Summary
Laura Harris Hales explores the life of Helen Mar Kimball, aiming to move beyond simplistic caricatures of her as merely Joseph Smith’s 14-year-old plural wife. She emphasizes that Helen’s story is about covenant religious meaning, her resilience through sorrow, and her desire to shape how her life would be remembered. Hales invites modern readers to consider the deeper faith experiences of 19th-century Latter-day Saint women rather than viewing them solely through the lens of marital relationships.
This talk was given at the 2020 FAIR Annual Conference on August 7, 2020.
Laura Hales is an independent scholar, podcaster, and co-author of Joseph Smith’s Polygamy: Toward a Better Understanding.
Transcript
Introducing Laura Hales
For our next speaker we’re pleased to have Laura Harris Hales. She’s an independent scholar, an editor of A Reason for Faith—a book I’ve read and enjoyed—and co-author of Joseph Smith’s Polygamy: Toward a Better Understanding. She’s also a podcaster and has spoken at several conferences, and so we’re very pleased to have Laura Hales.
Laura Hales
Helen Mar Kimball’s Polygamy Story
Presentation
Laura Harris Hales: Since my 2015 FairMormon Conference presentation on Joseph Smith’s practice of polygamy, I’ve continued to research, write, and speak on the topic with members of the Latter-day Saint community who, like myself, are looking for answers to uncomfortable questions. In these conversations, I have noted the similarities of the inquiries more than their uniqueness. For instance, often one of the first things mentioned is the 14-year-old bride. So today, we’re going to talk about her.
As many of you already know, her name is Helen Mar Kimball. In this presentation, I hope to offer some insights that will humanize and transform Helen from a caricatured 14-year-old girl to the woman she grew to be.
Helen Mar Kimball’s Life in Summary
Helen Mar Kimball’s life integrates into the history of the Latter-day Saint practice of polygamy in thought-provoking ways.
Along with being a Nauvoo polygamy insider, she was the daughter of Heber C. Kimball—the first polygamist after Joseph Smith in Nauvoo—and the mother of Apostle Orson F. Whitney, who read the Manifesto at General Conference in 1890. One could say that her father and son bookended the practice of plural marriage, and Helen was squarely in the middle.
With the Prophet’s death on June 27, 1844, her earthly relationship with Joseph Smith ended, but Helen’s experiences with polygamy did not. She went on to marry Horace Whitney in 1846, who later took two additional wives and fathered 14 children in polygamous unions, in addition to their 11.
In the decade before the 1890 Manifesto, which ended the open practice of plural marriage, Helen consistently defended polygamy in print. She authored articles in the Deseret News, multiple series on Church history in the Woman’s Exponent, and two booklets defending polygamy.
In addition to these public sources, correspondence and a journal add vibrancy to the record. Penned for her family and friends, these texts allow us to compare her public and private words on the topic, as well as contextualizing the religious framework and cultural milieu that facilitated what Helen considered a curious practice within the Latter-day Saint community.
A review of these texts includes placing them in context, because any author’s present appears in their biographical telling of the past.
Background on the Practice of Polygamy Itself
Helen began writing in 1876, in the midst of a particularly difficult decade in the history of relations between the Latter-day Saints and the U.S. government—and most of the discord stemmed from polygamy, which had been publicly introduced in 1852.
Pressure intensified in 1882 after Congress legislated the Edmunds Anti-Polygamy Act, which made polygamy a felony and prohibited unlawful cohabitation. The anti-polygamy sentiment was so high that U.S. President Grover Cleveland, in his first annual message to Congress in December 1885, proposed Mormon immigration restrictions because they reinforced the practice. Immigrant single women, he argued, fed the polygamy mill by providing an endless stream of eligible women for eager polygamists.
Then, in light of continued resistance, Congress passed the 1887 Edmunds-Tucker Act, which disincorporated the Church, disenfranchised women, and instituted measures that made it easier to prosecute polygamists.
Attacks on the legitimacy of the practice also came from unanticipated voices. A group of scattered Saints, including Joseph Smith III, formally established the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints on April 6, 1860.
Every few years starting in 1866, missionaries from the new Church—including David and Alexander Smith—traveled to Utah bearing the message that Joseph Smith was a monogamist and that Brigham Young instituted plural marriage after their father’s death.
These claims were so bothersome that Hyrum Smith’s son, Apostle Joseph F. Smith, collected affidavits from Nauvoo polygamists in the late 1860s, including 15 from the Prophet’s plural wives, affirming their firsthand knowledge of his practice.
The conflict climaxed when Joseph Smith III printed his mother’s reported denial of his father’s plural marriages several months after her 1879 death. Her words raised the ire of her former Latter-day Saint Nauvoo neighbors and reinforced the strain between the two groups.
Helen Kimball Whitney at a Crossroads–The Decision to Write Her Story
In this tense setting, Helen Mar Kimball Whitney found herself at a crossroads. After years of wiping runny noses, darning socks, and chasing after little ones, household duties no longer absorbed her days. As was prone to happen, depression—a familiar foe—returned to Helen.
Many of us undoubtedly can empathize with her sense of loss and confusion as she looked for a new purpose in her life.
During this time, Helen requested a healing blessing from the Relief Society. After the washing and anointing, Eliza Snow and Margaret Smoot visited with her. Helen recollected:
Sister Smoot told me she thought it would be a great benefit to the younger sisters to hear my history, and she considered it my duty to tell them. She told me the same when I was at her house in Provo, and that night I made up my mind to commence my biography.”
This new goal invigorated her, but she had another purpose in setting pen to paper. Joyce Cochran reported in Representative Women of Deseret that Helen recalled:
Almost my first literary effort was inspired by the reading of the various opinions of men published upon women’s disabilities, etc., and my continuing is due to the advice and urgent wishes of many of my sisters.”
A keen sense of duty had been a constant in her life and would have been a powerful motivation to begin her efforts. But Helen, never having kept a journal, likely wondered how to begin reconstructing the unusual things she had experienced during her 48 years on earth.
Letters and Journals
Fortunately, as the only surviving daughter of Heber and Vilate Kimball, Helen had inherited her parents’ letters and journals upon their deaths.
I imagine her finding a quiet moment, carefully pulling them out, dusting them off, gingerly unfolding the pages—already yellowed—and slowly reading the tender words a younger Heber wrote to his beloved Vilate.
As she read her father’s journal, memories of her youth would have come to her mind: her early days in Mendon, New York; her parents’ conversion and the decision to join the Saints in Kirtland, Ohio; her baptism in the frigid Chagrin River by Brigham Young; and school years under the tutelage of Eliza R. Snow.
Her hopes when moving to Missouri were soon dashed by violent discord that forced her family to abandon their home and flee to Illinois. Poverty, illness, and her father’s mission call to England followed. Though Helen was still a child at that time, memories of this trauma would mold her worldview throughout adulthood.
Helen would become a young woman and an adult in Nauvoo—experiencing friendship, love, and marriage to Horace Whitney in the Nauvoo Temple. Her honeymoon included an exodus across the Mississippi River, followed by the darkness of Winter Quarters and the grueling and heartbreaking trek west.
The years between the 1830s and 1880s would shrink as she revisited her youth while reviewing her parents’ papers. Helen was a child of the Restoration, and her history mirrored that of the Church. Helen had stories to tell, and they were worth preserving. Writing became a healing balm—if only temporarily—on her despair, as she found a new purpose.
Undoubtedly, she did not realize that her remembrances would not only inform the youth of her time but also enlighten subsequent generations of Latter-day Saints attempting to make sense of the past.
Helen’s First Published Writing and Her Testimony of Polygamy
Helen’s first article in the Woman’s Exponent, a piece about the Missouri War, appeared on May 15, 1880. With the popularity of the series came more installments.
On July 15, 1882, Helen wrote of her introduction to polygamy in Nauvoo, which serves as a baseline for understanding her sealing to Joseph Smith. Combined with a letter to an acquaintance and an 1881 letter to her children, it adds contour to a sparse historical record.
I invite you to join me as we survey these texts, which give readers fleeting glimpses into Helen’s experience living polygamy. As such, they do not address divine sanction of the practice nor current interpretations of Restoration doctrine. Likewise, they do not necessarily reflect my thoughts on the topic here.
Woman’s Exponent
Helen commenced her account in the Woman’s Exponent by placing the practice of plural marriage within a Restoration narrative. She began:
This was the first time that I had ever openly manifested anger toward him, but I was somewhat surprised at his countenance, as he seemed rather pleased than otherwise. Then he commenced talking seriously and reasoned and explained the principle and why it was again to be established upon the earth, but did not tell me that anyone yet practiced it, but left me to reflect upon it for the next 24 hours, during which time I was filled with various and conflicting ideas.
I was skeptical—one minute believed, then doubted. I thought of the love and tenderness that he felt for his only daughter, and I knew that he would not cast her off, and this was the only convincing proof that I had of his being right.
I knew that he loved me too well to teach me anything that was not strictly pure, virtuous, and exalting in its tendencies, and no one else could have influenced me at that time or brought me to accept of a doctrine so utterly repugnant and so contrary to all of our former ideas and traditions.”
Pure, Virtuous, and Exalting
Helen expounded further:
The next day, the Prophet called at our house, and I sat with my father and mother and heard him teach the principle and explain it more fully, and I believed it. But I had no proofs, only his testimony and my father’s.
And after years, the Lord, in His far-seeing and infinite mercy, suffered me to pass through the rough ways of experience and its sorrow and affliction. I learned this most important lesson: that in Him alone must I trust, and not in weak and sinful man. And that it was absolutely necessary for each one to obtain a living witness and testimony for him or herself, and not for another, to the truth of this Latter-day work—to be able to stand. And that, like Saul, we must suffer for His name’s sake.
Then I learned that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, and that He is nigh unto all those that call upon Him in truth and healeth the broken in heart and bindeth up their wounds.”
Helen emphasized that polygamy was pure, virtuous, and exalting in its tendencies. She was taught the doctrine by the Prophet Joseph Smith, and she accepted the principle because of her trust in her father. She also freely acknowledged that it was not a concept she readily understood, and she recommended to readers that they lean upon the arm of the Lord for divine confirmation of the practice.
Helen also noted that in later years, sorrowful experiences encouraged her to turn to the Lord for a witness. Conspicuously absent in this account is mention of Helen’s sealing that day to Joseph Smith.
More Writings, Published and Unpublished
Helen shared a similar narrative in an undated letter to Mary Bond, a childhood friend from Kirtland, Ohio, who was also a member of the Reorganized Church. She wrote:
Anna Smith died with a wicked falsehood on her lips, if that printed testimony was hers, for my mother and Mother Whitney, as well as many others who are yet living, were knowing to the fact of Emma’s accepting the principle. And she gave three young women who lived with her to Joseph Smith, her husband. And I testify that I was intimately acquainted with them, as well as others who were sealed to him.
And my father taught it to me the first time that I ever heard of it, as a saving, pure, and holy principle. I afterwards sat in my father’s house with him and my mother and listened to the Prophet teach it. I believed that it was right, but did not know it until a few years after I passed through the most intense suffering, the beauty and the glory which I saw in it was enough to make up for the trials in this life. I have passed through the trials which have been as keen to me as to anyone, but I’ve kept my eyes upon the joy of them who have entered into the principle.”
The omission of her sealing is even more glaring in this account, as she specifically names women who could testify to Joseph Smith’s practice of polygamy. Helen appears to have been hesitant to talk about her sealing to Joseph Smith—even in polygamy-era Utah.
Helen’s Apparent Hesitancy to Speak of Her Sealing to Joseph Smith
For instance, no affidavit from Helen appeared in Joseph F. Smith’s affidavit books verifying the Prophet’s plural marriage unions. Yet undoubtedly, Apostle Smith knew about the sealing. Andrew Jenson did not quote her in his 1887 article on Joseph Smith’s practice of polygamy in his periodical The Historical Record, and she did not testify in the Temple Lot trial regarding Joseph Smith’s practice of polygamy, even though she was in town and in good health at the time of the hearings in 1892.
Three sets of documents constitute primary attestations of Joseph’s plural marriage practices. Helen was an ardent defender of Joseph Smith and the practice of polygamy, so it seems odd that she did not cite her union in the letter.
She did, however, attest that polygamy was a pure and holy principle taught by the Prophet. Her parents were present in discussions. She based her acceptance on the belief of her parents. Spiritual confirmation was needed, and there were heavenly rewards for participation.
Defending Church Teachings and Her Way of Life
The contentions were intrinsic to Utah polygamy and under attack during the 1880s. When Helen defended plural marriage, she did so using the teachings of Church leaders of the time, as she was essentially defending her way of life. These texts should be read with this context in mind.
In Helen’s eyes, the campaigns against the Latter-day Saints had not ceased with the Missouri War. The only extant document from Helen with more than a couple of words about her plural marriage to Joseph Smith is a letter she wrote to her children on March 30, 1881.
Helen’s Testimony to Her Family
At the time, six of her eleven children were living: Orson, 26; Lilly, 24; Jenny, 21; Helen, 19; Charles, 17; and Floti, 14. Although time has obscured the proximate motivation for writing the letter, the intended audience and envisioned purpose are clear.
Helen declared:
Now, my children, I ask Him to bless and preserve these lines, that my children and my grandchildren and their children’s children may read them. And may they all live so as to accomplish the designs of our Maker.”
A loving mother meant this letter as a lodestar—an inspirational model or guide—for her posterity.
Commentators favor this document because of the fragmentary archival record and the potentially explosive nature of Helen’s relationship with Joseph Smith. But as they use her words to support their agendas, they may do violence to hers. Remembering Helen’s intention enhances historical accuracy when analyzing this literary project.
Helen’s Polygamy Story
After briefly tracing the history of her family—from her great-grandfather Kimball’s emigration from England and her family’s conversion—Helen began her polygamy story:
Just previous to my father starting upon his last mission, but one, to the Eastern States, he taught me the principle of celestial marriage. And having a great desire to be connected with the Prophet Joseph, he offered me to him. This I afterwards learned from the Prophet’s own mouth. My father had but one ewe lamb, but willingly laid her upon the altar. How cruel the scene to the mother, whose heartstrings were already stretched until they were ready to snap asunder! For he had taken Sarah Noon to wife, and she thought she had made sufficient sacrifice, but the Lord required more.”
The reference to the Abrahamic covenant here is consistent with Helen’s defensive, apologetic writings. Helen remembered that:
On one occasion in 1841, “He [Joseph] astonished his hearers by preaching on the restoration of all things, and said that as it was anciently with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, so it would be again, etc.”
Returning to Helen’s letter to her children:
I will pass over the temptations which I had during the 24 hours after my father introduced me to this principle and asked me if I would be sealed to Joseph, who came next morning. And with my parents, I heard him teach and explain the principle of celestial marriage, after which he said to me: ‘If you will take this step, it will ensure your eternal salvation and exaltation and that of your father’s household and all of your kindreds.’ This promise was so great that I willingly gave myself to purchase so glorious a reward.”
The Sealing Ceremony
Helen’s mother responded to the request:
If Helen is willing, I have nothing more to say.
She had witnessed the sufferings of others who were older and who better understood the step they were taking. And to see her child—who had scarcely seen her fifteenth summer—following in the same thorny path: in her mind, she saw the misery which was as sure to come as the sun was to rise and set. But it was all hidden from me.”
From these paragraphs, we learn the timing of the sealing ceremony, that Helen’s mother viewed her as being young to be considering a plural marriage. Like others, Helen was hesitant to say she was 14 years old. Helen did not completely understand what she agreed to when she entered into the sealing covenant, and her parents did not thoroughly discuss it with her.
Then, Helen segues into a poem, which is unusual for her—she did not, by habit, write in verse. Poetry begs a different interpretation than prose. George Santayana wrote of the art:
The poet dips into the chaos that underlies the rational shell of the world and breaks up some superfluous image, some emotion dropped by the way, and reattaches it to the present object. He reinstates things unnecessary. He emphasizes things ignored. He paints in again into the landscape the tints which the intellect has allowed to fade from it.
If he seems sometimes to obscure a fact, it is only because he is restoring an experience.”
Helen’s Poetry
In her poem, Helen captures the essence of her experience in light of decades of reflection, rather than presenting a strictly historical narration of facts. We should not read the poem in isolation from the broader goals of the entire text. Embedded as it is within Helen’s larger narrative, context is important here.
Internally, the poem consists of three discernible sections which convey themes of remembrance, rebellion, and reconsideration. Helen begins:
I thought through this life my time will be my own.
The step I am now taking’s for eternity alone.
No one need be the wiser, through time I shall be free,
And as the past hath been, the future still will be.To my guileless heart, all free from worldly care,
And full of blissful hopes and youthful visions rare,
The world seemed bright, and threatening clouds were kept from sight,
And all looked fair—but pitying angels wept.”
The first few lines may have been interpreted in two ways: either Helen had a mistaken belief that the sealing was for eternity alone, or she was mistaken in thinking that an eternity-only sealing would not affect her young life.
In light of the entire letter and related texts, the latter interpretation seems unlikely. Her mother, Vilate Kimball’s, feelings—expressed directly before the poem—reflect the concerns concomitant with an earthly and celestial union.
Regretting Her Decision
In the next section, Helen talks about how she felt in the months following the ceremony:
They—the angels—saw my youthful friends grow shy and cold,
And poisonous darts from slanderous tongues were hurled.
And tutored hard in thy generous sacrifice,
Thou didst not weigh the cost, nor know the bitter price.Thy happy dreams all o’er, there thou were doomed, alas, to be
Barred out from social scenes by this, thy destiny.
And o’er thy saddened memories of sweet departed joys,
Thy sickened heart will brood and imaginative future woes.And like a fettered bird, with wild and longing heart,
Thou daily pine for freedom and murmur at thy lot.”
Here, Helen expressed how she regretted her decision once she began to realize its full impact. It is unlikely that her father would have sympathized with the distress she felt from the social constraints imposed by the sealing.
From August to November 1882, several of Helen’s articles in the Woman’s Exponent, written after this autobiographical sketch, discuss Elder Heber C. Kimball’s efforts to redirect the attention of the youth of the city by encouraging the formation of the Young Gentlemen and Ladies Relief Society of Nauvoo in April 1843.
Youth of the Time
An article in the Times and Seasons proclaimed:
Instead of the young people spending their evenings at parties, balls, etc., they would now leave all and attend to their meetings. Instead of hearing about this party and that party, this dance and that dance in different parts of the city, their name was scarcely mentioned, and the young people’s meetings became the chief topic of conversation.”
Helen’s older brother William did manage to attend a dance in the winter of 1843, but he accomplished this through adolescent cleverness rather than bachelordom.
This extra bit of context helps us better recognize the conservative and repressive culture in which Helen was raised. While commentators cling to the compelling metaphors embedded within Helen’s portrait of her 14-year-old self, they often draw problematic conclusions. The purpose of her essay was not to lament truncated social opportunities, but rather to provide a testimony for her progeny.
The middle section of the poem lays a foundation for the reconsideration that follows. Note, however, that she did imagine future woes.
A Look Back
In the last ten lines of the poem, 53-year-old Helen peers back through time and talks to her younger self:
But couldst thou see the future and view that glorious crown
Awaiting you in heaven, you would not weep nor mourn.
Pure and exalted was thy father’s aim,
He saw glory in obeying his Father’s high celestial law.For to thousands who’ve died without the light,
I will bring eternal joy and make thy crown more bright.I had been taught to receive the Prophet of God
And receive every word as the word of the Lord.
But had this not come through my dear father’s mouth,
I should never have received it as God’s sacred truth.”
Here, Helen’s argument mirrors that of her Woman’s Exponent article and her letter to Mary Bond. She believed that the plural marriage covenant leads to exaltation. Her father taught her about the covenant, and Joseph Smith restored plural marriage. As she tells young Helen not to weep nor mourn, readers are clued into the meaning of the middle section of the poem.
The bemoaning of lost opportunities and missed dances acts as a foil for Helen’s extolling of obedience, honorable parenting, and delayed gratification.
Helen then discussed further experiences as a plural wife that did not warrant poetic expression:
Two years after the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum, I loved and married your father, Horace Kimball Whitney. I have given him Lucy B. Kimball and Mary Cravath to wife. By him I have borne 11 children, who I hope to see crowned in the celestial kingdom. We have lived together happily for over 35 years, and still we are spared as monuments of God’s mercy.”
Where There’s No Cross, There’s No Crown
The sentence immediately following her poem is intriguing. The phrase “loved and married” seems odd here—unless there is an option not to love and marry, as was the case with her sealing to the Prophet.
In her Woman’s Exponent articles, Helen only noted a few personal interactions with Joseph Smith. Most notably, she recalled that the Prophet clumsily broke the head off her china doll when she was a child, that he acted odd at a birthday party for her friend Sarah Ann Whitney, and that after their sealing, Joseph took her and her older brother William on a boat ride.
Such stories belie a deep romantic love like the one she shared with Horace Whitney. Then again, in the letter, we see more response to the younger Helen:
I have long since learned to leave it all with Him who knows better than ourselves what will make us happy. I am thankful that He has brought me through the furnace of affliction and that He has condescended to show me that the promises made to me—the warning that I was sealed to the Prophet of God—will not fail & I would not have the chain broken, for I have had a view of the principle of eternal salvation and the perfect union which this healing power will bring to the human family. And with the help of our Heavenly Father, I am determined to so live that I can claim those promises.”
Helen’s mention of passing through the “furnace of affliction” mirrors concepts found in her Woman’s Exponent article. Not infrequently, Helen noted the relationship between trials and salvation. Invoking the metaphors of the crown of thorns and a regal heavenly crown, she declared in her other writings, “Where there’s no cross, there’s no crown.”
Helen’s Marriage to Horace Witney
Helen’s experience with both joy and the cross began in earnest when she fell in love and married Horace Whitney. Her trials intensified as she watched the pain polygamy caused her mother, and she confronted the expectation that her husband would love another as well.
It became excruciating as she lost three children in succession shortly after their birth. The wounds openly bled as she watched Horace fall in love and show affection to Lucy Kimball Whitney.
In a cruel twist of fate, after Lucy died in childbirth, Helen would have a child placed in her care—only to have him fade away within two weeks. One could only imagine how she felt when her son Charlie committed suicide.
Helen’s acquaintance, Eliza Jane Webb, assessed, “I know she is a very good woman who is acquainted with sorrow.”
In light of Helen’s experiences, it is not surprising that she would invoke images of woundedness and healing in her writing.
Notice how Helen focuses on the promises associated with the sealing covenant more than on the lived dynamics of the priesthood ordinance. She represented polygamy as the gateway to exaltation. Helen does not identify a hoped-for celestial family constellation. She petitioned:
“By him I have borne 11 children who I hope to see crowned in the celestial kingdom.”
Polygamy as a Celestial Chain
The emphasis is not on earthly fatherhood as much as on heavenly association and exaltation. Helen explained:
I would not have the chain broken, for I have had a view of the principle of eternal salvation and the perfect union which this healing power will bring to the human family & with the help of our Heavenly Father, I am determined to so live that I can claim those promises.”
In the biography of his grandfather Life of Heber C. Kimball, Helen’s son, Orson F. Whitney, wrote:
A golden link was forged whereby the houses of Heber and Joseph were indissolubly and forever joined.”
To 21st-century readers, this declaration probably sounds dramatic and encomiastic.
In his book on temple theology, The Power of Godliness, researcher Jonathan Stapley provided context for the connection between polygamy and exaltation. He stated:
Polygamy can be viewed as the solution to a problem faced by a generation of converts to the [Smith’s] restored Church who found themselves in a cosmological bind. If heaven could only be realized in the material bonds formed by sealing rituals, and if heaven was to integrate the believers in Nauvoo, then those believers needed to be sealed together in some way.
Most of the first generation of Mormons were convinced that God had commanded them to be sealed to multiple people in the present—that is, commanded them to engage in polygamy, a practice that immediately created the material connections of heaven within the community.
The first generation of Latter-day Saints characterized these material connections as an unbroken chain that tied them back to Adam’s original covenant with God.”
The Blessings of Exaltation
Another way to look at the rationale is to consider that early Latter-day Saints did not necessarily seal themselves to biological ancestors down horizontal and vertical lines like members do now. Instead, they were interested in constructing a broad swath of fabric that sealed the families of the Church together.
Helen concludes her letter with another expression of hope that her loved ones will enjoy the blessings of exaltation:
Before they [her children] have broken this seal,” (referring to the seal of the envelope holding the letter), “the writer of these few lines will most likely have passed on to another stage of action. But I shall live until I have finished my earthly mission and rejoice in the day of salvation. And may all of my loved ones enjoy these blessings is the prayer of your affectionate mother.”
Of the 39 years that followed her 14th year, Helen was a plural wife for 37 and a half of them. One year received 50 lines in the letter, while the others received eight. It appears Helen desired to contextualize that puzzling moment in her father’s parlor for future generations. She had a story to tell—and she told it the way she wanted it remembered.
Helen Wanted Her Story Remembered in Her Own Way
It took courage for Helen Whitney to enter the public arena and write in defense of polygamy. In doing so, she must have known that it would expose her to scrutiny. In her poem, Helen recalled that “poisonous darts hurled from slanderous tongues.” She likely knew the extent to which her youthful marriage was fodder for gossip—even among acquaintances who knew her secret.
Fourteen-year-old brides may only have been eyebrow-raising in the 19th century, but her nuptial was provocative because it was polygamous, not a love match, and with a man nearly three times her age. That he already had over a dozen wives at the time of her sealing amplified criticisms.
For decades, Helen’s public silence distanced her from her marriage to the Prophet. When she took up her pen, she was willing to share some of her experiences—but not all. In her memoirs, Helen controlled the narrative. She was intentional, earnest, deliberate, and consistent in her choice of words, embracing plural marriage as refining and the covenant as salvific.
Conclusion
In summary, observers learn from Helen’s polygamy story: she was sealed to the Prophet Joseph Smith at 14, in what was, practically speaking, a betrothal—but that is only the preamble to the story that can be told.
She was a polygamist, but the covenant—not the practice—was her focus. Helen believed plural marriage was a sacrifice her religion required. She was wounded by the demands of her religion, but they also inspired her, and her strong faith sustained her.
Helen’s emancipation came through letting the ordinance—rather than a brief and confusing relationship with Joseph Smith—define her. Her writings invite a broader discussion of 19th-century Latter-day Saint women who cry out for identities beyond a wife number or an age. Filtering their lives only through their relationships to their husbands does little to resolve the silences of a woman’s history. Rather, it perpetuates an imbalanced historical record by favoring the perspectives of men.
Helen and her contemporaries beckon closer examination as observers listen to their voices and respect not only their wounds, but also their sacrifices, their hopes, their beliefs, and their diversity.
Thank you.
Audience Q&A
Q&A
Scott Gordon:
Thank you for that marvelous presentation. I think Helen Mar Kimball is somebody who is misunderstood, and I think she did many fabulous things and had an impact on the Church with her brochures and writing. And, you know, when people talk about her, it seems like they only want to talk about the one event in her history that started the conversation.
Laura Hales:
Not only that—they only want to talk about a couple lines of her autobiographical history.
Scott Gordon:
Yes.
So here’s the first question I have from our audience: Where can I read Helen Mar Kimball’s letter to her children? Is it publicly available?
Laura Hales:
It is publicly available. If you go online and type in “RSC” for the BYU Religious Studies Center, you can access it in Jenny Broeberg Holzapfel and Richard Holzapfel’s A Woman’s View. It is part of Appendix One, and it’s entitled Autobiography.
Scott Gordon:
Thank you. Here’s another comment: I have been touched by Helen’s account and others included in the Church history Saints—on their own thoughts and feelings about polygamy. Where else can I read about what women of the time felt about this covenant?
Laura Hales:
That’s really difficult. I would say the best place I have found has been in individual family histories, and I think there you get a more nuanced view than maybe just looking at the same five voices that we hear over and over talk about polygamy—like Eliza R. Snow and the Partridge sisters.
For instance, I have a great-grandmother named Dorcas Stan, and I have read her autobiography several times just trying to understand what polygamy meant to them. And it’s interesting—she married a second husband polygamously after her husband died, and she had no intention of being in heaven in a family unit with him. It was just kind of a box she was checking, because that’s what they were taught at the time—to marry polygamously. And with the Manifesto, she divorced that husband. So I think if we go into the records of just everyday members, we’ll get a really good view of polygamy.
Scott Gordon:
Interesting. Okay, well—while Helen’s situation was unique, what insights has her story opened about the broader practice of polygamy?
Laura Hales:
I think she opens up some of the hard realities and some of the lived experiences of just what is asked of a woman when she decides to—I’ll use their verbiage—“let their husband marry another.” I think just talking about the crosses that Helen had to bear makes us think again—more about the real reality and pains and anguish associated with living the principle of polygamy within the Latter-day Saint Church.
Scott Gordon:
Here’s another question: Do we know who proposed to Helen? Was it Joseph? Was it Heber? Who actually made that happen?
Laura Hales:
Well, Heber was her dad, so he didn’t propose to her, right? But in her letter, she states that her father asked if she would marry Joseph the day before Joseph came to visit. So, I guess you could say maybe both—but her dad is the one who proposed the idea, and it was her dad’s request to Joseph, according to Helen, that she marry him.
Scott Gordon:
Interesting. Okay. Even in her day, Helen’s story was being told for various agendas—as it still is today. How do you think she wanted her story told?
Laura Hales:
I think she wanted her story told the way she presented it in her letter. She wanted us to know that, yes, she was young, and I think she portrays that pretty well in her letter—that she was young to be making such a serious decision. But later in life, when she prayed about it—and again, she’s focusing on the concept of the ordinance, rather than what the lived dynamics may have been.
Scott Gordon:
Here’s the last question: Were these multiple plural wife marriages consummated? I’m not adverse if they were, they said—is this how Emma could say to her children that Joseph wasn’t a polygamist? So in other words, they’re asking if the wives at the time of Helen were consummated marriages or not.
Laura Hales:
Oh, I think the documentary record is pretty clear that the Prophet Joseph Smith consummated some of his plural marriages—but not others.
Scott Gordon:
Okay. Thank you. Well, you always give us good insights, and we really appreciate you spending time with us, Laura. And best wishes on all your future endeavors—as there are many, I know. So thank you very much.
Endnotes & Summary
Jeffrey’s talk, What Do We Treasure?, explores how different worldviews shape our understanding of the gospel and influence what we see as the “good life.” He identifies four primary worldviews—the Expressive Gospel, Prosperity Gospel, Therapeutic Gospel, and Redemptive Gospel—each defining success and fulfillment in different ways. While Expressive Gospel prioritizes self-expression, Prosperity Gospel equates righteousness with financial success, and Therapeutic Gospel emphasizes emotional well-being, the Redemptive Gospel teaches that true success is found in reconciliation with God. By examining these perspectives, Jeffrey warns that misplaced values can lead people to misunderstand the gospel’s true purpose.
The talk highlights how Gospel Counterfeits arise when cultural influences subtly redefine gospel vocabulary and shift the focus away from Christ. He provides examples of how phrases like non-judgmental love and authenticity take on different meanings depending on the worldview, leading to confusion and potential spiritual drift. Many individuals, even those originally converted to the Redemptive Gospel, gradually adopt cultural values while still using gospel language. This process results in a faith that, while still appearing religious, may no longer align with the teachings of Jesus Christ.
Jeffrey concludes by emphasizing the need for spiritual discernment and doctrinal clarity. While Gospel Counterfeits persist because they offer comfort, validation, or worldly success, the Redemptive Gospel calls for transformation through Christ. Faithful discipleship requires prioritizing God’s values over societal expectations, measuring spiritual success by personal sanctification rather than external achievements. By recognizing and rejecting distorted versions of the gospel, believers can ensure their faith remains rooted in eternal truths rather than cultural trends.
All Talks by This Speaker
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Talk Details
- Date Presented: August 9, 2024
- Duration: 26:31 minutes
- Event/Conference: 2024 FAIR Annual Conference
- Topics Covered: Redemptive Gospel, Prosperity Gospel, Therapeutic Gospel, Expressive Gospel, gospel counterfeits, authenticity, covenant-keeping, LDS worldview, personal fulfillment, character transformation, reconciliation with God, faith crises, gospel vocabulary, Maslow’s hierarchy, LDS apologetics
Common Concerns Addressed
Helen was forced into polygamy as a child.
Hales clarifies the historical context, Helen’s trust in her father and Joseph Smith, and her evolving understanding of the covenant.
Polygamy only harmed women.
Hales shows that while Helen suffered, she also found purpose, spiritual meaning, and agency in telling her story.
Apologetic Focus
The power of self-narration in religious history
Nuanced understanding of 19th-century Latter-day Saint women
Covenant theology as a framework for understanding plural marriage
Explore Further
coming soon…
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