March 1879


1 March 1879 • Saturday

Came home on the Market train worked very hard all day lots of people to see me Sister Howard is ever so much better– Sister Eliza spoke in the 14th Ward– [p. 42] {p. 42}

2 March 1879 • Sunday

Went to Belle’s to dinner and tried to rest– Lucille [L. Lucile Sears]’s birthday, the little ones are well. Louie staid all night George A. Jule was there. had a pleasant time

3 March 1879 • Monday

The Esquire came home from Ogden this morning. Everything is settled, I went to Nettie [Susan Annette Wells]’s and spent the evening, Harry [Henry A. L. Culmer] came home with me. Bad news from Carrie [Granger Snyder].

4 March 1879 • Tuesday

Went to the Court Room to hear Judge [Frank] Tilford’s speech on the Defense in the Burton Case,1 it was excellent, before night, Judge [Philip T.] Van Zile begun the speech for the prosecution. in the eve[n]ing went to the Concert in our ward [p. 43] {p. 43} Annie recited Louie sang and recited.

5 March 1879 • Wednesday

Next morning went to the Court room, to hear the remainder of the <speech in the> prosecution and Judge [Michael] Schaeffer’s charge to the Jury.2 In the evening went to Bishop [John] Sharp’s no verdict rendered yet in the Burton case.

6 March 1879 • Thursday

Spent most of the time in talking and answering letters.

7 March 1879 • Friday

All day nearly working and talking to people. and at evening went to Sister [Rachel Ivins] Grant’s party, it is her birthday she is 58, some presents were made to her you, my husband was there and, Ann Eliza3 is doing her best against us. [p. 44] {p. 44}

8 March 1879 • Saturday

Went to Farmington to the Quarterly Meeting of the Primary Associations had a pleasant time Charlotte Cobb Godbe struck at me with a serpents <fangs> today4 I must pray for strength. [p. 45] {p. 45}

Cite This Page

Cite This Page

March 1879, The Journal of Emmeline B. Wells, accessed September 29, 2024 https://chpress-web.churchhistorianspress.org/emmeline-b-wells/1870s/1879/1879-03

Footnotes

  1. [1]Robert Taylor Burton, major general in the Nauvoo Legion in Utah Territory, was charged with the death of Isabella Bowman in the 1862 Morrisite uprising in Weber County. Burton was acquitted in this 1879 trial. (Kenneth Godfrey, “Morrisites,” in Powell, Utah History Encyclopedia, 381–382; Whitney, History of Utah, 4:184–186.)

  2. [2]“Trial of Gen. R. T. Burton,” Deseret News, 6 Mar. 1879, 92–93.

  3. [3]In 1868, Ann Eliza Webb Dee, a divorcee with two children, was persuaded by friends to marry Brigham Young. She divorced him in 1872 and sued for alimony, raising an interesting legal issue: if the court awarded alimony, it would thereby be acknowledging the legitimacy of plural marriages. The case proceeded through several levels of the legal system before it was determined that the marriage was void from the beginning. Brigham Young was required to pay only the court costs. Stymied in her pursuit of long-term financial support, Ann Eliza published her memoirs, Wife No. 19, or The Story of a Life in Bondage (1875) and lectured against the church. (Arrington, Brigham Young, 334, 373; Firmage and Mangrum, Zion in the Courts, 249–251.)

  4. [4]Charlotte Cobb Godbe vied with EBW for leadership on women’s suffrage issues in Utah. Godbe worked actively for women’s suffrage but equivocated on plural marriage. (Beeton, “A Feminist,” 137–144; Alexander, Utah, The Right Place, 179.)