Anstis Elmina Shepard
Born 12 Sept. 1830 at Middlefield, Otsego Co., New York.[1] Daughter of David S. Shepard and Rosella Bailey.[2] Taught school in Haverstraw, Rockland Co., New York, 1854.[3] Baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Haverstraw, 5 July 1856.[4] Married George Hamilton Taylor, 31 Aug. 1856; seven children.[5] Migrated to Utah Territory with the Edward Stevenson pioneer company, arriving 16 Sept. 1859.[6] Appointed as treasurer of the Salt Lake City Fourteenth Ward Relief Society, 12 Dec. 1867, and as secretary, 26 May 1868.[7] Appointed superintendent of the Fourteenth Ward Young Ladies’ Mutual Improvement Association (YLMIA), 23 Sept. 1874.[8] Served as first counselor in the presidency of the Salt Lake Stake Relief Society, 1879–1895.[9] First president of the general YLMIA, 1880–1904.[10] Organizer of the Mar. 1886 Salt Lake City mass women’s meeting and elected to the committee to write the Memorial to the President of the United States and Members of Congress, by the ‘Mormon’ Women of Utah, later delivered by EBW to President Grover Cleveland, Apr. 1886.[11] Appointed the ex officio vice president of the National Council of Women and attended the Washington DC convention, 1891.[12] Speaker at the World’s Congress of Women held in conjunction with the Columbian Exposition in Chicago, 15 May 1893.[13] Attended a reception for the National Council of Women with EBW, 20 May 1893.[14] Sat with EBW at the head table of Susan B. Anthony’s seventy-fifth birthday celebration.[15] Participated with EBW in the Utah Women’s Press Club, 30 July 1893.[16] Organized the Utah Kindergarten Association with EBW and remained on the board, 1895–1904.[17] Died 6 Dec. 1904 in Salt Lake City.[18]
[1] Elmina S. Taylor Papers, 1851–1897, Notebook, MS 7342, CHL. “Endowments of the Living, 1851–1884,” The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Endowment House, vol. C, p. 112, Anstis Elmina Taylor, 4 Apr. 1860, microfilm 1149525, DGS 7226466 (restricted access), FHL. Augusta B. Joyce Crocheron, Representative Women of Deseret: A Book of Biographical Sketches to Accompany the Picture Bearing the Same Title (Salt Lake City: J. C. Graham, 1884), 48. “Family Tree,” database, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org, accessed 27 Mar. 2018), Anstis Elmina Shepard (KWVM-FKK).
[2] “Endowments for the Dead, 1884–1970, Heir Indexes, 1884–1961; Baptisms for the Dead, 1943–1970,” The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Logan Temple, vol. B, p. 80, Rosella Bailey, 11 June 1885, (restricted access), microfilm 177956, DGS 5267006, FHL. “Endowments of the Living, 1851–1884,” The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Endowment House, vol. C, p. 112, Anstis Elmina Taylor, 4 Apr. 1860, microfilm 1149525, DGS 7226466 (restricted access), FHL. Augusta B. Joyce Crocheron, Representative Women of Deseret: A Book of Biographical Sketches to Accompany the Picture Bearing the Same Title (Salt Lake City: J. C. Graham, 1884), 48.
[3] Augusta B. Joyce Crocheron, Representative Women of Deseret: A Book of Biographical Sketches to Accompany the Picture Bearing the Same Title (Salt Lake City: J. C. Graham, 1884), 48. Susa Amelia Young, History of the Young Ladies’ Mutual Improvement Association of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1911), 91.
[4] Elmina S. Taylor Papers, 1851–1897, Notebook, MS 7342, CHL. Augusta B. Joyce Crocheron, Representative Women of Deseret: A Book of Biographical Sketches to Accompany the Picture Bearing the Same Title (Salt Lake City: J. C. Graham, 1884), 48. “Endowments of the Living, 1851–1884,” The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Endowment House, vol. C, p. 112, Anstis Elmina Taylor, 4 Apr. 1860, microfilm 1149525, DGS 7226466 (restricted access), FHL.
[5] Elmina S. Taylor Papers, 1851–1897, Notebook, MS 7342, CHL. Augusta B. Joyce Crocheron, Representative Women of Deseret: A Book of Biographical Sketches to Accompany the Picture Bearing the Same Title (Salt Lake City: J. C. Graham, 1884), 49. “Sealings of Couples, Living and by Proxy, 1851–1889,” The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Endowment House, 1856–22 Nov. 1861, p. 408, George Hamilton Taylor and Anstis Elmina Shephard, 6 Apr. 1860, microfilm 1149514, DGS 7226455 (restricted access), Special Collections, FHL.
[6] “Anstis Elmina Shepard Taylor,” Pioneer Database (https://history.churchofjesuschrist.org/overlandtravel/, accessed 15 Nov. 2019). Augusta B. Joyce Crocheron, Representative Women of Deseret: A Book of Biographical Sketches to Accompany the Picture Bearing the Same Title (Salt Lake City: J. C. Graham, 1884), 49. “Arrivals from the Plains,” Deseret News, 21 Sept. 1859, 228.
[7] Augusta B. Joyce Crocheron, Representative Women of Deseret: A Book of Biographical Sketches to Accompany the Picture Bearing the Same Title (Salt Lake City: J. C. Graham, 1884), 49. Susa Young Gates, History of the Young Ladies’ Mutual Improvement Association of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, from November 1869 to June 1910 (Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1911), 93. Fourteenth Ward, Salt Lake Stake, Fourteenth Ward Manuscript History and Historical Reports, “Relief Society,” “YLMIA,” LR 2972 2, CHL.
[8] Susa Young Gates, History of the Young Ladies’ Mutual Improvement Association of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, from November 1869 to June 1910 (Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1911), 93. Augusta B. Joyce Crocheron, Representative Women of Deseret: A Book of Biographical Sketches to Accompany the Picture Bearing the Same Title (Salt Lake City: J. C. Graham, 1884), 50.
[9] Augusta B. Joyce Crocheron, Representative Women of Deseret: A Book of Biographical Sketches to Accompany the Picture Bearing the Same Title (Salt Lake City: J. C. Graham, 1884), 50. Susa Young Gates, History of the Young Ladies’ Mutual Improvement Association of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, from November 1869 to June 1910 (Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1911), 93.
[10] Susa Young Gates, History of the Young Ladies’ Mutual Improvement Association of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, from November 1869 to June 1910 (Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1911), 83, 85–87, 93. Marba C. Josephson, History of the YWMIA (Salt Lake City: Young Women’s Mutual Improvement Association, 1955), 356. “Young Ladies’ President Dead,” Deseret Evening News, 6 Dec. 1904, 1.
[11] Mormon Women, Memorial of the Mormon Women of Utah to the President and the Congress of the United States (Washington DC: n.p., 1886), 12. Mormon Women’s Protest: An Appeal for Freedom, Justice, and Equal Rights (Salt Lake City: n.p., 1886), 5, 6, 47, 91. Carol Cornwall Madsen, Emmeline B. Wells: An Intimate History (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2017), 225, 226.
[12] Rachel Avery Roster, ed. Transactions of the National Council of Women of the United States, Assembled Washington D.C., February 22 to 25, 1891 (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1891), 23. Susa Young Gates, History of the Young Ladies’ Mutual Improvement Association of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, from November 1869 to June 1910 (Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1911), 93.
[13] Linda Thatcher and John R. Sillito, “Sisterhood and Sociability: The Utah Women’s Press Club, 1891–1928,” Utah Historical Quarterly 53, no. 2 (Spring 1985): 144–146. Susa Young Gates, History of the Young Ladies’ Mutual Improvement Association of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, from November 1869 to June 1910 (Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1911), 202, 203.
[14] EBW, Diary, 20 May 1893.
[15] Carol Cornwall Madsen, Emmeline B. Wells: An Intimate History (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2017), 346.
[16] Sharon Snow Carver, “Salt Lake City’s Reapers’ Club,” Utah Historical Quarterly 64, no. 2 (Spring 1996): 111n14. “U.P.W. Club,” Women’s Exponent, 15 Aug. 1893, 21.
[17] “Society Notes: The Utah Kindergarten,” Salt Lake Herald, 5 May 1895, 6. Sharon Snow Carver, “Salt Lake City’s Reapers’ Club,” Utah Historical Quarterly 64, no. 2 (Spring 1996): 111n14. EBW, Diary, 30 Aug. 1904.
[18] “Utah State Archives,” database and images, Utah State Archives (http://archives.utah.gov, accessed 27 Mar. 2018); from Utah Department of Health, Office of Vital Records and Statistics, series 81448, file no. 1348/460 (1904), Almina S. Taylor. “Young Ladies’ President Dead,” Deseret Evening News, 6 Dec. 1904, 1.