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Louisa Greene

Louisa Greene Richards, Lula, Lula Greene Richards, Louisa Lula Greene Richards

8 April 1849—8 September 1944

Emmeline B. Wells

Born 8 Apr. 1849 in Kanesville, Pottawattamie Co., Iowa.1 Daughter of Evan Molbourne Greene and Susan Kent.2 Migrated to the Salt Lake Valley with her family with the Allen Weeks pioneer company, arriving 12 Oct. 1852.3 Published an article in the Deseret News when she was twelve years old.4 Contributor to the Juvenile Instructor, from age fifteen.5 Served as secretary of the Relief Society in Smithfield Cache Co., Utah Territory, 1868; served as president of the Young Ladies’ Department of the Ladies’ Cooperative Retrenchment Association in the Smithfield Ward, 1871.6  Attended the University of Deseret, 1871–1872.7 Moved to Salt Lake City to become the editor of the Woman’s Exponent, 1872–1877.8 Married Levi Willard Richards, 16 June 1873, in Salt Lake City; seven children.9 Appointed a member of the publications committee of the Sunday School general board, 1878.10 Member of the Primary general board, 1892–1917.11 Worked in the Salt Lake temple, 1893–1934.12 Attended the Triennial National Council of Women with EBW and others in Washington DC, Feb. 1899.13 Wrote Branches that Run over the Wall: A Book of Mormon Poem and Other Writings, published 1904.14 Died 8 Sept. 1944 in Salt Lake City.15

The First Fifty Years of Relief Society

16 Born at Kanesville, Pottawattamie County, Iowa; daughter of Susan Kent and Evan M. Greene. 17 Migrated to the Salt Lake Valley, 1852. 18 Lived in Utah County, Tooele County, and the Bear Lake Valley, Utah Territory; settled at Smithfield, Cache County, Utah Territory, 1865. 19 Served as secretary of the Smithfield Relief Society. 20 Attended school in Salt Lake City, 1869; began contributing to the Salt Lake Herald and Deseret News. 21 Founded and edited the Smithfield Sunday School Gazette, 1869. 22 First editor of the Woman’s Exponent, 1872–1877. 23 Married Levi Willard Richards, 1873; seven children. 24 Assisted with the general board of the Young Ladies’ Mutual Improvement Association and the Relief Society; member of the Primary general board for twenty-five years. 25 Died at Salt Lake City. 26 (See Document 3.23, 3.25, 3.28)

Footnotes

  1. 1 “Endowments of the Living, 1851–1884,” The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Endowment House, vol. F, p. 178, Louisa Lula Green, 3 Aug. 1867, microfilm 183405 (restricted access), FHL. Biographical Sketches, “Louisa Lulu Greene Richards,” Apr. 1916 (closed to research), CHL. “FamilyTree,” database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org, accessed 28 Mar. 2018), Louisa Lula Greene (KWNK-R4G). 

  2. 2 Biographical Sketches, “Louisa Lulu Greene Richards,” Apr. 1916 (closed to research), CHL.

  3. 3 “Louisa Lula Greene,” Pioneer Database (https://history.churchofjesuschrist.org/overlandtravel, accessed 12 Feb. 2018).

  4. 4 Harold H. Jenson, “True Pioneer Stories, Lula Greene Richards,” Instructor 60, no. 5 (May 1931): 268.

  5. 5 Harold H. Jenson, “True Pioneer Stories, Lula Greene Richards,” Instructor 60, no. 5 (May 1931): 268.

  6. 6 Biographical Sketches, “Louisa Lulu Greene Richards,” Apr. 1916 (closed to research), CHL.

  7. 7 Biographical Sketches, “Louisa Lulu Greene Richards,” Apr. 1916 (closed to research), CHL.

  8. 8 “Louisa Lulu Greene Richards: Woman Journalist of the Early West,” Improvement Era, May 1969, 30. Orson F. Whitney, History of Utah, 4 vols. (Salt Lake City: George Q. Cannon & Sons, 1904), 599.

  9. 9 “Sealings of Couples, Living and by Proxy, 1851–1889,” The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Endowment House, vol. 1, p. 25, Levi Willard Richards and Louisa Lulu Greene, 16 July 1873, microfilm 183399 (restricted access), FHL. “Married,” Salt Lake Daily Herald, 17 June 1873, 3. Biographical Sketches, “Louisa Lulu Greene Richards,” Apr. 1916 (closed to research), CHL.

  10. 10 Sunday School Auxiliary, “Sunday School Officers and General Board Members,” CHL.

  11. 11 Primary Association, Primary Association General Board and Presidency Files, Louisa L. Greene Richards, 19 June 1880–6 Oct. 1925, CHL.

  12. 12 “Louisa Lulu Greene Richards: Woman Journalist of the Early West,” Improvement Era, May 1969, 31.

  13. 13 “The Recent Triennial in Washington,” Young Woman’s Journal 10, no. 5 (May 1899): 195. Carol Cornwall Madsen, Emmeline B. Wells: An Intimate History (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2017), 375–376.

  14. 14 Louisa L. Greene Richards, Branches that Run over the Wall: A Book of Mormon Poem and Other Writings (Salt Lake City: Magazine, 1904).

  15. 15 “Utah Death Certificate Index, 1904–1961,” database and images, Utah State Archives (https://archives.utah.gov, accessed 13 Feb. 2018); from Utah Department of Health, Office of Vital Records and Statistics, series 81448, file no. 1480/1771, (1944), Louisa Lula Greene Richards.

  16. 16 “Utah Death Certificate Index, 1904–1961,” database and images, Utah State Archives (http://archives.utah.gov, accessed Jan. 2015); from Utah Department of Health, Office of Vital Records and Statistics, series 81448, file no. 1480/1771 (1944), Louisa Lula Greene Richards. “LDS Auxiliary Leader, Writer, Pioneer, 95, Dies in S.L.,” Salt Lake Tribune, Sept. 9, 1944, 17.

  17. 17 Utah death certificate, file no. 1480/1771. Carol Cornwall Madsen, “Louisa G. Richards,” in Sister Saints, ed. Vicky Burgess-Olson (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 1978), 435. “LDS Auxiliary Leader, Writer, Pioneer, 95, Dies in S.L.,” 17.

  18. 18 “Louisa Lula Greene,” Church History Biographical Database, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, available at https://history.churchofjesuschrist.org/chd/landing, accessed Dec. 2014.

  19. 19 Madsen, “Louisa G. Richards,” 437–439.

  20. 20 Lula Greene Richards, “How ‘The Exponent’ Was Started,” Relief Society Magazine 14, no. 12 (Dec. 1927): 605–606. Madsen, “Louisa G. Richards,” 439.

  21. 21 Richards, “How ‘The Exponent’ Was Started,” 606. Madsen, “Louisa G. Richards,” 439.

  22. 22 Sherilyn Cox Bennion, “Lula Greene Richards: Utah’s First Woman Editor,” BYU Studies 21, no. 2 (Spring 1981): 158–159.

  23. 23 Richards, “How ‘The Exponent’ Was Started,” 605–608. Bennion, “Utah’s First Woman Editor,” 160–166. Madsen, “Louisa G. Richards,” 442–449.

  24. 24 Utah death certificate, file no. 1480/1771. Madsen, “Louisa G. Richards,” 446, 450. “Family Tree,” database, FamilySearch (http://familysearch.org, accessed Jan. 2015), Louisa Lula Greene KWNK-R4G. 1900 U.S. census, Salt Lake City Ward 4, Salt Lake Co., Utah, p. 1A, Louisa L. A. Richards; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://ancestry.com, accessed Jan. 2015); from NARA microfilm publication T623, roll 1684.

  25. 25 “LDS Auxiliary Leader, Writer, Pioneer, 95, Dies in S.L.,” 17. Madsen, “Louisa G. Richards,” 449.

  26. 26 Utah death certificate, file no. 1480/1771. “LDS Auxiliary Leader, Writer, Pioneer, 95, Dies in S.L.,” 17.