Mary Ann Angell
Mary Ann Angell Young was the second wife of Brigham Young. They were married in 1834. President Young's first wife, Miriam Angeline Works, had died in 1832.
Mary Ann was born on June 8, 1803, to James and Phoebe Morton Angell in Ontario County, New York. The family moved to Providence, Rhode Island, when she was young. Her mother left her abusive husband in 1831 and moved with her two children to China, New York. A year after their move, Mary Ann's brother Truman joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and she was baptized soon after.
- Mary Ann had always been deeply religious. She was keen on studying Hebrew and Christian scripture. “She vowed never to marry until she met a ‘man of God’ in whom she could confide her spirituality and with whom her heart could unite in the active duties of a Christian life.”
- She set off alone for Kirtland, Ohio to gather with the Saints in 1832. In 1833, she met a young widower, Brigham Young. She “felt drawn to him” as she listened to him preach. He, likewise, was impressed with her as he heard her bear testimony.[1]
They married on February 18, 1834, and Brigham said of her, she “took charge of my children, kept my house, and labored faithfully for the interest of my family and the kingdom.” Brigham was often gone on missions and she was left home alone "to support herself and their growing family. She would work in the home as well as out in the fields to earn a living and put food on the table."[2] The Prophet Joseph received a revelation in 1838 that Brigham would not be required to leave his family again, “until they are amply provided for.”[3]
But in September 1839, Brigham was called on a mission to England. He was suffering from malaria but was determined to go to England. Although Mary Ann had given birth to her fifth child ten days earlier, and they were all so sick that they could not "wait upon each other," she crossed the river from Iowa to Illinois so she could bid her husband a final farewell. Brigham and Heber C. Kimball feebly stood in the wagon in which they were riding and shouted "Hurrah for Israel" in an attempt to cheer her and others they were leaving behind.[4]
- Two months after Brigham’s departure, the family ran out of food. Still suffering the effects of malaria, Mary Ann was forced to take action to relieve their hunger. On a “cold, stormy November day,” she wrapped herself and her baby Alice in tattered blankets and set off in a small rowboat across the Mississippi River. During the journey, the wind-whipped waves soaked both her and her baby. Upon reaching Nauvoo, she went to the home of a friend, who later recounted, “Sister Young came into my house … with her baby Alice in her arms, almost fainting with cold and hunger, and dripping wet.” Mary Ann refused her friend’s offer to let her stay. “The children at home are hungry, too,” she insisted. Procuring “a few potatoes and a little flour,” Mary Ann “wended her way to the river bank” to row home. Many times she crossed the river “to obtain the barest necessaries of life,” sometimes “in storms that would have frightened women of ordinary courage.”
- Around this time, Mary Ann was forced out of her room in the old military barracks. She took up residence in a horse stable in Montrose and spent the winter eking out a meager living “sowing [sewing] & washing” for others. The following spring she was given a lot in Nauvoo, on which she planted a garden. Throughout that summer, Mary Ann paddled across the Mississippi River to care for her garden and then paddled “back again at night after her days work was done.”
- In addition to working in her garden, Mary Ann undertook to build a log cabin on the lot. In September 1840, a year after Brigham left on his mission, she moved her family into their new home in Nauvoo. Vilate Kimball noted that the house “could hardly be called a shelter,” but at least it saved her constant trips across the river. Her nephew later recalled that it was simply the “body of a house,” with blankets hung over the doors and windows to keep out the elements.[5]
When Brigham returned to Nauvoo on July 1, 1841, he set to work to improve his family's situation. On July 9, 1841, Joseph received a revelation for Brigham from the Lord that said "it is no more required at your hand to leave your family as in times past . . . and take especial care of your family from this time, henceforth and forever."[6]
Mary Ann Angell and Brigham Young had six children, including Brigham Young, Jr., who was ordained an Apostle by his father in 1864, but was not placed in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church until 1868; John Willard Young, also an ordained apostle and served as the first counselor in the First Presidency of the Church at the end of Brigham Young's administration as President of the Church; and Joseph Angell Young, who was ordained an apostle in 1864 but never became a member of either the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles or the First Presidency.
With the permission of Mary, Young began practicing plural marriage in 1842 when he married Lucy Ann Decker.
Mary Ann crossed the plains, helping as many as she could along the way with her skills in herbal medicine. She died on June 27, 1882, in Salt Lake City, Utah.
