THE ROLE OF LDS POLYGAMOUS FAMILIES
BLANDING: A CASE STUDY
By Jessie Embry
During the 1950's George D. Clyde, then governor of Utah, was asked by a guest attending a
reception held in his honor in South America how many wives he had. The governor replied with a
twinkle in his eye, “I just brought the one with me.”1 Though polygamy has not been practiced by the
members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints since around the turn of the century,
wherever people have heard about Mormons, they have heard about polygamy. Their perceptions are
not always correct. The LDS Polygamy Oral History Project at the Charles Redd Center for Western
Studies at Brigham Young University includes interviews with men and women who were raised as
children of 19th century polygamous marriages.2 In these interviews are stories of plural families who
lived in Blanding, Utah. While these stories do not give a complete picture of polygamy in the Church,
they provide valuable information. This paper uses some of Blanding’s plural families to examine
misconceptions of women’s feelings about practicing polygamy.
When Joseph Smith initially received the revelation to marry a plural wife during the 1830's in
Kirtland, Ohio, he was shocked and bewildered. Although he married another wife in Kirtland, he did
not explain the principle to his followers until the Church membership was settled in Nauvoo, Illinois, in
the early 1840s. Brigham Young and John Taylor, who later became Church presidents, resisted the
practice at first, but eventually married plural wives. Women also reacted negatively to the introduction
of the “principle” of plural marriage, Mary Ann Young, Brigham’s wife, overheard Joseph explaining
polygamy to her husband. Knowing that Brigham would never go against Joseph, she was sick at
heart. Although there are no records of how she came to terms with the princi0ple, she later accepted
it. Heber Kimball’s wife, Vilate, said she learned of polygamy in a vision and then encouraged her
husband to accept a plural wife as he had been instructed.3
Commitment to the LDS Church and encouragement from Church leaders motivated women to
accept polygamy. When Mary Bell Black married James Franklin Carroll in Mexico in 1894, George
Teasdale, an apostle who performed the marriage, asked them to consider marrying in polygamy if they
ever had an opportunity. They accepted his challenge, and in January 1903
James married Annie Eliza Burrell. Charles Richard
Fillerup married Moneta Johnson in 1898. Three
years later his father-in-law, William Derby Johnson,
advised him to marry another wife. Wilma,
Moneta’s daughter, explained his second wife, Mary
Evelyn Johnson, (no relations to his first wife), was
selected for him even though he did not know her
very well.4 In 1882 Kumen and his wife Mary
Nielson Jones had been married for four years and
had no children. At that time Mary’s father, Jens
Nielson, suggested that Kumen marry another wife.
Kumen Jones
Mary Nielson Jones
At first Mary objected, but her father promised her if she game her husband
permission too marry Lydia May Lyman she would be blessed with a child.
Finally in 1889, Mary game birth to her only son, Leonard Kumen Jones.5
Once the women accepted polygamy there were new challenges.
Because of interior and exterior struggles in the Church, Joseph and the other
leaders married plural wives secretly and attempted to destroy rumors the
Saints practiced polygamy by using code words that only insiders knew
meant more than one wife. Following Joseph Smith’s death in 1844 and the
settling of Mormons in the Great Basin, Brigham Young felt they were
isolated and therefore free to follow God’s commands without outside
Lydia May Lyman
pressure. Orson Pratt announced that polygamy was a doctrine of the
Church in 1852. By 1862, the U.S. Congress passed the first in a series of laws against the Mormon
practice of polygamy. Each new law brought restrictions on the Mormons. The final two, the Edmunds
Act passed in 1882 and the Edmunds-Tucker Act passed in 1887, proved for jail terms for men living
with more than one wife, forcing the Church to place its property in receivership, and disenfranchised
women.
In response, polygamous husband and wives developed an underground system to escape U.S.
marshals sent to Utah to enforce the law. When simply hiding in the United States did not work,
Church leaders sought to “obtain a place of refuge” in Mexico “under a foreign government to which
our people can flee when menaced in this land.”6 James Douglas Harvey married two girlhood friends,
Sarah Elizabeth Kellett and Nancy Anderson, on August 1, 1888. Because of raids by the U.S.
marshals, he lived openly with Nancy, actually the second wife, while Sarah lived with her parents. He
wore women’s shoes when he visited Sarah at night sot he marshals could not recognize men’s
footprints between the houses. Eventually, James and Sarah moved to Mexico in 1890; Nancy
remained in Moroni, Utah, where she had her first son and then followed them in 1892.7
Polygamy was openly practiced in the Mormon colonies in Mexico. According to a
contemporary account, the practice of polygamy was “almost universal” and “close to 100 percent of
the people then living in the Juarez Stake were so attached to this order that it was very woof and warp
of the domestic life and also the theme and central idea of community worship.” Polygamy was only
occasionally discussed in church meetings, but arrangements concerning plural wives’ shares of their
husbands’ inheritances were discussed in priesthood meetings.8
James Douglas Harvey and his families lived near Colonia Diaz.
Nancy, a former schoolteacher, lived on a farm and taught her own children.
Sarah lived in town so her children could attend school. When Sarah’s sons
turned eight, they went to the farm to work during the summer. While they
were on the farm, according to James Bertrum Harvey, a son, “We all lived
together. We would eat together and work together and do chores
together.” Nancy accepted Sarah’s children as sons; James saw her as
another mother. James Douglas visited his wives depending on where he was Nancy Harvey
working. Later, when Nancy moved in to Diaz across the street from Sarah, he spent alternate nights
at each home. Thora, a daughter of Sarah’s, explained, “We kids never let him forget whose place he
was supposed to be.”9
The Mexican revolution in 1912 ended the peaceful years there. After continual harassment
from the warring factions, the Mormons left Mexico. Though few returned once the revolution was less
intense, most scattered to new homes throughout the United States, including a number who settled in
Blanding. Warriner Ahaz Porter explained that the Church suggested several places the colonists could
settle. En route to Clarkston in Cache Valley, they went through Blanding. His daughter Ablone Porter
Hurst recalled, “We had quite a few people in Blanding, so when we got to Blanding, we just stayed
there.” James Carroll and his families expected to return to Mexico, but according to his son, Mayo
Carroll, “...it did not look like it was going to get any better. In fact, it was probably going to get
worse. The government offered the ones that were in El Paso a free train ride to wherever they wanted
to go. We got on the train and came out to Farmington, New Mexico, where my mother’s half sister
lived. Then from there they came on down in to Blanding, which was just being organized by the Holein-the-Rock people...You could get land down there in Blanding for just living on it for three years.”10
The Mexican colonists returned to the United States to a whole new set of circumstances
concerning polygamy. In 1890 acting for the “temporal salvation of the Church,” President Wilford
Woodruff had issued the Manifesto stating that there would be no new marriages “contrary to the laws
of the land.” Although polygamy was technically against the law in Mexico, President Proforio Diaz
had never enforced it, not only had the Mormons lived with their plural wives but General Authorities
and Stake President Anthony W. Ivins had performed new marriages. Following President Joseph F.
Smith’s Second Manifesto, new marriages were discontinued even in Mexico, but plural families
continued to live together. Once the Mexican colonists arrived in the United
States, they faced a decision that had confronted other polygamists two
decades earlier. Did the laws of the Church and the laws of the land require
them to split up their families? At the time of the Manifest, Church members
had received double messages from their leaders: one, that they should obey
the laws of the land and two, that they should not desert their families. Those
returning from Mexico faced the same dilemma, and with no clear answer, like
other plural families in the 1890's and 1900's, they worked out arrangements
to fit the family situation.
James Douglas
Harvey
After Harvey was
killed in Mexico, his
wife Nancy moved
her own and his 2nd
wife Sarah’s children
to El Paso and
eventually to Moroni
and then to Blanding.
James Harvey was one of the few Mormons killed by the Mexicans.
At the time of the Exodus, Sarah and her younger children were visiting in the
States. When word came to leave, Nancy packed her belongings and took
her own and Sarah’s older children to Hachita, New Mexico. When the U.S.
government offered free transportation to any place in the United States,
Nancy took the children to El Paso and then by train to Moroni, Sanpete
County. Sarah met her children there. The Harvey wives left Mexico with
practically nothing, so Sarah and Nancy went to their own relatives for
assistance. After being in Moroni for a year, Nancy moved to Blanding. “It
was newly settled and Mother thought that would be a good place to get a start..(There) wasn’t a great
lot of population there, but quite a lot of nice people that came out of Mexico went there.” Sarah
remained in Moroni until “some land speculators came along with a deal” in northeastern Utah and her
younger sons fell for their story. It turned out to be a land scheme, but the sons soon found jobs and
convinced Sarah to move to the Vernal area.12
When Charles Fillerup and his two families left Mexico, Charles decided he should not live with
both families in the United States. His daughter, Wilma Fillerup Turley, recalled that the Exodus “broke
up our family too because Aunt Mary decided to go with her father and mother. She thought it was
best that she got along with them. There were eight children with my mother, no home, didn’t know
how or where we were going or what to do.” Mary and her two children went to Blanding where her
parents lived; Charles and Moneta and their children went to Arizona. Phyllis and Ruby, Moneta and
Charles’ Twins who were born in Arizona, were not told their father had another wife until they found
out from a stranger when they were sophomores in high school. At first when they asked their mother,
she simply said, “We’re not going to talk about it.” Later Moneta said, “We told the children when we
left Mexico that we were going to say nothing about this. . . Father was starting a new career with the
university. There was nothing that could be done.”13
James Carroll brought both of his wives to Blanding. Besides the advantages of available land,
the Carrolls moved to southeastern Utah because his wife Mary Bell and he had relatives there and
“because Dad had two families and it was one hundred miles from the railroad. It was isolation where
he could be left alone if possible because of his two families.: Just as he had in Mexico, he provided a
separate home for each wife, about three blocks apart.14
Whether Mormon polygamous wives were in Blanding, Utah, or Colonia Juarez, Mexico, and
whether contemporary non-Mormon women or modern-day researchers examined their lives, unclear
perceptions emerged. For example, in the nineteenth century Harriet Beecher Stowe described
Mormon polygamy as “a slavery which debases and degrades womanhood, motherhood, family,” thus
echoing a common belief among non-Mormon women “that polygamy destroyed the family and
women’s unique place in it and deprived (them) even of domestic rights.” Mormon women, on the
other hand, pointed out the virtues of polygamy. Researchers today have even called Mormon
polygamous wives modern-day feminists because they broke out of the traditional roles that women like
Harriet Beecher Stowe tried to preserve.15 The actual experiences of Mormon women lay somewhere
between these two views. Rather than liberated women, most plural wives adapted their monogamous
traditions. They believed strongly in the Victorian role of women staying in the home and caring for
children and only stepped out of it because of economic factors beyond their control. While most
plural wives were able to overlook or suppress jealousies, wives occasionally had difficulty getting
along. The amazing observation, though, is that there were not more problems and wives worked
closely together, especially in times of illness and death.
Charles Fillerup’s families, for example, shared a home in Mexico. Mary, the second wife,
lived in the back of the house in her own quarters but occasionally ate dinner with the other family. The
families were only split because of economic problems of moving to the United States and confusion
about whether the law would allow the families to live together.15
Mabel Carroll Shumway explained that her father, James Carroll, “had the stamina, the
courage...to still continue to provide to the best of his ability for both of his large families.” Still, it was
hard to uproot two families and move them to a new community, and life was never as comfortable
economically as it had been in Mexico. In addition to frugally using their resources by planting gardens,
drying fruit, and making quilts, the wives used household skills to provide additional income. “Both
Mother and Aunt Annie took in washings. I can remember Aunt Annie scrubbing on the scrubbing
board to earn a little extra money.” The wives also had cows and pigs so they had milk, cream, butter,
pork and lard. None of these activities were outside of the Victorian ideal of a women’s role. While
they might not have had to earn money in Mexico or in a monogamous family, the stress of moving was
as much the cause of economic crisis as polygamy.17
Benjamin Black’s first and second wives, Annie Porter Black and Susan Palmer Black, also
struggled financially. Alice’s son, Zenos, said, “We were very poor people all our lives.: His mother
sewed for people in town and occasionally his father would come to her for extra money. Larene
another of Alice’s children maintained, “Mother had to work outside the home to help bing in what
money she could...Dad just didn’t have that much money.” Susan didn’t have any income, but “her
children worked, of course, and they shared with helping the family.” While it might appear that
polygamy forced the Black wives to be more active in the marketplace, a study of monogamous wives
of te same time period found that they also helped to support their families. While polygamy meant
there were more children and wives to support, life was not much different than in a monogamous
household.19
As in other relationships where people are required to work together, Mormon polygamous
wives encountered jealousies and misunderstandings. Economic factors were sometimes the source.
Bernal Harvey, Nancy’s son, s said that the wives got along in Mexico, but there were some
disagreements because Sarah “always got more than Mother did.” Sarah raised turkeys and made
cheese to sell; she also had profit from the sale of her sheep, and was able to buy a home in Diaz.
Since at first Nancy lived on the far, she did not have te same options to earn more money. Thora
Harvey McConkie suggested one of the reasons Sarah did not move to Blanding was because of
differences over goods brought form Mexico although she added, “She never did tell Auntie...I think
Auntie felt bad about it.” Once Nancy Harvey left Moroni, she had little contact with Sarah’s family
although Sarah’s son James lived in Blanding with Nancy for two years. However, when Nancy
discovered she had stomach cancer, Sarah took Thora and two other daughters with her to Blanding
and cared for Nancy until she passed away. Then one of Nancy’s sons came home with Sarah. 21
Mary Bell and Annie Carroll had some minor disagreements over money, but mainly they
worked together. Wayne, Mary Bells’ son, recalled, “Normally, in those early days they used t make a
lot of quilts. I have seen them sitting at the same quilt many a time. They were both very hard workers.
They respected each other...(They) would get together and chat.” The wives did not always help each
other when there was illness; Mary Bell often had her sister Amy help her. Since Annie had no
relatives, Mary Bell occasionally helped her. The wives had separate homes and gardens, but Mabel
Carroll Shumway, a daughter of Mary Bell, recalled, “I remember many times my mother sharing her
tomato patch with Aunt Annie if she hadn’t had quite as good a patch.”22
Alma Uriah Jones described the relationship between his father’s wives, Lydia May Lyman and
Mary Nielson Jones. “I found out that there was a very, very good relationship...Mary was a
businesswoman. She operated the San Juan Co-op Store for many, many years...Besides being the
store clerk in town, Aunt Mary was the doctor and midwife.” Lydia and Mary divided their workload,
and “their program in taking care of the home and keeping up the responsibility at the store was just
taken care of perfectly up until the time Mother died...It was just understood that Lydia May would
take care of the responsibilities around the house and Aunt Mary would take care of the store and bring
that much income into the family.23
The closeness between the tow wives was especially apparent when Lydia was dying. Alma
recalled, “My mother didn’t allow anyone to touch her when she was sick but Aunt Mary.” After
Lydia’s death, Mary cared for Alma and his brothers and sisters. According to Alma, she treated “this
group of adopted children” the same way se treated her son. “She was a mother. I have given Mother
Day’s talks. I have said on every occasion that I have at least tow mothers in heaven to go back to.”24
Rachel and Mary Porter also had a close relationship as plural wives. The two wives had
separate rooms in the house and shared a large double kitchen. “The double stove was right in the
kitchen, and Mother would stand on one side and Aunt Mary on the other...There was not a thing
between us, only the stove and the tables...Aunt Mary’s children would eat there on their side of the
kitchen and we would eat here.” The two wives did not always fix the same meals, but they always
cooperated and worked closely together.
Abalone, Rachel’s daughter, was twelve years old when her mother passed away. She had a
part in the May Day program that day, and although her mother was very ill, the family told her to go
ahead and o her part. Before the program was over, someone came for her because her mother had
died. Mary knew what a struggle it was for the children to lose their mother. Lone recalled, “Aunt
Mary came home from the graveyard, and she moved to Mother’s side of the house. Her children
said, “Mama...why are you moving?”...She said, “Those children don’t have a mother and it will be
easier for you to adjust to moving over there than if they have to move over here.” Mary accepted all
the children as her own. Lone explained, “I don’t think that her children were ever treated a bit better
than we were. Lone felt that she could take her problems to her Aunt Mary and especially felt close to
her when she was courting George Hurst. Of course, she missed her own mother whom she had been
very close to, but Mary met many of her needs.25
These Blanding families show some of the difficulties faced by polygamous wives throughout the
Church. Deciding to marry someone who already had another wife or to accept another wife into the
home and working out the living arrangements and the husband’s visiting raids and the Manifestos put
external pressures on plural families’ lifestyles. The Mexican revolution also changed families. Some
split up, with wives raising together, there were new economic problems, and occasionally wives had to
help support the families more than before. Sometimes wives had to overcome jealousies because they
felt another wife received more attention or financial assistance. Despite all these expected problems,
the wives worked together. They shared not only a husband but also their successes and failures. In
some cases when a wife died they even shared their children. They worked together to obey what they
believed was a divine principle.
David Patten Black on his 80th birthday with 12 of his 13
daughters. He also had seven sons. Frost Black family photo
FOOTNOTES
1. Ora Packard Clyde Oral History, Interview by J. Keith Melville, 1979, 14, Utah Political Oral
History project, Charles Redd Center for Western Studies Manuscript Division, Harold B. Lee
Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah.
2. There are approximately 250 interviews in the LDS Polygamy Oral History Project. The interviews
can be used in the Manuscript division of the Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young University or
can be ordered for research use through interlibrary loan.
3. Linda King Newell and Valeen Tippets Avery, Mormon Enigma; Emma Hale Smith; Prophet’s
Wife, “Elect Lady’ Polygamy’s Foe, 1804-1879 (Garden City; Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1984),
99.
4. Wilma Fillerup Turley Oral History, interviewed by Rochelle Fairbourn, 1982, 4-5, LDS Polygamy
Oral History Project for Western Studies, Manuscript Division, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young
University, Provo, Utah. (Hereinafter cited as LDS Polygamy.); Alma Jones Oral History, interviewed
by Gary L. Shumway, 1981, 10-11, LDS Polygamy.
5. Wayne Carroll Oral History, interviewed by Marsha Martin, 1982, 1-2 LDS Polygamy.
6. Jessie L. Embry, Mormon Polygamous Families: Life in the Principle (Salt Lake City: University of
Utah Press, to be published, October 1987), chapter 1.
7. James Bertrum Harvey Oral History, interviewed by Leonard Grover, 1979, 1,7. LDS Polygamy;
Thora Harvey McConkie Oral History, interview by Jessie L. Embry, 1976, 4,8, LDS Polygamy.
8. Heber Grant Ivins, “Polygamy in Mexico,” 10, Charles Redd Center for Western Studies. Other
versions of the same paper are at the University of Utah’s Manuscript Division. Juarez Stake
priesthood meeting, Juarez Stake Minutes, February 23, 1901, LDS Church Archives, Historical
Department, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.
9. William K. Harvey Oral History, interviewed by Leonard Grover, 1979, 2-4, 9. LDS Polygamy;
James Betrum Harvey, 7; Thora Harvey McConkie,3.
20. Abalone Porter Hurst Oral History, interviewed by Gary L Shumway. 1981, 28, LDS Polygamy;
Mayo Carroll Oral History, 1981, 7, LDS Polygamy.
11. Thomas G, Alexander, “Wilford Woodruff and the Changing Nature of Mormon Religious
Experience,” Church History 45(March 1976), 13; “Official Declaration,” Doctrine and Covenants; D.
Michael Quinn, “LDS Church Authority and New Plural Marriages, 1890-1904,” Dialogue: Journal of
Mormon Thought 18(Spring 1985), 9-105.
12. James Bertrum Harvey, 10; Bernal Harvey Oral History, interviewed by Jessie Embry, 1976, 1314, LDS Polygamy.
13. Wilma Fillerup Turley, 4-5, 11; Ruby Fillerup Tepish Oral History, interviewed by Rochelle
Fairbourn, 1982, 10; Phyllis Fillerup Shumway Oral History, interviewed by Gary L Shumway, 1982,
16-17, LDS Polygamy.
14. Wayne Carroll,2.
15. Julie Roy Jeffrey, Frontier Women: The Trans-Mississippi West 1840-1880 (New York: Hill and
Wang, 1979), 149; Joan Iversen, “Feminist Implications of Mormon Polygamy,” Feminist Studies
10(1984), 502-22.
16. Wilma Fillerup Turley, 4-5.
17. Mabel Carroll Shumway Oral History, interviewed by Gary L Shumway, 1981, 9, 54, 55, LDS
Polygamy; Larene Black Sheppard Oral History; interviewed by Gary L Shumway, 1983, 29, 37, LDS
Polygamy.
19. Embry.
20. Bernal A. Harvey, 11; James Bertrum Harvey, 7; Thora Harvey McConkie, 11.
21. Thora Harvey McConkie, 7: William R. Harvey, 10; James Bertrum Harvey, 15.
22. Mabel Carroll Shumway, 17, 18; mayo Carroll, 25.
23. Alma Uriah Jones, 10-11.
24. Ibid.
25. Abalone Porter Hurst, 9, 17.