- 5th General President of the Relief Society
Biography
Emmeline Blanche Woodward was born 29 February 1828 in Petersham, Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States to David Woodward (1781-1832) and Zilpha Diadama Hare (1795-1845) and died 25 April 1921 Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County, Utah, United States of unspecified causes. She married James Harvey Harris (1827-1844) 29 September 1843 in Vernon, Windham County, Vermont, United States. She married Newel Kimball Whitney (1795-1850) 24 February 1845 in Nauvoo, Hancock County, Illinois. She married Daniel Hanmer Wells (1814-1891) 18 October 1852 in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County, Utah.
An American journalist, editor, poet, women's rights advocate, and diarist. She served as the fifth Relief Society General President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) from 1910 until her death. She represented the state of Utah at both the National and American Women's Suffrage conventions and was president of the Utah Woman's Suffrage Association. She was the editor of the Woman's Exponent for 37 years. She was a plural wife to Newel K. Whitney, then Daniel H. Wells.
Early Years
Her father died when she was four years old.[1] She would later claim that her widowed mother inspired her to be a women’s rights advocate.[2]:15 When her mother got remarried to Samuel Clark Jr., the Woodward family moved to North New Salem, Massachusetts. There, Emmeline spent ten years of her childhood.[2]:16 Religion heavily influenced her first years of life; her family attended the local village church per New England tradition.[2]:24 As a child, she wrote poems and stories, which she shared with her friends. She often enjoyed being in nature. Woodward was very intelligent and began studying in public school until she enrolled in the New Salem Academy.[3] She graduated from the Academy at the age of fourteen.[4]
The revivalist movement disrupted New Salem’s previous religious unity, and Woodward’s community was split among different denominations. Following her mother, siblings, and a few friends, Woodward joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on March 1, 1842. After her baptism, she returned to the Academy and continued her schooling; she did not attend church meetings for her first year of membership. When she applied to become a teacher, discrimination against her new faith proved to be a challenge. Nevertheless, she persevered and taught school briefly in Orange, Massachusetts, before her first marriage at the age of fifteen.[2]:25–36
Nauvoo, Illinois
The young Emmeline Harris returned to teaching. Through his children's attending her school, Harris met and later married Newel K. Whitney (1795-1850) on February 24, 1845, under the Mormon practice of plural marriage. Emmeline Whitney admired her new husband and felt much safer as his wife.[3] She left Nauvoo in 1846 and, along with the large Whitney family, left Winter Quarters, Nebraska, for Utah Territory in 1848.[5] They traveled with the Heber Chase Kimball (1801-1868) company at the invitation of then-church president Brigham Young. During the journey, Whitney grew close to her sister-wives.[2]:75-79 She became friends with Elizabeth Ann Whitney (1800-1882) in particular.[6]:385 During the journey west, Wells began recording her life experiences in the first of what would become 47 journals.[4] She was pregnant when the company reached the Salt Lake Valley on October 8, 1848.[2]:90 Her first daughter, Isabel "Belle" Whitney, was born in the back of the same wagon that had carried her mother across the country; Emmeline later recounted, "our poor wagons and tents were the only homes we had."[2]:91–92
After a Whitney family home was constructed, her second daughter, Melvina Whitney, was born on August 18, 1850. Unfortunately, this good news was followed in short order by her second husband's unexpected death. Emmeline Whitney deeply mourned his passing. By age 22, she had been widowed twice.[2]:95–97 Shortly before his death, Newel Whitney had told her that she would prove to be "a tremendous influence in the building of the kingdom in the west."[4]:358
Settlement in Salt Lake
Newel Whitney's death in 1850 prompted her to begin teaching school once more, as a means of providing for her daughters.[3] She remained primarily responsible for financially supporting herself for the rest of her life.[7]:11 She then approached Daniel H. Wells, a friend of her late husband's and a prominent civic leader, about marriage. In 1852, she became his seventh wife.[8] Their early marriage was distant, as Daniel Wells was heavily involved in civic and church duties and had six other families.[1] Emmeline Wells lived separately from his other wives.[2]:110 She had another daughter in 1853, Emma[3] "Emmie" Wells.[2]:112 When the Utah War broke out in 1857, Emmeline moved south to Provo.[2]:117–118 There, she continued to teach school.[2]:120 In 1859, she gave birth to her fourth daughter, Elizabeth Ann Wells, who she named after Elizabeth Ann Whitney.[2]:121 Her fifth daughter, Louise Martha "Louie" Wells, was then born in 1862. Thus, she and Daniel Wells had a total of three children together.[6]:385 Though the early years of their relationship had been difficult, the two became fond and loving companions later in life.[1] Wells did not regret or doubt her participation in polygamy.[2]:138 Daniel Wells passed away on March 24, 1891.[3] By the end of her life, Emmeline Wells had been widowed three times.[9] Once her children were grown, Wells devoted herself to writing.[4]
Later Years

Governor William Spry of Utah meets with suffrage leaders, Emmeline Wells and others in 1915
Emmeline was appointed one of two representatives from Utah to the suffrage convention in Washington, D.C., and she soon became friends with national suffrage leaders Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, who were impressed with her abilities. In 1899 she was invited by the International Council of Women to speak at its London meeting as a representative from the United States.
Emmeline Wells was nearly eighty-three years old when she was called as general president of the Relief Society in 1910, an organization she had previously served for twenty years as general secretary and as head of its grain storage program in the 1870s. In 1912 she was awarded an honorary doctorate of literature from Brigham Young University. In 1919 she was honored by a visit to her home by U.S. President Thomas Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) and his wife; the occasion commemorated the sale of over 205,000 bushels of Relief Society wheat to the U.S. government during World War I.
Marriage and Family

Wives of Bishop Whitney
Her first marriage to James Harris ended in tragedy when his parents left the Church, and in looking for work he drowned in the ocean on a fishing excursion. She then became a plural wife to Bishop Newel K. Whitney, however he died two years after entering the Salt Lake Valley. Her third marriage was to Apostle Daniel H. Wells.
Finally, at age ninety-three she suffered a stroke and then died three weeks later. A funeral was held in the tabernacle (the second woman to be so commemorated) and was later honored with a marble bust in the Utah State Capitol from the women of Utah.
1st Marriage: James Harris
She married 15-year-old James Harris, also a new church member, on July 19, 1843,[3] in Vernon, Vermont.[2]:36 This marriage proved to be difficult for the young Emmeline; her mother-in-law disapproved of her, and she was unprepared for married life. Later, she wrote that she had been too emotional to make such an important decision and regretted marrying at such a young age. Life for Emmeline (now Harris) only became more difficult when she, along with the Harris family and a group of other New England Latter-day Saints, left for the Mormon settlement of Nauvoo, Illinois, in 1844. After a time, her mother- and father-in-law left the church and Nauvoo, so she and James were left alone. She gave birth to a son, Eugene Henri, on September 1, 1844. Unfortunately, Harris had been sick with "ague" during her pregnancy, and at six weeks old, her infant son became sick as well and did not survive. In addition to battling her own illness and the sorrow of losing her son, Emmeline said goodbye to her husband, who left to find work in St. Louis. He asked her to leave Nauvoo to live with his parents once more, but she refused.[2]:37–53 James Harris died as a sailor in the Indian Ocean and never returned to his wife.[1]
Children
Name | Birth | Death | Joined with |
Eugene Henri Harris (1844-1844) |
Name | Birth | Death | Joined with |
Isabel Modalena Whitney (1848-1941) | |||
Melvina Caroline Blanche Whitney (1850-1940) |
Name | Birth | Death | Joined with |
Emeline Whitney Wells (1853-1878) | |||
Louie Wells (1857-) | |||
Elizabeth Ann Wells (1859-1942) | |||
Louisa Martha Wells (1862-1887) |
Siblings
Residences
Vital Records
Salt Lake Gravestone

- plot : H_3_9NROD_4W
- Location : Salt Lake City Cemetery, Salt Lake County, Utah
- Emmeline Wells at Find A Grave
See Also
- Emmeline Woodward
- wikipedia:en:Emmeline B. Wells
- Woodward in Worcester County, Massachusetts
- Harris in Windham County, Vermont
- Whitney in Hancock County, Illinois
- Wells in Salt Lake County, Utah
References
- ^ a b c d (1992) "Wells, Emmeline B.". Encyclopedia of Mormonism: 1559–1560.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Madsen, Carol Cornwall (2016). Emmeline B. Wells: An Intimate History. Salt Lake City, Utah: University of Utah Press. pp. 15–179. ISBN 9781607815235.
- ^ a b c d e f Cite error: Invalid
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- ^ a b c d Black, Susan Easton; Woodger, Mary Jane (2011). Women of Character. American Fork, Utah: Covenant Communications. pp. 357–360. ISBN 9781680470185.
- ^ Wheeler, Emily Brooksby (2019). Utah Women: Pioneers, Poets & Politicians. Arcadia Publishing. pp. 22. ISBN 978-1439668511.
- ^ a b Cite error: Invalid
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- ^ Madsen, Carol Cornwall (1982). "Emmeline B. Wells: "Am I Not a Woman and a Sister?"". BYU Studies 22: 1–8.
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