Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Meg's Book - Chapter 15 - Relief Society

Trivia - Emma Smith had her next child approximately 9 1/2 months after the formation of the Female Relief Society of Nauvoo.
Posted by daughterofheaven at 6:36 AM

3 comments:

ktb said...

Another good read. Only thing I tripped over was a sentence near the end, page 46, bottom sentence of paragraph, "Emma's counselors were both ladies who had taken Emma in when she was in need of relief." This seems important, yet it is placed at the end of the paragraph, with no further explanation as to why it was mentioned. This might be inserted on page 43 when Emma selects them, or the importance might be further explained, though I think that would call for an additional paragraph (not a bad idea, just more work).

12/27/06 8:05 PM
las said...

This is quite the picture of strong, independent, pre-correlation women, running RS as they saw fit. Not to imply we’re not still strong and independent...just a little more correlated.

I’m really wondering who the women who “accepted” the covenant with Joseph are. You don’t need to tell me, but if Elvira’s not wondering, I wish I knew why.

5/5/07 4:02 AM
daughterofheaven said...

After I was given the initial assignment in April 2000 to tell my RS about Elvira, I tried to figure out how all the family history and documented history could be consistent. One of the data points I had to go on was that Sarah Cleveland and Eliza Snow had both become Joseph's plural wives by June 1842 and Elizabeth Whitney and her husband had agreed to giving their daughter, Sarah Whitney, to Joseph as a plural wife in July 1842. So within four months, all the members of the Relief Society presidency, save Elvira and Phoebe Wheeler, are tied to Joseph by marriage.

There is a website where you can get an idea of who had agreed to be his plural wives (http://www.wivesofjosephsmith.org). Fanny Alger is an anomaly - I don't believe he fully understood at that point, and he certainly didn't have the sealing keys. Looking at the list, by the time Relief Society is formed, all but one of the initial women was already currently married (Louisa Beaman is the one where an angel appeared to him with a drawn sword saying his life was forfeit if he didn't move forward with plural marriage). Recall that Agnes Coolbrith is his brother's widow.

OK, thinking on the fly, I know how I'm going to do it.

5/5/07 4:21 AM

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Meg Stout
Mother, Physicist, Manager, Author, Genealogist
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