Thoughts about the Wives

Wives of Brigham Young
from the journal of Lucy Bigelow Young and her daughter Susa Young Dunford Gates

Morning family prayers were offered by the wives in their own sitting rooms, and always Mother (Lucy Bigelow) observed this simple prayer ceremony. At times, in stress of sickness, or threatened sorrows, various of her sister wives would invite each other into their sitting rooms to have a little "prayer meeting". Mother was always happy in these gatherings, for she and they saw deep into each others' hearts at such times, and their domestic crises would be averted, misunderstandings dispelled while the spirit of true charity and patience with each other and with life's cruel blows came over them like a benediction after prayer. Aunt Eliza R. Snow was the acknowledged spiritual leader of the household and Mother almost worshipped her. No less dear, was gentle, tender hearted Aunt Zina Huntington) whose care for the sick and suffering bodies of all around her, was like that of Aunt Eliza R. Snow's and hers was supplemented with the most profound personal sympathy and understanding of spiritual and mental agonies. There was Aunt Clara (Decker) who was never heard to utter an unkind word or a slurring thought. Everybody loved her who ever came near her. Mother (Lucy B.) and she were devoted to each other as only soul sisters can be. For fourteen years, these two sat the Old Year out and the New Year in, in the dear sitting room of Aunt Clara (Decker), till Mother (Lucy B.) moved to St. George in 1870.
Then there was "Mother" Young (Mary Ann Angell) father's kind, faithful first wife, after the death of his wife Miriam Works, in Mendon, New York, who lived in the White House on the hill; efficient and capable Aunt Lucy Decker who kept the Beehive House as clean and spotless as a scoured silver plate, and yet made it so comfortable and homelike that father found infinite peace and rest in his own quarters there, for his bedroom and sitting room was there, for many years, separated from the more crowded and noisier Lion House. Brilliant minded, Aunt Harriet Cook who was a profound student of the scriptures and whose tongue was as a flame of darting fire. But she knew, and all her sister wives knew, that there was no corroding acid of hate there, just an outlet for the flashing genius that might have made her a great general or a mighty organizer of human forces, had she been a man. Her sex, her real affection for father, her love of the Gospel, her circumstances, her flashing sharpness of speech kept her from achieving. And so we all watched out for Aunt Harriet (Cook) whose quick sarcasm whipped us, oftentimes, into the love of our duty more effectively than the gentle reproofs of our own mothers. We never knew Aunt Louisa Beeman (spelling? - Susa has this spelling, the genealogy has Beaman), Aunt Clara Chase, Aunt Ellen Rockwood, nor Aunt Margaret Allen; these all died before we children knew much or anything at all about them. But mother (Lucy B.) knew them and helped to nurse and care for them in their various sicknesses, for mother was a natural nurse. She had taken no special training, as did Aunt Zina (Huntington), but she was quick to pick up all the points of skilled administrations, and she and Aunt Clara (Decker) were father's nurses in all his various spells of sickness. Of course, after Aunt Amelia (Folsom) came into the family she took over this task, for she too, was a careful deft handed attendant around a sickbed. And as father had occasional "bilious attacks", we used to call them, and as both Aunt Clara and mother (Lucy B.) had children, while Aunt Amelia was never that fortunate, she nursed and waited on father in his last, trying years.
About the rest of the sister wives. There was Aunt Emily Partridge in whom no more sainted heroine ever came into father's family. If she had ever had an irritable mood, or entertained an ignoble thought, it must have passed too quickly for utterance; for the calm serenity of her life was unmarred by humanity's usual explosions. Her room, her home atmosphere, was that of peace and motherly solicitude for all who came near. Aunt Susan (Snively) was just as good a woman as any woman who could be; but she was childless, until she adopted the charming baby Julia and her motherly solicitude over her fledgling sometimes gave a touch of sharpness to her speech and certainly made her watchful that Julia should share equally with all the other girls; But who cared? Everybody loved and petted Julia and mother (Lucy B.) was very tender over dear Aunt Susan.
Aunt Emeline (Free) was still another type. Beautiful as a dream, magnetic, with dark brown hair, regular features, sparkling eyes, a certain vivacity of manner which instantly won and held the pleased attention of her listeners, she was the mother of ten of father's children. Six beautiful daughters and four sturdy sons, she was beloved of father, and certainly admired by all her sister wives. That she and Aunt Amelia were both respected and really liked by the sister wives, in spite of or because of their superior pulchritude and charm, is a testimonial both to the women themselves and to those sister wives who rose triumphant over the sacrificial alter of woman's most profound temptation jealousy. Mother really loved Aunt Amelia - so did I!
Aunt Margaret Pierce was a true Latter Day Saint. Industrious, kind, loyal to truth and to her husband's family, she was an Israelite in whom there was no guile. She bore her trials so quietly that none knew she suffered. And she did suffer, for she loved children, and bore but one son, Brigham Morris, when she would gladly have mothered a dozen. She too, was exquisitely neat in all her appointments, and one of the best weavers of cloth and carpets in the Lion House. Then came Aunt Twiss, as we all called her, although her name in reality was Naamah Kendel Jenkins Carter, when she married John Twiss in 1845. Brother Twiss lived but three months after this, and later she came into father's family, ever after to be known as Aunt Twiss. And wasn't she the supreme housekeeper, cook, and all around household budget making engineer? Well, she certainly had complete charge of all the kitchens, pantries, cellars, cookery, and meal service in the Lion House as far back as I (Susa) can remember. And even Mother's (Lucy B.) doughnuts and roast turkey never surpassed, in culinary art, the triumphs of Aunt Twiss. The sister wives were all good cooks and superior housewives but they all gladly relinquished any claims to culinary supremacy and went about their child bearing, child raising, Relief Society experimental silk raising and weaving, music study, duties and pleasures etc., leaving Aunt Twiss monarch of all she surveyed on the lower floors of their happy Lion House home.
There was Aunt Martha Bowker, another tried, true, fond wife, step mother to her little adopted daughter Ida Ames, and a truly good, faithful sister friend. Then came Aunt Eliza Burgess, father's only English wife, all the rest were of American pioneer, puritan, or old Dutch Holland stock clear back to the Revolutionary days in this land of the free and home of the brave. She was still another capable, efficient housewife who loved the domestic tools and used them as skillfully as men used scythes and harrows. If Aunt Eliza Burgess ever rested, and idled away time no one knew it. Her one release from what might have been corroding jealousy in a lesser Soul was driving labor. Sewing, weaving, embroidering, cleaning, soap making, dusting, fruit drying, and every other possible pioneer art and labor provided healthy outlet for what might have otherwise cankered her wholesome spirit. For she too loved children and she bore but one son, Alfales, and him she cherished fondly. There was Aunt Harriet Barney Sagers, a widow with three children, who later married father and bore him his youngest son, Phineas Howe. She was a calm, peaceful soul, who never permitted the placid surfaces of her life to be ruffled by any passing tempests or storms, either from within or without. She was happy in her home and family, although she never lived in the Lion House, as she married in later years and father built her a separate home, she was a true friend and sister to her associate wives. Aunt Amelia was lovely, gifted in music, cultured in speech and manners and although outsiders said she was a favorite wife, the family didn't know it., and wouldn't have cared it, if they had. She was a good nurse, bore no children, much to her sorrow, and she was therefore at liberty to travel with father and to guard his health in his later years, which she certainly did, when she was with him.
Last of all his wives, was sweet Mary Van Cott, in whom no lovelier wife and mother ever entered our crowded family household. She too bore but one child, a daughter, beautiful Fanny J. and she had her little home outside the Lion House. That is the roster of the wives who blessed Brigham Young with their loyal devotion to their religion and to him, which seems, in retrospect, an unbelievable miracle. Yet it is the truth. Each one was a heroine in her own right, and each deserves a place in the historic annals of Christ's Church for what she was and what she achieved. Would that this pen could do justice to their many sided characters and lives. But it is of Mother (Lucy B.) that I am writing, and so with this fond brief tribute, I turn aside from their dear and well remembered personalities to record the direct sequence of events, in Mother's life experiences.


By Susa Young Dunford Gates in her biography of and with her mother, Lucy Bigelow Young. (copy in possession of Kari Robinson, great-great granddaughter of Susa). (Items in parenthesis are additions by Kari Koplin Robinson - for clarification only)