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Mary Jane Whitney

Mary Jane Groo, Mary Jane

17 January 1844—29 October 1925

Born 17 Jan. 1844 at Nauvoo, Hancock Co., Illinois.1 Daughter of Newel K. Whitney and Elizabeth Ann Smith.2 Daughter of EBW’s sister wife.3 Migrated to Utah Territory with the Heber C. Kimball pioneer company, arriving on 24 Sept. 1848.4 Baptized 25 Mar. 1852.5 Married Isaac Groo, 4 June 1865, in Salt Lake City; six children.6 Member of the dramatic club in the Salt Lake City Ninth Ward.7 Owned real estate in Salt Lake City.8 Frequently mentioned in EBW’s diary entries.9 Died 29 Oct. 1925 in Salt Lake City.10

Footnotes

  1. 1 “Endowments of the Living, 1851–1884,” The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Endowment House, vol. B, p. 55, line 5, Mary Jane Whitney, 22 Nov. 1855, microfilm 1149524 (restricted access), FHL. “Family Tree,” database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org, accessed 9 Jan. 2018), Mary Jane Whitney (KWVG-BF4).  

  2. 2 “Endowments of the Living, 1851–1884,” The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Endowment House, vol. B, p. 55, line 5, Mary Jane Whitney, 22 Nov. 1855, microfilm 1149524 (restricted access), FHL. Frederick Clifton Pierce, Whitney: The Descendants of John Whitney, Who Came from London, England, to Watertown, Massachusetts, in 1635 (Chicago: printed by the author, 1895), 441.

  3. 3 Carol Cornwall Madsen, Emmeline B. Wells: An Intimate History (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2017), 504. 

  4. 4 “Mary Jane Whitney,” Pioneer Database (https://history.churchofjesuschrist.org/overlandtravel, accessed 12 Dec. 2017).

  5. 5 “Endowments of the Living, 1851–1884,” The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Endowment House, vol. B, p. 55, line 5, Mary Jane Whitney, 22 Nov. 1855, microfilm 1149524 (restricted access), FHL.

  6. 6 “Sealings of Couples, Living and by Proxy, 1851–1889,” The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Endowment House, vol. D, p. 487, Isaac Groo and Mary Jane Whitney, 4 June 1865, microfilm 1149514 (restricted access), FHL. 1900 U.S. Census, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake Co., UT, ED 8, p. 8B, Mary J. Groo.

  7. 7 Daughters of Utah Pioneers, comp., Tales of a Triumphant People: A History of Salt Lake County, Utah, 1847–1900 (Salt Lake City: Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1947), 27.

  8. 8 “Yesterday’s Real Estate Transfers,” Salt Lake Herald, 18 Mar. 1892, 8. 

  9. 9  See, for example, EBW, Diary, 29 Aug. 1874; 7 Nov. 1874; 15 Feb. 1875; 26 June 1881; 22 Oct. 1887; 16–18 Aug. 1890; 8 Jan. 1891; 24–25 Jan. 1891; 17 Jan. 1897; 17 Jan. 1901.

  10. 10 “Utah Death Certificate Index, 1904–1961,” database and images, Utah State Archives (https://archives.utah.gov, accessed 9 Jan. 2018); from Utah Department of Health, Office of Vital Records and Statistics, series 81448, file no. 1637/600 (1925), Mary Jane Whitney Groo.