. The combined Fifth and Sixth Ward in the city organized the same day. By the end of December, Sarah M. Kimball had been “ordained” president of the city’s Fifteenth Ward Relief Society. The Seventh Ward Society was organized on January 4th, the Third Ward on January 18th, then the Ninth, Seventeenth, and Fourth Wards, respectively, on February 4th, 6th, and 8th.[6] Far south of Salt Lake City, the Relief Society in Beaver was organized on January 18th [correction: sometime in March].[7] It may be that all of the bishops who moved forward quickly had some acquaintance with Relief Society as it had operated in their wards in the 1850s. Bishop McLelland of the Seventh Ward, for example, said he “wanted to reorganize” and his counselor commented that “he was glad this Society was revived again.”[8]
By April 1868, some eleven or twelve wards had responded to Brigham Young’s request. Consequently, at April conference Young called a second time for the organization of Relief Society in each ward. It must have been clear to him that many bishops needed not only prodding but assistance, so he called upon his plural wife of 23 years, Eliza R. Snow, well known as Zion’s poetess and erstwhile secretary of the Female Relief Society of Nauvoo. She was to play a central role in reorganizing Relief Society. She later recalled:
As I had been intimately associated with, and had officiated as Secretary for the first organization, Pres. Young commissioned me to assist the Bishops in organizing Branches of the Society in their respective Wards; for, at that time, the Bishops had not acquainted themselves with the movement, and did not know how to proceed. To me it was quite a mission, and I took much pleasure in its performance.[9]
Eliza’s reminiscence provides no date for her new “commission” or calling from Brigham Young, but her presence is noted in ward Relief Society minutes, primarily beginning in April 1868, after Young reiterated in April conference the importance of organizing Relief Societies. We see, for example, in the minutes of the Twentieth Ward, how Eliza was present. Here we have “Minutes of the organization and first meeting of the Society of the 20th Ward, Salt Lake City,” April 22, 1868:
Agreeable to a previous appointment a number of lady residents of the 20th Ward Eliza R. Snow & Zina Young met with Bishop Sharp & counsellor Allen at the residence of [] A.O. Smoot on the 22nd of April 1868 a[t] 2 o clock P.M. for the purpose of organizing the 20th Ward Female Relief Society.[10]
This was typical, and the presence of other women was typical as well, especially Zina Young and other wives of Brigham Young, including Margaret Whitesides Young. These women had been members of the Female Relief Society of Nauvoo, many of them, or active in Relief Societies of the 1850s, so they were not only well respected, but they were experienced.
But it was the Nauvoo minute book, the record Eliza had personally preserved for more than twenty years, that became a critical component in restoring the organization’s original purpose, structure, and procedures. [Doctrine and Covenants] Section 21 tells us, “Behold, there shall be a record kept among you;…” [11] and that certainly had importance to Eliza. She believed in the significance of records and record keeping, and she carried her [minute] book with her as she visited the various ward Relief Societies, and, indeed, it became a model of recordkeeping for those societies.
Here is the first page of minutes of the Nauvoo minute book, “A Record of the Organization, and Proceedings of The Female Relief Society of Nauvoo.” (emphasis in original) It gives us the [location] lodge room and the date [March 17th 1842].[12]
Here are the “Minutes of the Organization of the Female Relief Society of the Fifth and Sixth Wards, Salt Lake City.” (emphasis in original) Location: the Sixth Ward School House. Date: December 18, 1867.[13]
These look a lot alike. In fact, the handwriting looks a lot alike, because it is. Both of them are in the handwriting of Eliza R. Snow. We see the same thing in other wards. As Eliza traveled, she was anxious that record books be properly set up, so sometimes if the women had taken minutes on loose slips of paper, she helped them procure a solid volume and recopied in her distinctive and beautiful handwriting the minutes of their organization and first meetings.
The Nineteenth Ward was organized on January 2, 1868, but only partially. Agatha Pratt was nominated as president by the bishop and then got instructions from him on which poor in the ward she should visit. The women began informally sewing for the poor, but on the date designated for organizing the Society, only a few women came and “the Bishop was also invited but did not attend.” Finally on May 4, four months after the sisters had first met, the society was organized by the bishop. On May 30,
The Bishop and Sisters Eliza R. Snow accompanied by Sister Margaret P. Young visited [the] meeting. Sister E.R. Snow gave some instructions concerning the proper way of organizing a Female Relief Society and that none were to be admitted as members except those that the Bishop would recommend as good respectable women.[14]
In Nauvoo, members voted on the eligibility of different women for membership. In Utah, it seems that the bishop recommended women. But there were no women who became Relief Society members who were not recommended, and Eliza, as she visited various wards, made sure that women were both recommended and voted upon by their sisters.
This is indicative of the great emphasis she placed on procedure and structure. She wanted the organization to be precisely identical in each ward, with a president, counselors, treasurer, and secretary. She set the pattern for the way the donations were received, and underscored that women should never form societies without proper authority and organization.
She spoke in Sugar House in July of 1868, declaring “this [society] gives us an opportunity to meet legally, it is not a mere plaything but a sacred holy duty.”[15] There was something in these patterns she deemed very important. Thus the article that she prepared for the Deseret News in April 1868 was of singular importance because of the broad audience it reached in describing not just the procedures and structure of Relief Society but also giving a truly visionary sense of its importance.
So back to that article, with a little more of what Eliza wrote:
This is the name of a Society which was organized in Nauvoo, on the 17th of March, 1842, by President Joseph Smith, assisted by Elders Willard Richards and John Taylor. Although the name may be of modern date, the institution is of ancient origin. We were told by our martyred prophet, that the same organization existed in the church anciently, allusions to which are made in some of the epistles recorded in the New Testament, making use of the title, “elect lady.”[16]
Eliza Snow entirely skirted Relief Society’s erratic history. She noted its beginning in Nauvoo under prophetic and apostolic direction and said nothing of its disbandment or brief rebirth in the 1850s. She even set aside its name, separating the Mormon “Relief Society” from its nineteenth century parallels in the American benevolent movement. Instead, she tied it to “the church anciently.” Drawing from Joseph Smith’s statement regarding the title “elect lady,” she essentially proposed that a women’s organization was part of “the same organization that existed in the Primitive Church.”[17] She expanded this idea in the next paragraph:
This is an organization that cannot exist without the Priesthood, from the fact that it derives all its authority and influence from that source. When the Priesthood was taken from the earth, this institution as well as every other appendage to the true order of the church of Jesus Christ on the earth, became extinct, and had never been restored until the time referred to above.[18]
By identifying the Relief Society as an “appendage to the true order of the church of Jesus Christ on the earth,” Eliza Snow employed language identical to that describing priesthood offices in revelations given to Joseph Smith in 1831, ‘32, and ‘35 – Sections 84 and 107 in the Church’s current Doctrine and Covenants.[19] Section 107 reads, as we heard Wendy Ulrich read, “The Melchizedek Priesthood holds the right of presidency, and has power and authority over all the offices in the church in all ages of the world, to administer in spiritual things”[20] and further states that “All other authorities or offices in the church are appendages to this priesthood.”[21] Eliza included Relief Society among other appendages to the Melchizedek Priesthood. She emphasized that the Nauvoo Society had been “organized after the pattern of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, with a Presidentess, who chose two Counselors. These,” Snow wrote, “were ordained and set apart by the Priesthood, and were to fill those offices so long as they faithfully discharged the trust committed to them. This quorum,” she continued, again employing priesthood-related language, “was fully authorized to appoint such officers, committees and assistants as were requisite from time to time, either to fill permanent offices or to perform any temporary agency that circumstances might demand.”[22]
Eliza Snow’s article made no mention of Emma Smith. Indeed, she mentioned none of the Nauvoo officers by name, and did not even identify herself as secretary. Rather, she described herself as having been present at the organization of the Female Relief Society of Nauvoo, and “having now in my possession the minutes of the organization and the records of that Society.”[23] The bits of Nauvoo history Eliza included pertained to assisting the poor or to Joseph Smith’s instructions for conducting business. She sought to lay a scriptural foundation for Relief Society and to connect it to a timeless priesthood. No foundation could have been more solid.
Within this context of connection, Eliza explained the ecclesiastical order in and through which the Relief Society should operate:
Through the authority which President Young has conferred upon the Bishops, they now stand in the same relation with the Societies which have been, and are now about to be organized in the wards and settlements, as President Joseph Smith did with the one in Nauvoo. No Society can overstep the counsel of its Bishop—his word is law, to which, all its doings are amenable.[24]
As Eliza Snow understood it, serving in the order of the priesthood meant working within an order, working in harmony with those called to preside. She acknowledged the authority of President Young. Indeed, implicitly, if not explicitly, she acknowledged that as President of the Melchizedek Priesthood, he held the authority, the key, over Relief Society operations. “President Young,” she wrote, “has turned the key to a wide and extensive sphere of action and usefulness,”[25] clearly echoing Joseph Smith’s statement at the sixth meeting of the Nauvoo Relief Society: “I now turn the key to you in the name of God.”[26]
By this means, these women in the late 1860s explicitly reclaimed and legitimized the offices first given in Nauvoo and later suspended. They did so by affirming their connection to the order of the priesthood. During the spring and summer of 1868, Eliza Snow and Sarah M. Kimball, who was President in the Fifteenth Ward, emphasized parallels to ecclesiastical priesthood offices by the terms they used to describe Relief Society offices added to those of president, counselors, secretary, and treasurer, in a document entitled “Duty of Officers of the Female Relief Society.”[27] Joseph Smith had invited the members of the society to create additional offices as needed: “If any Officers are wanted to carry out the designs of the Institution, let them be appointed and set apart, as Deacons, [and] Teachers &c. are among us.”[28] Nauvoo women added additional officers when they set up the first Relief Society visiting committees in July 1843.[29] Kimball and Snow renamed these officers the “Presidentess and counsil of Teachers,” thereby giving individual members of the visiting committees the enduring title of “teacher.”
I love this book of records from the Fourteenth Ward [committee] of teachers, which some wards called it (you’ll notice this too seems to be in Eliza’s handwriting):
A
Book of Records
Containing Minutes
of the
Meetings and the Proceedings
of the
Quorum of Teachers
of the
Female Relief Society of the 14th Ward.[30]
Snow and Kimball further expanded the organizational structure by designating other officers, including “Deaconesses.”[31] However, their “Duty of Officers of the Female Relief Society” document was apparently not widely circulated, although the responsibilities outlined in other wards were similar even without the same titles. Certainly Eliza Snow emphasized the importance of these various responsibilities as she visited with individual wards and responded to queries sent to her by letter. She was clearly the authority on such questions. She acted on assignment from her husband, Church President Brigham Young, though apparently she was not set apart to a formal office at this time.[32] Throughout Utah Territory, ward Relief Societies were organized and operated according to patterns and precedents set forth in the Nauvoo Minutes. That record served as a common “Constitutio[n] and law,” just as Joseph Smith had declared it should.[33] It appears that ward societies continued to function independently of one another and without central, unifying leadership, except Snow’s frequent visits. And Eliza repeatedly insisted that the local units were all branches of the same single entity, the Relief Society. During the early months of 1870, that larger entity emerged as women gathered en masse to protest anti-polygamy legislation and as they created their own central council to direct and coordinate the work of local branches of the Relief Society.[34] But that is another story.
I want to conclude by emphasizing that while Eliza Snow played a critical role in reconstituting Relief Society after Nauvoo patterns, she did more than that, and she had been called to do more than that.
Not long after the re-organization of the Relief Society, Pres. Young told me he was going to give me another mission. Without the least intimation of what the mission consisted, I replied, “I shall endeavor to fulfil it.” He said, “I want you to instruct the sisters.”[35]
Think of Section 25 and Emma [“ordained”] – “to expound [the] scriptures, and to exhort the church ….”[36] Brigham Young said, “I want you to instruct the sisters.”
[Eliza recalled]
Altho’ my heart went “pit a pat” for the time being, I did not, and could not then form an adequate estimate of the magnitude of the work before me. To carry into effect the President’s requisition, I saw, at once, involved public meetings and public speaking—also travel abroad, as the Branches [] of the sisterhood extended at that time, through several Counties in Utah, and ultimately, all the vallies of the mountains ….[37]
So Eliza began this twenty-year work of traveling through the Utah Territory and into Idaho and Arizona, speaking to Relief Societies and then to Young Women and ultimately to Primary organizations as well. She had a vision to share, and she shared it. I do think her perspective or at least her emphasis was different from that of men, although she worked in complete harmony with her [church leaders]. That harmony was extraordinarily important to her. But she placed tremendous emphasis, as we’ve mentioned, on women’s connection to the order of the priesthood. Her ideas certainly complemented those of church leaders, who emphasized the complete connection between temporal and spiritual, but she made it absolutely explicit for women.
I’ve asked myself why she did that, how she could do it, and I believe it came from her constant work in the Endowment House. Eliza began administering temple ordinances beginning in 1852 in the Council House, and then, following the dedication of the Endowment House in May 1855, she was there constantly. Between November 1867 and January 1870, she was present in the Endowment House every day for which ordinances were recorded. In between addressing women in their Relief Society meetings, she was ministering to them in the Endowment House. Temple concepts, temple principles, and sometimes temple language found their way into her instructions to women.
Let me give you a couple of examples. In the Thirteenth Ward, August 7, 1868:
Sister Eliza R. Snow arose and addressed the sisters. She felt to encourage them to. . . speak; thought it was a pity that we as Latter Day Saints should have nothing to say considering the many privileges we enjoy and having access in so many ways to instruction. We were the daughters of Abraham. . . . Spoke of our living to meet certain glories. . . . Only those who live for a fullness, will attain to the blessing promised Abraham. Felt it was better to live up to every privilege which was living for a fullness, Keeping the Celestial Law if we are faithful we shall attain to it.[38]
You know, the Fifteenth Ward, this great ward headed by Sarah Kimball, was the first to decide they would build a Relief Society hall. And that hall became a pattern for Relief Society halls throughout the Church. It was only in the 1920s that Relief Society halls were abandoned in favor of Relief Society rooms. It was a big thing in November of 1868 when Sarah Kimball and her associates decided to lay the foundation for their hall.
And there’s their finished hall, but I’m talking about a year previous when they were laying the cornerstone. The [November 12, 1868] minutes tell us:
The Society then formed into procession and repaired to the place where the cornerstone of the storehouse was to be laid. . . . The cornerstone of the building was then laid by Pres. Kimball. [and] That work being pronounced finished, [she gave an address].[39]
And at the end of this cornerstone-laying ceremony, Eliza Snow, who was present, also spoke:
Sister Snow encouraged the Society in their efforts, said that the blessings of God and angels were upon the labors of this day, spoke of the blessings and strength of union and of the necessity of women cultivating and developing her intellectual abilities, of the necessity of her being able to transact business properly. Said that, in as much as we had taken part in this great cause, not to falter, but to persevere until the object was accomplished. Spoke of the duties and labors of the sisters, but that if they worked with energy and union, there was nothing they could not accomplish, said that our troubles should be laid aside, that we should rise above them and keep in view the object of our being, that if we did this and [we] were faithful to the end, instead of going forth to lay the foundation for a store, we would go [forth] as Adam and Eve went [forth] to lay the foundation of Worlds.[40]
A year later Eliza was in Lehi and Provo, speaking to the Relief Societies there. She had spoken to multiplying circles of sisters, many of them gathering in Relief Societies for the first time, and she encouraged and witnessed and inspired. Conscientious secretaries tried to capture in their local minutes the power of her words for women: “While sit[t]ing here,” she said in Lehi [in 1869],
I have been looking upon the faces of my Sisters and can See the form of Deity there and I have been Reflecting on the Great work we have to perform, Even in helping in the Salvation of the Living and the Dead. We want to be ladys in very deed not according to the term of the word as the world Judges but fit Companions of the Gods and Holy ones.[41]
Woman is designed to be a help meet for man, and the work of the last days cannot be accomplished without our assistance.[42]
Eliza R. Snow taught a generation of women that Relief Society was not simply the benevolent association that quickly began and ended in Nauvoo, and was revived briefly in Utah. It was fitting that holy women should make clothing for the poor. It was necessary. It was important. It was worthy. And, further, there were particular blessings that would flow to women as they operated in the authority and order of the priesthood and became an essential part of the body of Christ. That is why she insisted that a “Society of this kind has always existed whenever the priesthood has been upon the earth.”[43] Prophets Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, and certainly Eliza R. Snow and her sisters, all had a role in restoring it. Thank you.
Q&A
I have to read fast. This is easier handwriting [to read] than the [old] minutes!
Question: Why won’t anyone write Emma’s history today? With all the availability to histories and documents’ openness, isn’t it time to tell that full story as well?
Answer: I do believe that Emma’s story is being told. You are right; there are new documents. There are not the wealth of documents for Emma that there are for Eliza R. Snow. Emma was Relief Society President for two years, Eliza essentially functioning in that position for twenty years. So there is a difference in terms of what’s available, but there are people, particularly Mark Staker in the Church History Department, uncovering and writing Emma’s story. Emma and her story and Joseph are featured in the new priesthood restoration site in Harmony, Pennsylvania. So it’s happening. It may not be happening soon enough for you.
There are some other questions there. I might come back to that.
Q: Did Eliza not mention her participation in Nauvoo because she and the counselors were secretly married to Joseph without Emma knowing?
A: It’s true – Eliza married Joseph Smith June 29, 1842, a few months after the organization of Relief Society. And it appears that Sarah M. Cleveland was also sealed to Joseph Smith (Sarah was a counselor). I do not think that’s why Eliza didn’t mention her participation in Nauvoo. I think, in the article I was speaking of, she was deliberately trying to be timeless. She was trying to associate Relief Society with a prophetic act of turning the key and make it [conceptualize it as] an organization that was on the earth in every dispensation, and she certainly talked about that as she went from ward to ward.
“Secretly married to Joseph without Emma knowing” … you know, Emma did know about some of Joseph’s plural marriages, and did agree to them. Others, it’s true, she did not know about and it’s certainly questionable whether or not she knew about Eliza’s marriage to Joseph or at what point she knew.[44] Certainly later, in Utah, after Emma had issued her last testimony, essentially denying that Joseph had other legal wives, Eliza was very upset with Emma. But generally the two women were friends. They may have had a falling out in Nauvoo, but it’s hard to track the evidence for that.
Q: Is it true that Eliza R. Snow was not set apart as General Relief Society President until after Brigham Young learned about the death of Emma Smith? What could have been the reason for this?
A: Eliza Snow was set apart as General President of the Relief Society in July of 1880. Brigham Young had died three years earlier, so it was John Taylor who set her apart. Emma Smith died at the end of 1879. So what could have been the reason for this? You know, there are various reasons we could speculate. One is that Joseph Smith, in speaking to the Relief Society, said that the presidency should preside just as the First Presidency preside over the Church, that the presidency should remain in office for life. Emma Smith died in ‘79. Eliza became General President in 1880. Eliza R. Snow, her successor Zina Young, her successor Bathsheba Smith, all remained in office for life. Heber J. Grant’s release of Emmeline B. Wells was absolutely devastating to Emmeline Wells. She was the first one to be released without a lifelong appointment. Is that the reason they waited to set apart Eliza Snow? I don’t know. Stake Relief Society presidents were first set apart under Brigham Young’s direction in 1877, and that also might have prompted the move toward a General President.[45]
Q: What power or influence did the Relief Society give women in their communities relative to other women outside the Church during that time? For example, the first all-female city council was in Kanab, Utah, early suffrage in Utah, etc.
A: You know, the Relief Society opened up remarkable public duties to women, and we haven’t even begun to talk about those today. Women took a significant role in the cooperative movement. They raised silk and spun silk. They had these cooperative stores like the one you see here, a hall that was also a cooperative store where they brought their homemade goods and sold them on commission. They sold grain. They sent women to medical school, established the Deseret Hospital, established their own newspaper, the Woman’s Exponent, and in 1895 when they sent representatives to a suffrage association meeting, their reports sounded very much like the reports of other women. Utah women, of course, did get the elective franchise in 1870, significantly before many other women in the nation. So they were very active.
Q: When did Eliza R. Snow marry Brigham Young?
A: In October of 1844, following the death of Joseph Smith.
Q: Are there any other sources on Relief Society being part of the ancient church?
A: Not that I know of. Eliza referenced Joseph, and Joseph, in the minutes of the Relief Society of Nauvoo, pointed to 1 John and its reference to an “elect lady”[46] and said that Emma was filling a similar position.
Q: Can you tell us anything about the black family in the picture of the Fifteenth Ward Relief Society hall?
A: I cannot, but there are people doing research on that, and so I hope that will become clear as more of these families, pioneer families, their stories become evident.[47]
Q: Since Eliza R. Snow was not called as the Relief Society President until after the death of Brigham Young in 1877, did the rift between Brigham Young and Emma Smith cause him to not call a Relief Society President?
A: Well, you know, I think that’s a really good question, think Brigham Young was hesitant to reestablish the Relief Society, and I think you have to say when you look at the local Relief Society minutes, that there was a little cloud over the Relief Society. One of the counselors in [the bishopric of] the Fifteenth Ward, Sarah Kimball’s ward, which became one of the strongest wards, said on the day they were organized, well, this Society will probably do much evil, but hopefully the good it does will overcome that.[48] Bishop Woolley, in the Thirteenth Ward, also waited and waited to organize the Relief Society. He said, I’m not … I don’t want to rush where women are concerned, and he appointed Rachel Ivins Grant to be Relief Society President and essentially said, I expect you to do exactly what I say.[49] Eliza Snow said, in West Jordan, there are some people who say the Relief Society in Nauvoo did more harm than good, but that’s not true.[50] So I think you can see there was a bit of a cloud hanging over it. And that is one of the accomplishments of Eliza Snow. And it isn’t Eliza Snow alone. I really want to underscore that. She worked with a team of women, and these women launched an incredible movement in 1868, and their success was really dependent on the kind of attitude that Eliza expressed in that article [“Female Relief Society” from which] I read [To paraphrase what she consistently taught:] We claim our part in the order of the priesthood, and because of that we will work within that order. We will support our bishops. You will find us allegiant and diligent. And I think the fact that Emma Smith had worked in opposition did put a bit of a cloud over the Relief Society.
Q: As we know, Joseph Smith gave prophetic license to the practice of women giving health blessings by the laying on of hands, using their faith as their authority. Do you see a time when this will be widely acknowledged in the Church? Is anyone currently writing an Ensign article to this effect? Will this practice ever again be given license by the authorities of the Church?
A: “Will this practice ever again be given license by the authorities of the Church?” That is certainly something I cannot answer. I think the publication of The First Fifty Years of Relief Society, with abundant references to healing blessings, is an indication that there is a coming acknowledgment that that was certainly a part of women’s lives in the nineteenth century, an important part. It was significant to them. They practiced it often, and the story of the diminishing of that practice is a very long and complicated story. I would refer you to the work by Jonathan Stapley and Kristine Wright in the Journal of Mormon History[51] for a careful examination of changes in that practice and ultimately the policy.
I will say that in that day we also have to look at the things that the practices that women were not involved in: they did not speak in sacrament meetings, they didn’t have that preaching kind of opportunity, and they did not serve missions without their husbands, so it seems to me the responsibilities of women, as of men, vary in different ages. And Eliza Snow, for example, was accustomed to giving a blessing to women at the end of her addresses to Relief Society; it was a common part of what she did. And after she was set apart as General President by John Taylor, there was a lot of concern about invoking a blessing on women, that that was something that she should not do. So even during her lifetime that was questioned. And so it is interesting to see how she adjusted to that. She would say something like this: “I would like to bless you, but under the circumstances let me just say, I pray that the Lord will bless you.”[52] It was a very lovely and beautiful way to continue what she had been doing, but keeping as she always did within the order she so respected and believed that by working within that order with respect and with faith, women would have great authority and power, and they did. Thank you.
[1] Eliza R. Snow, “Female Relief Society,” Deseret Evening News (Salt Lake City, UT), Apr. 18, 1868, vol. I, no. 127, p. [2]; Apr. 20, 1868, vol. I, no. 128, p. [2], in The First Fifty Years of Relief Society: Key Documents in Latter-day Saint Women’s History, Jill Mulvay Derr, Carol Cornwall Madsen, Kate Holbrook, and Matthew J. Grow, eds., (Salt Lake City, UT: The Church Historian’s Press, 2016) (hereinafter cited The First Fifty Years), Doc. 3.6, p. 271.
[2] See Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book, entry for March 16, 1844, in The First Fifty Years, supra note 1, Doc. 1.2, at p. 129-31, available at https://www.churchhistorianspress.org/the-first-fifty-years-of-relief-society/part-1/1-2/1-2-34, image of original available at The Joseph Smith Papers, http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paperSummary/nauvoo-relief-society-minute-book&p=122.
[3] Brigham Young, Discourse, Mar. 9, 1845 (excerpt), Record of Seventies, Book B, 1844-1848, pp. 77-78, First Council of the Seventy Records, Church History Library (CHL), The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City (CR 3 51), in The First Fifty Years, supra note 1, Doc. 1.13, p. 171.
[4] The First Fifty Years, supra note 1.
[5] Brigham Young, Discourse, Dec. 8, 1867, in “Remarks by President Brigham Young, Made in the Old Tabernacle, G. S. L. City, Sunday, December 8th, 1867,” Deseret Evening News (Salt Lake City, UT), Dec. 14, 1867, vol. 1, no. 21, pp. [1]–[3], in The First Fifty Years, supra note 1, Doc. 3.1, p. 251, available at https://www.churchhistorianspress.org/the-first-fifty-years-of-relief-society/part-3/3-1.
[6] Relief Society Minutes for the following Salt Lake City wards, under the dates noted: Fourteenth Ward, Eighth Ward, Sixth Ward, Fifteenth Ward, Seventh Ward, Third Ward, Ninth Ward, Seventeenth Ward, Fourth Ward, microfilms, Church History Library.
[7] “Correspondence, Beaver, April 4th, 1868,” Deseret News Semi-Weekly, April 18, 1868.
[8] Salt Lake City Seventh Ward Relief Society Minutes, January 4 and 28, 1868, in The First Fifty Years, supra note 1, Doc. 3.3, p. 258.
[9] Eliza R. Snow, Account of 1868 Commission, as Recorded in “Sketch of My Life,” Apr. 13, 1885, pp. [1], [35]-[36] (excerpt); Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (BANC MSS P-F 57 v.1), in The First Fifty Years, supra note 1, Doc. 3.5 (hereinafter cited “Account of 1868 Commission”), p. 268, available at https://www.churchhistorianspress.org/the-first-fifty-years-of-relief-society/part-3/3-5.
[10] Twentieth Ward Relief Society Minutes, 1868-1973, April 22, 1868, microfilm, Church History Library.
[11] Doctrine & Covenants 21:1.
[12] Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book, entry for March 17, 1842 (underlining in original), in The First Fifty Years, supra note 1, Doc. 1.2, at p. 28, available at https://www.churchhistorianspress.org/the-first-fifty-years-of-relief-society/part-1/1-2/1-2-1, image of original available at The Joseph Smith Papers, http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paperSummary/nauvoo-relief-society-minute-book&p=3.
[13] Sixth Ward Relief Society Minutes, December 18, 1867 (underlining in original), microfilm, Church History Library. See also introduction to Salt Lake City Seventh Ward Relief Society, Minutes, January 4 and 28, 1868, in The First Fifty Years, supra note 1, Doc. 3.3, pp. 257-58.
[14] Nineteenth Ward Relief Society Minutes, January 2 through May 30, 1868, pp. 2-3, microfilm, Church History Library.
[15] “Speech by Eliza R. Snow,” [“Eighth meeting of Relief Society, Sugar House Ward. . . July 29th, 1868”], Woman’s Exponent 19 (May 1, 1891), 167.
[16] Eliza R. Snow, “Female Relief Society,” supra note 1, at p. 271.
[17] See Article of Faith 6.
[18] Eliza R. Snow, “Female Relief Society,” supra note 1, at p. 271.
[19] See Doctrine & Covenants 84:29, 30; 107:5, 14.
[20] Doctrine & Covenants 107:8.
[21] Doctrine & Covenants 107:5.
[22] Eliza R. Snow, “Female Relief Society,” supra note 1, at pp. 271-72 (emphasis added).
[23] Eliza R. Snow, “Female Relief Society,” supra note 1, at p. 271.
[24] Eliza R. Snow, “Female Relief Society,” supra note 1, at p. 272.
[25] Eliza R. Snow, “Female Relief Society,” supra note 1, at p. 275.
[26] Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book, entry for April 28, 1842, in The First Fifty Years, supra note 1, Doc. 1.2, at p. 59, available at https://www.churchhistorianspress.org/the-first-fifty-years-of-relief-society/part-1/1-2/1-2-7, image of original available at The Joseph Smith Papers, http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paperSummary/nauvoo-relief-society-minute-book?p=37.
[27] Sarah M. Kimball and Eliza R. Snow, “Duty of Officers of F R Society,” circa May 1868 (hereinafter cited “Duty of Officers”), in The First Fifty Years, supra note 1, Doc. 3.9, p. 285.
[28] Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book, entry for March 17, 1842, in The First Fifty Years, supra note 1, Doc. 1.2, at p. 31, available at https://www.churchhistorianspress.org/the-first-fifty-years-of-relief-society/part-1/1-2/1-2-1, image of original available at The Joseph Smith Papers, http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paperSummary/nauvoo-relief-society-minute-book?p=5.
[29] Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book, entry for July 28, 1843, in The First Fifty Years, supra note 1, Doc. 1.2, at p. 110, available at https://www.churchhistorianspress.org/the-first-fifty-years-of-relief-society/part-1/1-2/1-2-24, image of original available at The Joseph Smith Papers, http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paperSummary/nauvoo-relief-society-minute-book?p=98.
[30] Fourteenth Ward Relief Society Minutes, title page preceding minutes for August 24, 1868, microfilm, Church History Library (emphasis added).
[31] The other officers were “Messengers,” “Superintendents of work,” “Board of apprezers [appraisers],” and “Commission Merchantess.” See “Duty of Officers,” supra note 27, at pp. 287-88.
[32] For documentation of Eliza R. Snow’s setting apart as general president of Relief Society in 1880, see Salt Lake Stake Relief Society, Report, June 18 and 19, 1880, and General Relief Society Meeting, Report, July 17, 1880, in The First Fifty Years, supra note 1, Docs. 4.4 and 4.5, pp. 467-479.
[33] Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book, entry for March 17, 1842, in The First Fifty Years, supra note 1, Doc. 1.2, at p. 31, available at https://www.churchhistorianspress.org/the-first-fifty-years-of-relief-society/part-1/1-2/1-2-1, image of original available at The Joseph Smith Papers, http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paperSummary/nauvoo-relief-society-minute-book?p=5.
[34] See Minutes of “Great Indignation Meeting,” January 13, 1870, in The First Fifty Years, supra note 1, Doc. 3.13, at pp. 311-32, and Ladies’ Cooperative Retrenchment Meeting, Minutes, February 10, 1870, in The First Fifty Years, supra note 1, Doc. 3.15, pp. 338-49, available at https://www.churchhistorianspress.org/the-first-fifty-years-of-relief-society/part-3/3-15.
[35] “Account of 1868 Commission,” supra note 9, at p. 268 (emphasis in original).
[36] Doctrine & Covenants 25:7.
[37] “Account of 1868 Commission,” supra note 9, at pp. 268-69 (emphasis in original).
[38] Thirteenth Ward, Relief Society Minutes, 1868-1898, August 7, 1868, microfilm, Church History Library.
[39] Fifteenth Ward, Riverside Stake, Relief Society Minutes, 1869 [68]-1875 (vol. 1), November 12, 1868, microfilm, Church History Library, which includes a full report of Kimball’s address. See also Eliza R. Snow, “The Relief Society,” Report to the Committee on Charities, Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, [Mar. 1876]; ten pages; Eliza R. Snow, Papers, Special Collections, J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City (MS 0313), in The First Fifty Years, supra note 1, Doc. 3.24, p. 394.
[40] Fifteenth Ward, Riverside Stake, Relief Society Minutes, 1869 [68]-1875 (vol. 1), November 12, 1868, microfilm, Church History Library.
[41] Lehi Ward, Utah Stake Relief Society Minutes, 1868-1879, October 27, 1869, microfilm, Church History Library.
[42] Provo Second Ward, Utah Stake Relief Society Minutes, 1869-1882, “Minutes of a Special Meeting of the Female Relief Societies of Provo held at the Meeting House September 1869 Eliza R. Snow Presiding,” Church History Library.
[43] “Speech by Eliza R. Snow,” [“Eighth meeting of Relief Society, Sugar House Ward. . . July 29th, 1868”], Woman’s Exponent 19 (May 1, 1891), 167.
[44] See “Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo” at https://www.lds.org/topics/plural-marriage-in-kirtland-and-nauvoo?lang=eng.
[45] See Weber Stake Relief Society, Minutes, July 19, 1877, Doc. 3.26, in The First Fifty Years, pp. 405-409.
[46] 2 John 1:1.
[47] Margaret Blair Young and Darius Aidan Gray, among others, have published their research about black Mormon pioneers. Amy Tanner Thiriot is currently documenting slaves taken into Utah before the Civil War.
[48] See Fifteenth Ward Relief Society Minutes and Records, vol. I, Jan. 2 and 4, 1868, cited in The First Fifty Years, supra note 1, Doc. 3.10, at p. 292 n.165 (“one ward priesthood leader, a Brother Bywater, made ‘’some lengthy remarks upon the Good and Evil that would result from Female gatherings and believed that the good that will result from the Female R.S. would overbalance the evil.’ ”).
[49] See Salt Lake City Thirteenth Ward Relief Society, Minutes, Apr. 18, 1868, cited in The First Fifty Years, supra note 1, Doc. 3.7, at p. 278 (“The Bishop made some very interesting remarks, relative to the organization about to be formed.—Said he had been slow with regard to the Society—that he had not felt the spirit of it until he had heard the remarks of President Young expressed at the last Conference—that it was not his habit to be in a hurry in his movements—did not wish the Sisters to rush in their movements, but be cool and deliberate. He said in the organization he wished to select such Sisters for Officers, as would listen to his counsel, and carry out such measures as he should suggest from time to time.”).
[50] In the minutes, Snow’s statement reads: “It has been said that the Society in Nauvoo did more harm than good, but it was not So.” West Jordan Ward, West Jordan Utah South Stake, West Jordan Ward Relief Society Minutes and Records, 1868–1973, CHL , Minute Book A, Sept.7, 1868, Church History Library.
[51] Jonathan A. Stapley and Kristine Wright, Female Ritual Healing in Mormonism (January 1, 2011), Journal of Mormon History, vol. 37, pp. 1-85, Winter 2011, available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1754069.
[52] This is a paraphrase. Until her death in 1887, Snow seems to have used various wording as she both pronounced blessings upon congregations of women and prayed the Lord would bless them.
