
August 2019
It is a sad truth, that there is a profound gender imbalance in the contemporary records we have for early Latter-day Saints. The documents created by men were prioritized, published, and preserved. The records of male church leaders – their public sermons, letters, and journals – were valued by the institutional church and preserved by the Historian’s Office. While some women’s records were kept by the Historian’s Office, they were often cataloged under their husband’s name or scattered across collections making them hard to locate. Most records written by women were passed down through families, with some eventually donated to archives and many others lost over time. This imbalance has made it more challenging to find and include women’s voices and experiences in narratives of church history.
This imbalance also makes it particularly difficult to compare the experiences of men and women to the same event, and to analyze how they reacted. There are few moments where such comparison and analysis are possible in early church history; where the sources exist to provide multiple perspectives from both men and women. One such moment, that I would like to focus on in my remarks today is the second British Mission. This was a mission undertaken by the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles from 1839 to 1841. Over the course of these two years, the apostles and their wives exchanged dozens of letters. While there are still far more surviving letters for the men, the Church History Library has dozens of extant letters from both the apostles and their wives. The women’s letters balance the story, reminding us about what the missionaries left behind, and providing insights into their families’ circumstances in Illinois and Iowa during these challenging years.
I started this research four years ago, as an outgrowth of trying to find more contemporary records written by women in Nauvoo for use in annotation for the Joseph Smith Papers. As I became more familiar with the content of these letters, I was fascinated by the different ways the men and women reacted to their extended separation and the personal sentiments the letters contained. These letters were the only way for the missionary couples to communicate. In our era of instant messaging, texting, and video chats, we often have less appreciation for the loneliness and desperation for news that these men and women experienced during their years of separation. With the exception of journals, such as those kept by Wilford Woodruff, these letters are also the most contemporary source available. They document events as they happened and as they were communicated to their distant spouse. These are not the reflective compositions of autobiographies and memoirs, but more automatic responses that capture the raw emotions and fears in the moment. Additionally, as this was these couples’ only means of communicating many contain personal sentiments that would normally have been expressed privately and often never recorded. In that regard, some of the letters exchanged by these couples may best be described as love letters, but they usually contain both broadly important news and personal sections.
These letters, and the emotions they capture, help to humanize the early Saints. This is one of the many goals of the Joseph Smith Papers – to make the early Saints more relatable, to show that they were women and men like you and I, and to hopefully take them off the idealistic pedestals we have a tendency to put them on in the church. I do not mean to detract from their considerable faith, sacrifices, or perseverance. I hope this presentation demonstrates their powerful testimonies of the gospel and their willingness to sacrifice as well as help us all to recognize that they were complex human beings. Their lives were far from perfect, and we have a tendency to glorify their spiritual highs without recognizing their personal lows. Though centuries removed, I believe the struggles of the apostles and their wives are ones that we can relate to and learn from.
In my research, I found the embedded, sometimes subtle testimonies of the gospel, expressed in these letters especially poignant, particularly those written by the apostle’s wives. And have desperately wanted them to be more widely known, so that members of the church today could understand the conviction of Phebe Woodruff, the fortitude of Mary Ann Young, the patience of Bathsheba Bigler, the devotion of Vilate Kimball, and the forbearance of Leonora Taylor. Women who most church members may have no knowledge of, though their husbands are well known. Too often when it comes to missionary work in the early church, we follow the story of the missionaries and forget the family they left behind. That is frequently a result of using missionary’s journals as are main source and having little or no sources to document the family’s experiences while their missionary father is absent. The precious letters of the second British Mission allow us to better understand not only the missionary’s experiences, but the sacrifices endured by their families.
But before we get to the second British mission, I want to provide some background on the first mission to England and its historical context. In 1837, amid a worsening national economic crisis and rising dissent among the Latter-day Saints in Kirtland, Ohio, Joseph Smith instructed Heber C. Kimball to lead a mission to England. He approached Kimball in the Kirtland Temple in early June 1837 and told him that he had received a revelation that he should “gow to England to open the dore of procklamation to that nation and hed the same.”[1]
In many narratives of this period in Kirtland, Joseph Smith’s direction to Kimball is characterized as a sudden decision to reassert leadership and divert attention from dissenters who were opposing Smith and arguing that he was a false or fallen prophet leading the church astray. Although the decision might have seemed sudden to some, it was a natural extension of church leaders desire to spread the gospel widely. In a November 1831 revelation, Joseph Smith commanded the church to “send forth the elders … unto nations which are afar off; unto the islands of the sea; send forth unto foreign lands.”[2] After the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles was organized in February 1835, Smith directed the apostles to “travel and preach among the Gentiles,” and instructed them that they held “the keys of the ministry, to unlock the door to the kingdom of heaven unto all nations, and to preach the Gospel to every creature.”[3] Over time, England became the first logical step to expand missionary work overseas.
In his autobiography, Parley P. Pratt recalled a blessing that Heber C. Kimball had given him wherein he prophesied that Pratt would preach in Toronto, Canada and there find “a people prepared for the fullness of the gospel.” Kimball’s blessing also promised “from the things growing out of this mission, shall the fulness of the gospel spread into England, and cause a great work to be done in that land.”[4] Shortly after the dedication of the Kirtland Temple in March 1836, Pratt set off on a mission to Canada. For the next six months, Pratt preached in and around Toronto and converted a dozen people. Among those he baptized were several recent immigrants from England, including John and Leonora Taylor, Isaac Russell, John Goodson, John Snider and the Fielding siblings – John, Mercy, and Mary Fielding.[5] When Pratt returned to Canada the following spring, he found that these converts had informed their families in England about joining the church and were eager to share the gospel with them. The Fieldings had written to their relatives, including their brother, Reverend James Fielding, who read their letters to his congregation. In his autobiography, Pratt recalled that, “Several of the Canadian Elders felt a desire to go on a mission to their friends in that country.”[6] Indeed, four of the seven elders who were part of the first British mission were Canadian converts.
Sending Kimball to England may have reasserted Joseph Smith’s authority over the Twelve Apostles, many of whom were among the dissenters opposing him in the summer of 1837. But it created additional tension between Smith and Thomas B. Marsh and Parley P. Pratt. Both Pratt and Marsh had intended to participate in a mission to England and each had to reconcile the Prophet’s decision to exclude them. There is also no indication in the surviving documents for this period that this first mission was widely known among the Latter-day Saints in Kirtland – there were no farewell addresses, no announcements in the local church newspaper, and only a small group of family and friends accompanied the departing missionaries to the harbor in Fairport. As such it may not have combatted the influence of dissenters as much as some scholars have assumed.
Heber C. Kimball was overwhelmed by the call to lead the mission. Writing later in his autobiography, Kimball noted that he “believed the time would soon come when I should take leave of my own country and lift up my voice to other nations, yet it never occurred to my mind, that I should be one of the first, commissioned to preach … on the shores of Europe.”[7] He departed Kirtland with apostle Orson Hyde, Joseph Fielding and Willard Richards on June 13, 1837. They were joined by three of the Canadian converts – Russell, Goodson, and Snider – in New York, and the men worked to raise money for their passage and were finally able to set sail for England at the end of June. Their ship arrived in Liverpool on July 19.
Unlike the numerous letters we have for the second British mission, there are only a handful of letters between the missionaries and their families during this first mission. The largest collection of extant correspondence was exchanged between Heber and Vilate Kimball. While Heber recounted the wonders of Europe and the disparity between rich and poor, Vilate related the waxing and waning of dissent among the Saints in Kirtland and copied Joseph Smith’s revelations into her letters. Siblings Joseph and Mary Fielding and Willard and Hepzibah Richards also wrote to each other. Joseph Fielding told his sister how their brother James had initially welcomed the missionaries, allowing them to preach to his congregation in Preston, England. But as the missionaries converted more and more of his parishioners his support waned and he soon refused to have anything more to do with them.
Despite the rejection by his family, Joseph Fielding and his fellow missionaries proved successful in Preston and the surrounding area. By April 1838, the missionaries had converted over one thousand members and established twenty branches of the church in Preston and the surrounding area. Among their converts were individuals who would play meaningful roles in the future church, including George D. Watt, William Clayton, and Jennetta Richards, who married Willard Richards in the fall of that year. Kimball and Hyde prepared to return to the United States in April 1838, leaving Joseph Fielding in charge of the British Saints with Willard Richard and William Clayton acting as his counselors.[8] By the end of May 1838, Kimball and Hyde had returned to Kirtland finding a divided community and Latter-day Saints preparing to travel to Far West, Missouri.[9] They joined the Saints heading west and arrived in Missouri in late July 1838.
Earlier that month, on 8 July 1838, Joseph Smith received several revelations setting church affairs in order and planning for the future. One of these revelations, now canonized as Doctrine & Covenants section 118, was directed to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, who were instructed to undertake a mission “over the great waters” and return to England as a quorum the following year. The revelation further directed that John Taylor, John E. Page, Wilford Woodruff, and Willard Richards be appointed apostles to replace those who had left the church or died.[10] What had appeared to be an easy feat, setting out from the Far West temple grounds, became far more difficult a year later – after the Saints had been forced from the state of Missouri and threatened with violence should any be found returning. Yet, despite the danger, several of the apostles gathered in Far West on April 26, 1839 and held a meeting to officially start their mission and set apart new apostles, including twenty-one-year-old George A. Smith.
However, after holding the meeting specified in Joseph Smith’s 1838 revelation they did not leave from Far West for England. In fact, most of the missionaries would not arrive in England until early the following year, between January and May 1840. Instead they returned to their families in Montrose and Nauvoo, and spent their time receiving instructions and directions from the prophet Joseph Smith and setting their temporal affairs in order.[11] By early July 1839, the missionaries had finished their preparations and on Sunday, July 7, 1839, hundreds of Saints from Illinois and Iowa gathered to Nauvoo to hear the farewell addresses of members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and the Quorums of the Seventy who were leaving for England. Sidney Rigdon addressed the missionaries, discussing the persecution and trials they would likely face while proselytizing. Woodruff recorded that Rigdon’s address “was of such a nature in appealing to our affections, in parting with our wives, and children, & the peculiarity of our mission, the perils that we might meet with, & the blessings that we should receive, &c. that tears was brought from many eyes.” After Rigdon, Joseph Smith spoke on a similar topic: the potential imprisonment and injustice the missionaries might face while preaching in England. Joseph alluded to the circumstances he had endured while imprisoned in Missouri, saying: “remember brethren that if you are imprisiond Brother Joseph has been imprisiond before you, if you are placed whare you can ownly see your Brethren through the grates of a window while in Irons because of the gospel of Jesus Christ remember Brother Joseph has been in like circumstances also.”[12] After recounting the day’s events in his journal, Woodruff concluded his journal entry with a section labeled “Reflections,” in which he wrote: “May the Lord enable us the Twelve ever to be meek & humble & to lie passive in his hands as the clay in the hands of the potter & may we ever realize that while we are in the service of God & doing his will, that though we may be surrounds by mobs & threatened with death that the Lord is our deliverer & that he will support us in every time of trouble & trial.”[13]
Woodruff and his fellow apostles had prepared themselves and their families spiritually and temporally, but the heavy emotional toll that would result from their separation was something they could not easily prepare for. While many nineteenth century Latter-day Saint missionaries were married, most missionaries to this point were absent for weeks or months at a time, not years. The extended duration of the Twelve Apostles’ mission likely created a more pressing desire for frequent correspondence, resulting in an impressive number of letters – a majority of which have survived and been preserved. These letters are rare for the sheer number that have survived as well as the number of letters written by women, as nineteenth century correspondence is often one sided and predominantly male-centric.
Although the Twelve had given their farewells and made their preparations to depart for England, their mission was unexpectedly delayed as members of the church in Illinois and Iowa began contracting malaria from the mosquitoes that were prevalent in the swampy floodplains around Nauvoo and Montrose. Described as fevers and “ague,” meaning chills, Latter-day Saints of all ages contracted the disease. By July the disease had reached epidemic proportions and hundreds were bedridden and many Saints died that summer and in the following months and years as a result.[14]
This significantly delayed the missionaries as they and their families fell ill. Because of their poor health and destitute circumstances, the missionaries did not leave as a large group but staggered their departures as each felt they were well enough to travel and could leave their ailing families. By early August the first of the missionaries, Wilford Woodruff and John Taylor set off, but they were far from healthy.[15] Desirous to begin their mission, most of the departing missionaries left home while still ill or in the early stages of recovering, finding it necessary to rest and recover, often dependent on the care of strangers as they traveled east with limited funds. Over the next several months the other missionaries also left Nauvoo, but many were forced to stop along the way either because of their ill health or their need to work to acquire the needed money to fund their travels. The cost and time needed to travel to the Eastern United States meant that it took the men months to finally gather as a quorum in New York City. From there Woodruff and Taylor set sail for England in December, with Young, Pratt, and others waiting until March 1840 to leave for Britain.[16]
As difficult as the missionary’s circumstances were, the situation of their wives and children was worse. Most of the women were ill themselves and struggled to care for their young families, many of whom were also sick. Mary Ann Angell Young had given birth only ten days before Brigham left in mid-September. Phebe Woodruff was several months pregnant when Wilford left. Nearly all of the families were left in impoverished conditions and financially dependent on kind neighbors and church leaders for their care. Joseph Smith had promised that the families of the Twelve would be provided for, but with the limited resources of the church this was not easily realized. As the women noted in their letters, there was often a great distance between the promise and the reality. Turning to the bishop for help was not always possible. Leonora Taylor wrote that Bishop Vinson Knight had promised to pay her in bread and meat as he had no money to offer.[17] Vilate Kimball wrote: “I have but one dollar of all that you left with me, I get not much from the Bishop but bread and meat, and some times cant get that. but I have the best of neighbors so I do not suffer.”[18]
With the absence of their husbands, conducting business and providing for the family’s needs fell squarely on the women’s shoulders. Each of the women mentions financial concerns in their correspondence. Leonora Taylor and her children were forced out of the room in an old barracks in Montrose that her family had been sharing with Brigham Young’s ill family, and she struggled to find a place for her family to stay with their meager finances. Writing to inform John how she had spent the money he left her, she listed the families need for medicine, their cow going dry, and her one extravagance – the purchase of a few silver teaspoons.[19] Phebe Woodruff, who moved five times during the course of her husband’s mission, was threatened by two of her male neighbors with having her clothes and other goods sold to pay for her and her daughter’s sustenance.[20] With a comfortable house, Vilate Kimball was better situated than all of the other missionary’s wives and was able, with help from her neighbors, to plan ahead: “Br Joseph Young promised to get me a cow, and he has got me a good one for which I feel very thankful. Br Hubbard gave me a pig last spring which I think if well fattened will make our meat for winter. I have plenty of potatoes, turnups […] so I shall not have much to buy but bread.”[21] In perhaps the most financially dire straits, Mary Ann Young insisted that the family’s circumstances were poor but comfortable in her letters to her husband. It was only after Vilate Kimball wrote to Heber, noting that the Young family was living in a partially constructed home she would hardly call a shelter that Brigham realized the extent of their circumstances.[22]
Traveling without purse or scrip and dependent on the charity of others, the missionaries likewise found themselves in fluctuating financial circumstances. Each remarked on the generosity of the English Saints and thanked God for their needs being met. At various points in their mission, many of the men found themselves able to send money or gifts, such as fabric, shoes, or a watch home to their families. Realizing the difference in the cost of living between England and New York, Parley P. Pratt urged his wife to sell the majority of their household goods and bring their family to live with him more cheaply in England. He refused to take no for an answer, writing: “Courage, Mrs. Pratt, you have performed more difficult journeys than this, and if you will take hold with courage, the Lord will bless and prosper you and our own little ones and bring you over in safety.”[23] In asking this, Pratt resolved the most profound sacrifice identified by the missionaries – their separation from their wives and children. Traveling to what they described as a “new world,” a “foreign land,” and a “strange land,” left these men in unfamiliar surroundings and largely dependent on strangers.
This lengthy mission to England also removed them from their community and their domestic roles as husbands and fathers. In his letters, Brigham Young expressed his worry to his wife that the children would not recognize him when he returned. Leonora Taylor sadly related an incident to her husband where their young son seeing Abram Smoot thought him to be his father and ran and embraced his legs repeating “papa, papa” only to be corrected by his mother and told that his papa was still gone.[24] Each of the fathers sent kisses to their children, instructing their wives to kiss them on their behalf. Likewise, their wives and children sent their kisses and well-wishes to their husbands and fathers. In one letter, Leonora Taylor had each of their three children kiss the paper, circling and labelling each as a kiss from that child.[25] Those men with older children wrote separate notes to their sons and daughters, providing them with fatherly instructions, reminding them to be good, to study, and to mind their mothers.
In contrast to those with larger families, Phebe Woodruff gave birth to their second child, a son she named Wilford, several months after her husband had left for England. As the time for the birth approached, Phebe with increasing frequency wished that Wilford would return to her, even though she realized it was not possible, and relented that she knew the importance of the work he was doing and would not want him to shorten his mission. That did not stop her from dreaming, however, and she related how she dreamed that Wilford had returned to be with her only to be crushed when she woke from the dream.[26]
Dreams of their spouses and, for the missionaries their homes in Iowa and Illinois, were a common occurrence. Brigham Young related in his letters to his wife that he dreamed of his home and family frequently. Dreams also seemed to foreshadow events, such as Wilford Woodruff’s dream that his young daughter Sarah Emma had died. They also seemed to reassure. Heber C. Kimball distraught about leaving his wife and family while sick dreamed of an ill Vilate who he raised from her bed and regained her strength. This comforted him and he believed that she would recover. Several letters between the missionary couples relate having conversations in dreams. During a time of disagreement, both Vilate and Heber C. Kimball recounted dreams in which the other seemed distant to them. Heber went so far as to despair that the Vilate in his dream had turned a cold shoulder to him. While his wife wrote that she believed such coldness would not be the case if they were actually together.[27]
There is often a profound sense of longing and loneliness in many of their letters as they reflect on the distance between them and their spouse. As a postscript to one letter, Leonora Taylor wrote: “I feel as if I want to get into this letter and go too.”[28] Heber C. Kimball wrote to Vilate noting that “the Love that I have for you has eclipsed all mens on earth and I believe it ever will while I live and through Eternity and then will never end. […] I am perfectly miserable out of your site. I esteem you most pressious of all things below this sun.” [29] This is echoed in several of the women’s letters. Phebe Woodruff resolved that next time Wilford traveled to England she and the children would go with him, as she was tired of being lonely and alone.[30] Their devotion to their spouses was evident as they each in their own way acknowledged what Heber C. Kimball plainly wrote: “that no one in this world can make me happy as you can.”[31] Brigham Young wrote that he loved his wife very much, even if he did not “make quite so much a fuss about it” as other men.[32] George A. Smith, who had been courting his future wife, Bathsheba Bigler, before he was made an apostle and left for the mission to England, wrote in a December 1840 letter: “I keep you Still in Memory and the Pleasante hours which I have Spent in your Society are also Remembered … And the Lord willing We Shall See Each other again & talk Over Matters. I am Determined Never to take another Mission across the Ocean without Leaving a Rib at home unless the Lord So orders it.”[33]
Nearly every letter between the couples contains the request for more letters, sent more frequently. Letters arrived on average about two months after being sent, with delays some letters took four or five months to arrive, and some though sent never arrived at all. While many of the couples wrote letters in response to their spouses’ letters as they received them, Vilate and Heber C. Kimball wrote each other even more frequently, not waiting for a letter to arrive before starting a new one. In fact, Brigham Young commented on this in a letter to his wife six months after leaving home and mentioned his envy: “Brother Kimball has jest received a letter from his wife but Brother Brigham has receved but one sence he left home. I wish you would wright a fue lines to him to comfort his poore hart.” Later in the same letter he coyly wondered if sending Mary Ann a love letter who entice her to write, but in his next sentence dismissed the possibility and said he was ashamed at the thought and instructed her to not share the letter with others, so they would not see what he had suggested.[34]
Through a misunderstanding, the Woodruffs experienced a delay of several months before they started corresponding regularly. Each was waiting for the other to write first, so for two months no letters were sent. Finally, Wilford broke the stalemate, asking Phebe why she had not written as he had assumed she would. Phebe replied that she had been waiting for him to write. Phebe also faced further difficulties in writing as she was several months pregnant and caring for their daughter Sarah a toddler. Experiencing what must have seemed an unendurable silence from his wife, Wilford Woodruff wrote more and more frequently, numbering the letters he had sent, likely afraid that his letters were not being received.
In their letters, the apostles frequently expressed gratitude for the letters from their wives. Heber C. Kimball called one of his letters from Vilate a “sweet morsel” and wore another thread-bear with his handling.[35] However, sometimes letters were too limiting, and the couples noted their desire to be in each other’s presence. John Taylor related to his wife his eagerness to sit down with her in their chimney corner and talk about things past and new things.[36] Vilate longed to hear Heber’s gentle voice. Parley P. Pratt fondly remembered his last kiss with his wife. In 1841 in one of his last letters from England, Brigham Young began by writing: “Beloved Mary ann, this evening I have a fue moments to converce in a lonely way. I am thankful I have the priveleg of this [letter] but I want to be whare I can speeke to you face to face and the time is neere at hand when we shall start for home.”[37]
Another shared and oft repeated concern was news about the others health and well-being. Nearly every letter between these couples includes reports on their own health, the health of others, and requests information of the health of their spouse. Death was a very real fear, and at several points both husbands and wives despaired that they would not see their spouse in this life and expressed their hope in being reunited eternally. In fact, having accurate information relating to the welfare of their families was such a deep concern, that the letters between the couples often mentioned the health of family and friends. Realizing those on the other side of the ocean needed reassurance, the wives commented on the general state of the other missionary wives and their children, just as the men commented on their fellow Apostles. However, not all information was to be shared. Learning that a doctor had seen an ailing and pregnant Phebe Woodruff, Leonora Taylor relayed to her husband that the doctor had said Phebe’s present situation was a difficult one and things would “go hard” and she counseled her husband to keep this from Brother Woodruff.[38]
Some couples were willing to be much more frank in discussions of health and well-being than others. After some dissembling letters between the couple, that left Heber unsure if Vilate intended to move from Illinois, he requested they be more familiar with each other and tell each other their situations clearly. After relating how he had fainted and come very close to dying of his malaria, Heber C. Kimball wrote: “my dear Companion do not feel bad because I have told you the truth, for this I agreed to do when I left home. Now do the same to me, then we will be even.”[39] Following his direction, in a non-extant letter Vilate apparently told him what she had suffered in his absence, coming quite near to death herself, and being tried and tempted. This deeply affected Heber, who replied that “I could cry like a child, if I could get by myself.” He mourned that he could be the cause of her suffering and assured her that he prayed for her constantly. As part of the letter he pronounced a blessing on Vilate, asking God to deliver her from temptation and sorrow.[40]
Parley P. Pratt learning from a letter from his wife Mary Ann, that she and their children were dangerously ill with scarlet fever and not able to travel to England to be reunited with him as he had anticipated, expressed his fears and anxiety. After reading the troubling letter he wrote “I cannot taste food. My feelings are such that my stomach will not bear it.” Later in the letter as he was overcome with the fear of his family’s death he asked Mary Ann: “Why must we live separate? Why must I be forever deprived of your society and my dear little children? I cannot endure it. Why did you not come with me when I pressed it upon you last winter? Why did you not come now? My heart bleeds with a wound that is insupportable. I cannot endure it, and yet I must.” Realizing that with these pleas he has seemed to place the blame for the family’s sickness on Mary Ann’s decision not to come to England he clarified: “But don’t for a moment suppose I blame you for not coming, it is only my feelings which I cannot help expressing in the anguish of my heart.”[41] Pratt in his letter then pleads in a written prayer for his family to be healed. Unable to do anything themselves, Pratt, Kimball, and the other missionaries prayed for a loving God to do that which they could not – to heal, bless, and protect their families.
Yet, while Parley P. Pratt only had to face the prospect of losing his family, and returned to New York to find them well, Phebe and Wilford Woodruff’s two-year old daughter died during the mission. Although Phebe wrote him as soon as it happened, hers was not the first news to reach him. In a letter of consolation, he explained that he had seen their daughters name on a list of recent deaths in Nauvoo. Recalling a dream he had soon after leaving home, he told Phebe that he had conversations with her in his dreams and “on one occasion Sarah Emma was not with us & I enquired whare she was you said she was Dead & gave me something of an account of it, but as I had heard from you Since & She was well it had almost worn off my mind.”[42] These dreams and warnings may have made his daughter’s death easier for him to bear, but he also trusted fully in the hope of eternal life and being reunited with her one day.
Phebe, although also resigned to the will of God, took little Sarah Emma’s death only months after giving birth to her son much harder. She was understandably distraught and lonely, she wrote that a gloom and darkness hung over her. She felt that the most trying aspect of her situation was that she and her infant son were her daughters only mourners. Although supported by friends and church members, especially Margaret Smoot who lovingly prepared Sarah Emma’s body for burial, Phebe had no other relations to mourn with her.[43] Wilford said he had discovered from his dream conversation with Phebe that she had “many lonely hours, & some gloomy meditations, as you were left alone so long & had no Relations to keep you company, I know this is trying, & none would have bourn it better than you have done.”[44] He praised her resilience and reminded her of the many tribulations the Saints in all eras of time had to endure and the hope of the next life. Eventually, Phebe was able to echo Job, writing in her letter about Sarah Emma’s death, “The Lord has given, and the Lord has taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord.”[45] But the difficulties of her situation soon overcame her and she moved to her parent’s home in Maine for the remainder of the mission.
These missionary couples reacted in disparate ways to the struggles they faced, but all believed in a loving God who would aid his children and reward their mortal trials. Heber C. Kimball characterized he and his wife’s period of separation, as “one trial above the rest. So we have gained one more victory over the Devel.”[46] Jennetta Richards wrote a postscript in a letter Heber had composed to Vilate offering her sympathy to her and the other missionary wives: “I can truly feel for you and the rest of our Sister’s who are called to Sacrifise the Company of So near and dear relation and left as it were alone though I must not say alone for I believe that the Lord is and will be with you in their absence. Dear Sister we will lift up our hearts and rejoice looking forward to that day when we shall meet never to part, which may our heavenly father grant.”[47]
Phebe Woodruff reflected in one 1840 letter that those women who had never been parted from the company of their husbands did not realize the blessing they had. She further wrote of her great loneliness and isolation: “I often felt that I was alone, a stranger in a strange land sick and ill provided for with my little Sarah clinging around me as though she had no other friend to look to for protection.” She continued “& not knowing how it might turn with me,” meaning whether she herself would recover her health or die, that it left her with “peculiar feelings.” She then emphasized her commitment to the gospel, writing, “but I would often look back and ask myselfe the question did I leave my fathers house for the sake of honour, ease, or popularity, I think I did not but for the word of God.” She concluded her letter noting that she “would try to be reconciled to [her] situation but I found it to be verry hard work in the situation that I then was in –once I had a kind Willford to cheer me in my lonely hour, but then I had none.”[48]
Her husband tried to offer her solace in his letters: “Phebe I know you have made sacrifices, & great ones to, you have made them for Jesus Christ & his cause, & you have made them for me: Some of them have been of such a nature that it hath required all the powers of the soul to pass through them, & these sacrifices still continue, now our separation is required for a season in order to do the will of God, but I think you are sensible that no worldly honor or Earthly gain would cause this our separation. No nothing but the commandment of God.”[49] Concerned about the impoverished conditions she faced and the sacrifices she was making Brigham Young asked Mary Ann how he could aid her, she replied that she would live anywhere, that no sacrifice was too much to bear.[50] This was a conviction recognized and shared by each of these couples, as they resolved to do whatever was required of them to further the work of the Lord.
The depth of Mary Ann Young’s and other apostles’ wives’ convictions may help us understand why they rarely discussed their trials in their letters. The apostles’ letters are sometimes quite direct and vulnerable in relating their trials and challenges. In contrast, their wives rarely go into such detail. They might mention poor health or challenging finances, but usually only in passing. None of the women offer an explanation for their reticence, so we can only guess as to their motivations. But Hepzibah Richards, in a January 1838 letter to her brother Willard, then serving in the first British mission, offers potential insight into the apostle’s wives’ frame of mind when she admitted her reluctance to share bad news with him: “And now brother W[illard] I must proceed to give you some account of the present state of things in this place. Would I had more cheering intelligence to communicate. For when you are so far separated from friends and home it grieves me to write any thing that is calculated to give you pain.”[51]
Perhaps, like Hepzibah Richards, the missionary wives were reluctant to burden their husbands with their hardships when they knew they had little ability to help. Nearly all the apostles commented in their letters about the difficulty of inaction, and only having prayer as an outlet to help their families. These women realized firsthand the poverty church members were facing and made do as well as they could avoiding asking for additional assistance from church leaders. Perhaps the women considered it their Christian duty to suffer in silence, part of their commitment to the gospel and their husband’s missionary labors. Their humility in the face of daunting struggles is a testimony all its own. Although they rarely complained, we should not assume their circumstances improved or that it was a mark of cheerful forbearance. While the men felt free to expound their difficulties, their wives may have felt constrained by cultural or religious expectations.
Regardless of how openly they discussed their situations, the sacrifices of the missionaries and their families were of great significance to church history and the many thousands who joined a church as a result of the apostles’ missions to England. The spread of the gospel in Great Britain was unprecedented. The proselytizing of the first British mission had brought roughly fifteen hundred converts to the church, while the second British mission resulted in several thousand more. By April 1841, the last conference the missionaries held as a group in England, church members there numbered just under 6,000, with an increase of over 4,000 members since the previous year. Many of these converts would emigrate to the United States and join the Latter-day Saints in Nauvoo or later in Utah. The mission had many other successes, such as the unifying of the Quorum of the Twelve and the church’s publishing ventures started in England. But these pale in comparison to the missionary work and the influx of members who would expand and reinvigorate the church in the 1840s and 1850s. [52]
[1] Heber C. Kimball, Journal 1837-1838, pp. 3-4, CHL.
[2] Revelation, 3 November 1831 [D&C 133], in JSP, D2:117.
[3] Minutes and Discourses, 27 February 1835, in JSP, D4: 254.
[4] Parley P. Pratt, The Autobiography of Parley Parker Pratt (New York: Russell Brothers, 1874), 141-142.
[5] Pratt, Autobiography, 164-165; Terryl Givens and Matthew Grow, Parley P. Pratt: The Apostle Paul of Mormonism, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 92.
[6] Pratt, Autobiography, 183.
[7] Heber C. Kimball, Autobiography, ca. 1842-1858, in Heber C. Kimball Papers, 1837-1866, CHL.
[8] See James B. Allen, Ronald K. Esplin, and David J. Whitaker, Men with a Mission 1837-1841: The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in the British Isles (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book Company, 1992), 53.
[9] See Letter from Heber C. Kimball and Orson Hyde, between 22 and 28 May 1839, in JSP, D6:146-148.
[10] See Revelation, 8 July 1838 – A [D&C 118], in JSP, D6:175-180.
[11] See Introduction to Part 4, in JSP, D6:434-436.
[12] Wilford Woodruff, Journal, 1 Jan. 1838-31 Dec. 1839, 7 July 1839; see also Discourse, 7 July 1839, in JSP, D6:526-528.
[13] Woodruff, Journal, 7 July 1839.
[14] See Discourse, 28 July 1839, in JSP, D6: 534-535.
[15] Woodruff, Journal, 8 August 1839.
[16] See Allen et al., Men with a Mission, pp. 67-84.
[17] Leonora Taylor, Letter, to John Taylor, 12 March 1840, John Taylor Collection, CHL.
[18] Vilate Kimball, Letter, to Heber C. Kimball, 18-19 July 1840, Heber C. Kimball Collection, CHL.
[19] Leonora Taylor, Letter, to John Taylor, 12 March 1840, John Taylor Collection, CHL.
[20] Phebe Woodruff, Letter, to Wilford Woodruff, 8 March 1840, Wilford Woodruff Collection, CHL.
[21] Vilate Kimball, Letter, to Heber C. Kimball, 6 June 1840, CHL.
[22] Vilate Kimball, Letter, to Heber C. Kimball, 6 June 1840, CHL.
[23] Parley P. Pratt, Letter to Mary Ann Pratt, 6 April 1840, Parley P. Pratt Papers, 1837-1844, CHL.
[24] Leonora Taylor, Letter, to John Taylor, 9 September 1839, John Taylor Collection, CHL.
[25] Leonora Taylor, Letter, to John Taylor, 12 March 1840, John Taylor Collection, CHL.
[26] Phebe Woodruff, Letter, to Wilford Woodruff, 8 March 1840, Wilford Woodruff Collection, CHL.
[27] Vilate Kimball, Letter, to Heber C. Kimball, 18-19 July 1840, Heber C. Kimball Collection, CHL.
[28] Leonora Taylor, Letter, to John Taylor, 12 March 1840, John Taylor Collection, CHL.
[29] Heber C. Kimball, Letter, to Vilate Kimball, 25 October 1839, CHL.
[30] Phebe Woodruff, Letter, to Wilford Woodruff, 8 September 1840, Wilford Woodruff Collection, CHL.
[31] Heber C. Kimball, Letter, to Vilate Kimball, 25 October 1839, CHL.
[32] Brigham Young, Letter, to Mary Ann Young, 14 February 1840, George W. Thatcher Blair Collection, CHL.
[33] George A. Smith, Letter, to Bathsheba W. Bigler, 5 December 1840, in Allen et al., Men with a Mission, Appendix B, pp. 410-411.
[34] Brigham Young, Letter, to Mary Ann Young, 14 February 1840, George W. Thatcher Blair Collection, CHL.
[35] Heber C. Kimball, Letter, to Vilate Kimball, 25 October 1839, CHL; Heber C. Kimball, Letter, to Vilate Kimball, 25 May 1840, CHL.
[36] John Taylor, Letter, to Leonora Taylor, 6 September 1840, John Taylor Collection, CHL.
[37] Brigham Young, Letter, to Mary Ann Young, 13 March 1841, George W. Thatcher Blair Collection, CHL.
[38] Leonora Taylor, Letter, to John Taylor, 9 September 1839, John Taylor Collection, CHL.
[39] Heber C. Kimball, Letter, to Vilate Kimball, 24 Oct. 1839, Heber C. Kimball Correspondence, CHL.
[40] Heber C. Kimball, Letter, to Vilate Kimball, 25 October 1839, CHL.
[41] Parley P. Pratt, Letter, to Mary Ann Pratt, 6 July 1840, CHL.
[42] Wilford Woodruff, Letter, to Phebe Woodruff, 30 October 1840, Wilford Woodruff Collection, CHL.
[43] Phebe Woodruff, Letter, to Wilford Woodruff, 18 July 1840, Wilford Woodruff Collection, CHL.
[44] Wilford Woodruff, Letter, to Phebe Woodruff, 30 October 1840, Wilford Woodruff Collection, CHL.
[45] Phebe Woodruff, Letter, to Wilford Woodruff, 18 July 1840, Wilford Woodruff Collection, CHL.
[46] Heber C. Kimball, Letter, to Vilate Kimball, 16 November 1839, Heber C. Kimball Letters, 1839-1854, CHL.
[47] Heber C. Kimball, Letter, to Vilate Kimball, 7 October 1840, Heber C. Kimball Collection, CHL.
[48] Phebe Woodruff, Letter, to Wilford Woodruff, 2 July 1840, Wilford Woodruff Collection, CHL.
[49] Wilford Woodruff, Letter, to Phebe Woodruff, 24 November 1840, Wilford Woodruff Collection, CHL.
[50] Brigham Young, Letter, to Mary Ann Young, 16 October 1840, in Allen et al., Men with a Mission, Appendix B, pp. 398-405.
[51] Hepzibah Richards, Letter, to Willard Richards, 1 January 1838, Willard Richards Journals and Papers, 1821-1854, CHL.
[52] See Allen et al., Men with a Mission, pp. 300-303, 309-318.