Let me introduce you to Anna Laura Lamb Jorgensen Otis by means of two photographs and her funeral program. First is her last formal portrait, taken in 1939, a sweet-faced woman of about 70. Then there is the last known photograph of her, taken in the spring of 1941 about two weeks before her death, smiling and kneeling next to her cow. And there is the funeral program, bearing every hallmark of Anna’s Latter-day Saint faith.
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Anna’s life is surprisingly well documented in photographs for someone born in the desert community of Toquerville, Utah, during Brigham Young’s lifetime. ((Her obituary says she was born in Mesquite, Nevada; all other sources I’ve found give Toquerville as the place. This funeral program dates her birth to 1870; most other sources say 1871. She appears on the federal census for 1880 as an 8-year-old.)) Here she is standing next to her younger sister Sarah Mariah in 1875, in Cedar City, just after their father died.
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The photo I find most interesting of all is this one, taken in about 1895, of Anna with her two daughters, Clara Lorinda (age 4) and Laura Elizabeth (age 2).
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Anna’s husband, the girls’ father, Asmus Jorgensen, was away on his second mission to his native Denmark. Anna lived in Glendale, Utah, while Asmus was away. As long as this is a photo-heavy post, here’s Asmus:
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Anna married Asmus in May 1886, when she was 15 … and he was 44. It was a plural marriage. It seems to me to have been an odd sort of marriage, even for a polygamous one. Asmus’s first wife stayed at home with her children, while Anna went out on the road to help Asmus make a living for them all. According to a granddaughter –
Her early years of marriage were spent traveling around the state of Utah in a wagon. Asmus was an actor, trapeze artist, ventriloquist—talking by throwing his voice as if someone else was speaking. His daughter Laura remembered seeing him perform many shows: acts of sleight of hand and walking high over the stage on a tight wire. He would throw pieces of broken plates back together again on a wall.
It wasn’t until Anna began to bear children that Asmus provided her a home, in Glendale – but even then she had to “work out” doing domestic work for others in order to support herself and her daughters.
The reason that photo of Anna and her two girls intrigues me is because it was taken at about the time Anna wrote to Wilford Woodruff to ask a question that haunts me. (While I ordinarily standardize spelling and punctuation for ease of reading on Keepa, I’ve preserved Anna’s spelling and punctuation – except that I’ve had to add bracketed periods because the blogging software closes up the extra spaces I would ordinarily leave in place of missing periods. Anna’s entry on the 1940 census indicates that she went to school only through the 3rd grade.)
Brother Woodruff
i would like to ask you a few questions[.] When that manafesto was given out did it devorse wimen that was in plighamy so as they could marrie som other man if they wanted to[.] some peaple tells me that it did and i never read it for my self and for such a long time i have thought that i woul write to you bout it so as i would no for my self[.] Brother woodraff if it is so that the manafesto has devorsed the wimen from there husbands so as the man must only have one wife if the other wimen shuld marrie som other man would they go to hell because they did so for i am a plighamys my self and so meny peaple tells me men only ought to have one wife now since the manafesto came out because we are poor and it is hard for us to get a long[.] i have ben married nine years and i have got too little Children[.]
Anna went on to explain that her husband was on a mission and “i have worked out most all the tim since i have ben married.” The bishop at Glendale had been very kind to her and had helped Anna with produce from the storehouse, for which she was grateful – “but i always worked out all i could because I liked to be indepented.”
Despite her longing for independence, having to work as she did was very wearing on her. A young man
was heare and he seain how i had to do and he was to our place lots of times and one time he saied to me that he felt sory for me and he saied that he would take me and marrie me then i would not haft to do the way i do now[.] he told me that the manafesto had devorsed wimen[.]”
The proposal must have seemed very attractive to Anna. She talked to others in Glendale, some of whom told her that since a man could have only one wife after the Manifesto, she not only was free to marry again, she should marry again.
Anna could not make up her mind and resolved to write to President Woodruff.
i do not waunt to do eny thing which i will be sory for afer wards and you are a good man and i thought that you would be inspired what to say[.] this yong man saied if I did not take him up in too years i would wish that i had and when he talked to me like he did and told me how much nicer i would have it if i don so of corse it seamed to me like it would be nice if i could do that way but the way i feal in regard to this is this way if the manafesto has not devorsed the wimen which are in plighamy then i feal like making the best of the way I have it now for I would reather put up with more on this earth then to do something which I would regret heare after just to make me happy while I was heare[.]
Anna even enclosed a stamp for President Woodruff’s reply.
I’ll let you think about Anna’s letter and reach your own conclusions. The one thing I want to say is that Anna’s letter helps me understand better how confused many Latter-day Saints were by the Manifesto, not only about forming new plural marriages but whether or not existing plural marriages remained in effect.
I haven’t yet found President Woodruff’s response to Anna, but he must have replied, telling her that her marriage had not been dissolved by the Manifesto. When Asmus returned from his mission, some adjustments were made in his family. He apparently divorced his first wife (although I do not have documentation for that), because he and Anna were married under the civil law early in 1896. They continued living together until at least 1903, having three more children in addition to the two older girls.
This photo from about 1900 shows Anna with her growing family: The oldest girl in the back is Lorinda Cecelia, a daughter of Asmus’s first wife, Harriet, who was then living with Anna. The two other, larger girls are Clara Lorinda and Laura Elizabeth. Anna is holding her first son Joseph Abelham, with daughter Rachel Ellen standing next to her. Another son, Vernon Henry, would be born to her in 1903.
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Anna divorced Asmus, who moved to Salt Lake City to live until his death in 1916. Anna married again in 1910, to Joseph W. Otis, a man her own age, a stockman, and a native of New York.
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They lived in Denver, Colorado, where Anna died in 1941 and Joseph died in 1947. (I have not checked branch records to know whether Joseph was LDS; Family Search’s bad habit of replacing original ordinance dates with the dates of unnecessary later ordinances obscures the record in this case.)
I wanted to start and end with that formal portrait of Anna Laura Lamb Jorgensen Otis as an older woman, because it seems to collapse the years. 1939 is not that long ago – my parents had graduated from high school by then, the world was gearing up to World War II – you have your own markers for fixing the passage of time – and Anna looks very much a woman of that era – vintage, certainly, but very solidly in the 20th century. Yet her life bridges the distance between that almost-modern era and a time and a place that is almost unimaginable today.
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Photos contributed to Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org by multiple Jorgensen family members. They have been posted and reposted so many times that it is impossible to know to whom to give credit.
I love how stories of regular people like Anna help me better understand history. I have read a lot about Manifesto and the times after it, but yet stories like this convey things in a beautiful way. Thanks Ardis!
Niklas, to me, that is the best possible response you could have to a story like this. Thank you.
Thanks for this, Ardis. According to my great-grandmother (mother’s side), when the Manifesto came out, the men in her town got together to discuss its meaning and decided that they’d have to pick one of their wives to live with thereafter as legal husband and wife. My great-grandmother was not the chosen one, but was nonetheless advised by a temple president (Manti, I think) to continue to consider herself as married and to continue to bear children. Interestingly, she is buried, not with her husband (whose grave is next to that of his first wife), but next to one of her daughters.
Stories like this are my favorite kind too. Real history.
Wonderful.
More stories like this, Ardis! They make history “real” and personal. I can not wait until “She Shall Be an Ensign” is published… 🙂
What a lovely account. Fascinating history. My favorite is the photo with the cow ;-D
She was a very striking woman (particularly in the 1900 photograph), so I’m not surprised the ‘young man’ was proposing marriage to her. More than anything, though, this post reminds me of how complicated and hard our lives can get even while trying to do the right thing. Glad to see her story will be told in your book.
P.S. My late mother-in-law grew up on a farm in Koosharem, Utah, and she said the cows were always her favorites — they were playful and affectionate, and she had names for all of them.
I just realized I had called Anna “Laura” half the time, which I’ve now corrected — I wrote this at about 2 this morning, my only excuse.
Thank you for your lovely responses. Abstract history becomes real when we see how real people lived it.
I like the cow picture, too. 😉
My favorite photo is the one of smiling Anna and her cow. So happy and vibrant. How could she have died so soon afterward? Back to the cows: My grandfather was a dairy farmer in Star Valley Wyoming. He also named his cows, each after the wife of the seller. This amused his children greatly. Hmmm…
Her letter is so expressive, despite her educational disadvantages. I can’t imagine going through life without knowing whether I was divorced.
“Yet her life bridges the distance between that almost-modern era and a time and a place that is almost unimaginable today.” I guess she’d have been born around the same time as George Albert Smith and David O. McKay. McKay seems to me like a very modern, 20th century person, largely because of his long life and later tenure as church president. George Albert Smith seems very liminal to me — not quite in the 20th century, but not quite in the 19th either. Maybe it’s the goatee. It’s fascinating to think of Anna as both newer and older than him, in some ways.
No talks on the funeral program, but three baritone solos? I’m trying to think if that’d be an improvement to other church services. I can think of a lot of music that is better than a sermon to me, but I suppose it would depend most on the quality of the baritone.
Love the story, and the photos. The guy with the shirt tie, dress hat, and overalls seems to capture the culture and the times so well.
Did you say “Laura” when you meant “Anna” in this part: “Laura is holding her first son Joseph Abelham, with daughter Rachel Ellen standing next to her. Another son, Vernon Henry, would be born to her in 1903.
Laura divorced Asmus, who moved to Salt Lake City to live until his death in 1916. Laura married again in 1910, to Joseph W. Otis, a man her own age, a stockman, and a native of New York.”
I was a little confused by that (it would be icky if Asmus married his daughter Laura)! This story is fantastic. Thank you so much for sharing. The more I read, the more I hunger to know more about these women and their lives.
Oh, sorry! I just refreshed the page and see that it’s fixed.
[I’m sorry about the confusion, ElleK — I corrected it as soon as I noticed it, but I’m sure it confused more than one reader. — AEP]
Any idea what actual legal result came about as a result of the Manifesto? Was her marriage, in fact, “terminated,” or was their some sort of grandfather type clause that allowed those already in plural marriage relations to remain so for a certain period of time? I’m sure this has been fleshed out in other places but am curious about the actual legalities of the time. It almost seems like you would have to void, or terminate, all marriages beyond the first one contracted. Then, once the dust settled, men and women could figure things out from there. (Like how Asmus divorced his first wife then married Anna.)
Ardis…thank you so much for this story. It might be because I’m crying at the drop of a hat this week, but I don’t think that’s the ONLY reason it hit me so hard.
Her question and unequivocal statement of faith resonated so strongly with me. I would give almost anything to be able to ask a similar question of someone who has authority, and is not simply repeating the conventions we have adopted in a fallen world.
Like her, I would rather continue to bear the burden of single motherhood and persistent self-doubt for the rest of my life than make a mistake I would regret in the hereafter. But writing General Authorities is not an option open to us, and bishops and stake presidents can only teach us from policies, which I do not entirely trust.
It is good, at least, to know that I am not alone. Even if there is so much time between our lives.
IDIAT, plural marriages were never recognized by the civil government, either before or after the Manifesto, so there was no “legality” to the plural marriage, and nothing changed with the Manifesto. That’s why for various reasons (death of first — legal — wife, or divorce of first wife whether through incompatibility or because the family decided it was most important for a plural wife, whose children were younger, to have the protection of a legal marriage) people who were already married in the eyes of the Church took out marriage licenses to transform a plural marriage into a legal one.
In the eyes of believing Church members, plural marriages were as valid as any recognized by the state. They were not dissolved in 1890 with the Manifesto, so far as the Church was concerned — for a man to abandon a plural family because of the Manifesto was a low, treacherous thing to do — even if they decided to live apart, the Church generally held the husband responsible for the support of his plural families.
There was no “grandfathering” as far as civil government was concerned. The Gentile world just seemed to assume that the Manifesto ended all polygamous relationships, no matter when they were formed. That was a major part of the brouhaha of the early 20th century leading up to the Smoot hearings — the outside world was, or pretended to be, shocked (shocked, I tell you!) to discover that men like Joseph F. Smith continued to live with their plural families, even having children, even when they didn’t enter into new plural marriages.
Fascinating! Thanks for sharing this! I love the unedited letter, and feel a connection to this woman.
A many-great-grandmother of mine said that in order to live polygamy, you have to love the church more than your husband.
Her husband had five wives (3 was the most he had at one time). All but wife #4 were named Mary. Wife #4 divorced him after 9 months, family legend has it she divorced him because he couldn’t remember her name and kept calling her Mary.
It’s the little details that make these stories real!
My great-great grandmother, Lorena Washburn Larsen, wrote extensively about her experience both as a plural wife and then post-Manifesto. In her auto-biography, she describes in great detail how she felt upon heaering that the Manifesto had been issued, and it is heart-wrenching. She too was told by a church leader (I believe it was also the president of the Manti Temple) that she was still married and could continue having children, which she did. But her husband did eventually pretty much abandon her–I think it just became too difficult for him to maintain in the face of persecution. She describes being subject to a lot of gossip and even shunning from members of her community because of having been a plural wife. She talks about her husband having to sneak under cover of darkness to visit the family, sometimes dressing in women’s clothing to disguise himself. Interestingly, she talks earlier in her memoirs about all the older men who would go around the community trying to get teenager girls to marry them as plural wives, and how turned off she was by that.
Lisa, It’s a small, small world. Lorena Eugenia Washburn Larsen is my great grandmother. Grandmother = Ella Larsen Turner. Mother = Ella Ruth Turner.
Really fascinating and personal stuff. Stories like this make history much less impersonal and abstract.
Thanks
Wow Gary, it sure is! I am descended through her son Enoch Rolf Larsen and his daughter Miriam Larsen Olcott. When I was at BYU in a married student ward, a woman in our ward gave a sacrament meeting talk about Lorena for Pioneer Day. I went up and chatted afterward and found out we were second cousins.
This is a brilliant piece of history. The picture with her two daughters hit me the hardest; my daughters are the same age.
Fascinating story.
My grandparents lived in Denver in 1941 (and for some years leading up to it); I wonder if they knew her?
My grandmother was a musician, and I was kind of hoping she’d show up on the funeral program. She didn’t.
My favorite statement of hers was “but i always worked out all i could because I liked to be indepented.” Most of the polygamous wives had to be independent in order to take care of herself and her children. My great-grandmother Rosetta lived in Logan with her husband, Samuel Smith. She had been trained as a seamstress and a milliner, in fact she owned a millinery shop and also made kid gloves. When her mother and fourteen-year-old sister, Mercy, arrived from England, mother convinced Samuel to marry Mercy to keep her from running off with one of the teamsters. Rose continued to use her needle to pay expenses while Mercy stated home to care for the children. When Samuel had an opportunity to move to Centerville and build up a nursery business, he left Rosetta behind (because she could take care of herself) with one older sons and her younger children and took all the rest of the two families to Centerville with him.
I have always had a hard time with this situation.