Because I also have a deep regard and appreciation for Emmeline B. Wells, I loved hearing Diane talk about her in our meeting.
While it is true that Emmeline had many trials to face, I am certain Emmeline would be be equally amazed at the life of our own Diane who is raising a righteous family with nine children. For any who would like to know more about Emmeline B. Wells, here is a short biography of her life:
Emmeline Blanche Woodward Harris Whitney Wells was the fifth general president of the Relief Society. An articulate defender of the Mormon faith in written and spoken word, she served for thirty-seven years as editor of the Women’s Exponent, a semi-monthly periodical for women in the Church. She published her poetry in a compilation entitled Musings and Memories as well as many short stories in the Exponent under the pen name, Blanche Beechwood. As a leader in the suffrage movement, she spoke out against legislation that denied women the right to vote and lobbied extensively as a staunch public supporter of polygamy.
Emmeline Blanche Woodward was born February 29, 1828 in Petersham, Massachusetts. After her father’s death, her mother moved the family to Salem, Massachusetts where Emmeline received an exceptional education for the time. She was baptized a member of the Mormon Church on her fourteenth birthday and thereafter began teaching school. At age fifteen she married James Harvey Harris and left with him to join the church headquartered in Nauvoo, Illinois. Soon after their arrival in 1844, her newborn son, Eugene Henri died and her husband left to find work. For support she began teaching school and later, when her husband didn’t return, she became the plural wife of Newel K. Whitney. The Whitney family arrived in Salt Lake City in the fall of 1848 where her daughters, Isabel and Melvina were born.
When Whitney died in 1850, Emmeline returned to teaching school and two years later married prominent church and civic leader Daniel H. Wells as his seventh plural wife. Together they had three daughters, Emma, Elizabeth Ann, and Louisa. Emmeline and her five daughters resided independently from the Wells’ main family in a small adobe home where she supported herself for most of her remaining years. Wells' public service began at the enlistment of church president Brigham Young in 1876 to direct a grain-saving mission. Through the Women’s Exponent, she asked women in the church to glean leftover wheat from their fields and ditch banks to donate to the Relief Society. The wheat project was extremely successful and helped to relieve suffering across the world and especially during World War I. President Woodrow Wilson expressed his gratitude for her efforts in a personal visit in 1919.
Wells continued her forty-five years of public service in 1879 at a national suffrage convention in Washington, D. C. and was thereafter intensely involved in the State and National Women’s Suffrage Association and the National and International Councils of Women. She relentlessly fought against anti-polygamy legislation such as the Edmunds-Tucker Act in 1887 and wrote strong editorials to represent the Mormon woman’s view to the nation regarding woman’s suffrage. She advocated that women “have stamina enough to stand boldly forth in defence of right. . . . It matters little what name they give us, so long as our motives are pure, and our actions are honorable.”
She confidently lobbied at many conventions, congressional hearings, and before three
US presidents. In 1899 she was invited to speak at the International Council of Women in
London as representative of the
United States. Her powerful voice in public debate, as well as her personal friendships with national suffragist leaders promoted understanding and enabled her to serve as a liaison between Mormon and non-Mormons.
In 1910, at the age of eighty-two, Emmeline B. Wells was elected as the General President of the Relief Society after serving twenty-two years as secretary. During her eleven-year presidency she continued to support causes that elevated the status of women and children, raised funds for temples, and taught regarding the noble role of womanhood. In her declining years she focused her attention on the religious work of her Mormon sisters until a month prior to her death on April 25, 1921 at the age of ninety-three. Her large funeral in the Salt Lake Tabernacle witnessed flags flying at half-mast to honor her. On February 29, 1928, to commemorate her birth one hundred years earlier, a marble bust was placed in the rotunda of the State Capitol with the inscription, “A Fine Soul Who Served Us.”
References
Blanche Beechwood, “Our Daughters,” Woman’s Exponent 2. (February 1, 1874): 131.
Carol Cornwall Madsen, An Advocate for Women: The Public Life of Emmeline B. Wells 1870-1920 (Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 2006).
Patricia Lyn Scott and Linda Thatcher, eds, Women in Utah History: Paradigm or Paradox?( Logan: Utah State University Press, 2005).
