In Sacred Loneliness

Gospel Topics Essays on the church’s web site under Plural marriage confirms that Joseph Smith practiced plural marriage beginning with Fanny Alger in Kirtland, Ohio in the 1830s. His first marriage in Nauvoo was to Louisa Beaman in April 1841. Most of those sealed to Joseph Smith were between 20 and 40 years of age at the time of their sealing to him. The oldest, Fanny Young, was 56 years old. The youngest was Helen Mar Kimball, daughter of Joseph’s close friends Heber C. and Vilate Murray Kimball, who was sealed to Joseph several months before her 15th birthday. Emma, Joseph’s wife, approved, at least for a time, of four of Joseph Smith’s plural marriages in Nauvoo, and she accepted all four of those wives into her household.

Compton’s book consists of 33 holistic (from birth to death) chapters on each of Joseph’s authenticated wives. Marriages supported by affidavits, reliable testimony or multiple pieces of evidence.

I highlight one segment in the story of Lucy Walker. Her mother Lydia died in 1842, Joseph sent her father John on a mission to give him a change of scene and took the four eldest into his home to raise as his own. Later in the year 1842 whilst Lucy was either 15 or 16 he sought an interview with Lucy. In her own words she reported, He said “I have a message for you, I have been commanded of God to take another wife, and you are the woman”. Lucy said ‘My astonishment knew no bounds. This announcement was indeed a thunderbolt to me.” He asked me if I believed him to be a prophet of God?” “Most assuredly I replied”. Joseph then explained how celestial marriage could link families together in eternity. She like other young women Helen Mar Kimball and Sarah Ann Whitney suddenly became responsible for the eternal welfare of their entire family. After giving Lucy time to reflect, Joseph then gave her a very short period, one day, to accept or reject his proposal. He warned her that any refusal would bring damnation as she would be disobeying a command of God to her. That night she implored the Lord for guidance and was unable to sleep. But near dawn, she wrote “My room became filled with a heavenly influence…..My soul was filled with a calm sweet peace that I never knew…..and I received a powerful and irresistible testimony of the marriage covenant called ‘Celestial or plural marriage’.

The extract above covers the dramatic segment, however, plural wives often experienced loneliness also reporting feelings of depression, despair, anxiety, helplessness, abandonment, anger, psychosomatic symptoms and low self-esteem, hence the title.

‘In Sacred Loneliness’ is not a book to be read from cover to cover, it provides biographies that are well researched. However, I often felt, using an eating metaphor, that I was digesting a plentiful diet of factual but bland information before tasting a delightful morsel. It is a great reference book. One of the most expensive to date I have ever purchased, I would suggest seeing a copy before buying or better still borrowing.