On Thursday afternoon, as Peggy Fletcher Stack was preparing her Salt Lake Tribune report on the involvement of our youth in temple preparation and participation, I provided her with an exceedingly brief statement about women’s past participation as witnesses to temple ordinances, noting that women had served as official witnesses within my lifetime (I was born in 1959). That news has flashed around the internet, and along the way it has picked up unwarranted baggage – understandably, because a background quote for a news story has to be as short as possible and cannot answer all questions. This post is an attempt to rein in some of the exaggeration that I’m seeing on Facebook, in blog discussions, and in email from friends and strangers.
I do know that women served as witnesses to some temple ordinances, in a limited capacity, in at least one temple, in 1959 and for some time before that.
I do not know, and have not stated, that women witnessed all types of ordinances, or that we had served as witnesses as an unbroken practice from the beginning, or that all temples utilized women as witnesses, or that it was such a common occurrence as to be unremarkable, or even that Joseph Fielding Smith, who disapproved of the practice, was single-handedly, without input from other Church leaders, responsible for ending the practice. Those are all assumptions beyond what I know or stated to Peggy – I accept responsibility, and apologize for my part in the misinterpretation through my much-too-brief statement; and while I don’t really believe this hope is realistic, I do hope that people referring to my statement for justification of their own desires or objections will bring their own statements into line.
Here is a fuller explanation of what was happening in 1959, and the limits of my knowledge on the subject:
In the summer of 1959, Joseph Fielding Smith, then President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, became aware – I do not know how – of what to him was a surprising practice of the Alberta Temple in Cardston, Alberta, Canada. He contacted Octave W. Ursenbach, that temple’s president: “I understand that in the Alberta Temple you are using women for witnesses in the sealing ordinances. How long has this been going on and from whence did you get the authority?”
Notice the apparent limits of that practice: It was occurring in at least that one temple, which does not imply that it was occurring in other or all temples. It concerned sealing ordinances and does not imply that women were serving as witnesses for other or all ordinances. Elder Smith’s apparent surprise implies that this practice was not the norm, in his experience – and he had earlier served as president of the Salt Lake Temple, and had, for decades, sealed innumerable couples without, evidently, having seen women so serve.
That there were, maybe still are, some variations in procedures within temples is known and understandable. Temple presidents, like bishops and stake presidents and Primary teachers and choir leaders, have some degree of leeway within their stewardships, to respond to local needs. Every once in a while, when variations become too great or too consequential, there seems to be a sort of standardization of practice by the leading quorums who have the keys and stewardship over the entire Church. As an illustration, at one time earlier in the 20th century, a temple president authorized the placing of a rack in the reception area of his temple, where patrons could pick up missionary tracts and small pamphlets. In that day, it was standard practice to ask people – even investigators – to pay the minimal cost of printing those materials, so the rack in that temple included a box for people to drop their coins into. Then someone decided to add copies of the Book of Mormon to that display. And then small books written by Church leaders found their way in. And postcards. And then individual Church members with books of their own to sell asked to have those books – some of them of questionable validity – sold in the temple. At that point, Church leaders called a halt to what had begun so innocently but had crossed a line. It happens. It was corrected.
So Elder Smith’s query to President Ursenbach sounds to me like the behavior of a man charged with keeping the doctrine pure, asking for information about a practice that surprised him. My general impression of Joseph Fielding Smith anticipates that he would disapprove of women serving as witnesses, but that prejudice (mine toward him, or his toward women) is not warranted by his actual query.
President Ursenbach informed Elder Smith that the use of women as witnesses predated his own presidency, but he was uninformed as to how long the practice had been followed. He noted that there were limits to the use of women as witnesses: It was done “at times” but was “not a regular practice.”
He noted that he had further relied on an instruction – “Item No. 53” – in the “Book of Rules, Decisions and Instructions” he had been given to guide his work as temple president. I do not know whether that was the formal title of a handbook, or President Ursenbach’s generic description of the contents of some binder in which he kept letters of instruction that may have come from Church leaders from time to time. It does tell me, though, that President Ursenbach was relying on a written document, and that the practice wasn’t due merely to a whim on the part of some earlier temple president.
President Ursenbach quoted “Item No. 53” – which I will not present here, because I have some discretion, at least. In summary, it permitted an endowed woman to sign a marriage certificate – allowed, but in a limited way, in that the item directed that such should not be a “regular practice.” The Canadian temple presidents had understood that to mean that if a woman could sign a document as a witness, she should in fact be a witness. Signing a marriage certificate would apply only to marriages of the living, but President Ursenbach and his predecessors had extended their interpretation to women serving as witnesses in sessions for the dead – especially on Tuesday mornings when it was almost impossible to have enough men at work in the temple. Even so, the use of women was limited to one woman witness, not both. “This has been done over a period of years.”
All those limitations suggest that while women as witnesses were routine in the sense that nobody in Alberta balked at the service of a woman, it was still an extremely limited practice – one woman, one type of ordinance, only when necessary. Still, even within those limitations, a woman’s witness was treated as valid.
Elder Smith’s query had not directed President Ursenbach to cease the use of women witnesses, but President Ursenbach took the hint, anyway. He promised to stop the use of women as witnesses, pending further authorization, even though it would mean the closing of one sealing room on Tuesday mornings.
Elder Smith was satisfied with what he called President Ursenbach’s “kind” response.
I labored in the Salt Lake Temple when President Joseph F. Smith was president of the temple and with President Anthon H. Lund of the First Presidency also under President Heber J. Grant and President George Albert Smith and during those years we were instructed that men holding the priesthood should be witnesses to the covenants and ordinances.
Where the idea of having women for witnesses for marriages began I do not know but my training convinces me that it is the proper thing to have the priesthood not only officiating but witnessing the ceremonies of the temple.
This exchange is evidence that women did serve as witnesses – in a limited capacity, and evidently in a limited place, and probably for a limited time before 1959. The use of women as witnesses did not invalidate the ordinances – there is nothing in anything Elder Smith said to suggest that, but the use of women in such roles ended then and there.
And that’s what I know, and what I can surmise with documentary justification. I make no claims beyond these – please don’t use me or my work to prop up unsupportable claims beyond these limits.
I have not and will not at this time make public the citation for the records I have relied on and have quoted from here. That needs to be done in a more formal, more permanent form than a blog post or a newspaper. To those who have written, sometimes politely and sometimes rudely, demanding that citation, and full transcriptions, and in some cases even scans of my documents, no. Just no. I share some of my findings in preliminary and informal ways, but you do not have the right to demand a scholar’s raw materials on your terms and for your purposes. You can trust my integrity after something like eleven years of heavy blogging, or not, and after even more years of fulsome praise in the acknowledgments of prominent scholars to whom I have furnished materials, or not. If you are at all inclined to doubt me in this case, though, my care in staying within the limits of what this 1959 exchange actually states, without exaggeration, or excessive speculation, should count for something in the way of reliability.
One other statement I made to Peggy which didn’t make it into her story: “I acknowledge the right of the First Presidency to determine policies and practices, but it does seem that it is training rather than heavenly mandate that bars women from this service.” I’ll stand by that support of the First Presidency’s prerogative.
-oOo-
Related post: Sacred Narratives, and Intrinsic Sacredness
By the way, I can tell when people don’t know me or my work. I’m a Sister, not a Mister.
Again, Ardis, another really interesting history lesson. Thank you for taking the time to write this up. (I can’t help wondering if J. Stapley has found anything similar.)
Thanks for the clarification, Ardis. I appreciate your careful parsing of the evidence.
Fascinating. Thank you for taking the time to explain things further.
Thank you for this, Ardis.
I appreciate the support from you! Thanks.
Gary, although he might not know it yet (I believe he’s out of town and may not be reading all his mail), J. Stapley is my designated put-this-story-into-full-context-in-a-formal-publication guy. He’ll do it right, in every way.
Well said, Ardis. An interesting occurrence, I would be interested to hear about the normalisation process. As you mention, it was a remarkably local exception, and I wonder how patrons responded to it. Thanks for this clarification.
James, I’m trying to be so careful here because my evidence is being used in all sorts of ways, so I’ll point out an unwarranted (in my view) extrapolation on your part:
I have evidence for this “remarkably local exception.” It does not prove that it was anything other than local.
On the other hand, the same “Item No. 53” was almost certainly circulated to all temples — the Alberta Temple presidents were interpreting an instruction that came to them from a trusted source elsewhere. If one temple president interpreted the instruction to allow women witnesses to any extent at all, it is possible — not certain, but possible — that one or more other temple presidents interpreted it that way.
It may have been entirely local, or it may not have been. This single datapoint is not enough to answer that question, either way.
But it does demonstrate that not so long ago, women did fill this function without invalidating the ordinances.
I read the Trib article but was unaware of the response. Thanks for your explanation here. And yes, you have earned more than a little trust in your integrity, Ardis. Thank you again.
Thank you! This is fantastic!
As usual, your work is remarkably pertinent, and I’m always encouraged by your fair-minded and circumspect approach to a topic which is prone to twisting and exaggeration in all directions. I’m Gratified to see light shed on a murky subject, and since I’m older than you, I’ll say “well done, dear.”
😀 See?! It *wasn’t* so very long ago, was it?!!
Thanks, all, for the courtesy and enthusiastic comments. There have not yet been any that I couldn’t post publicly, either on this or yesterday’s post about my general response to the about-to-be-announced policies, which pleases and surprises me given the potential volatility.
I also feel to echo, “well done” Ardis!
Well done, Ardis. Thank you for the context, and for all your excellent historical work.
As one of the scholars Sister Parshall has assisted over the years I am more than happy to confirm her utmost integrity. Well put, Ardis. Very well put. Thank you for this carefully considered and worded explanation. (And to anyone out there who has twisted her words or who has harangued her with troll-like Internet insolence,
go pound sand.)
Thanks for the helpful clarification and added insight.
This is a wonderfully open discussion, Ardis. Thank you for your hard work, and excellent analysis. I appreciate it.
This is a classic case of the snowball effect of Mormon “quote mining” — the all-too-common practice of members and leaders taking a single, obscure mention of something to justify a position. Happens every day. I’d love to see more scholarship on the origins of our folklore and practices. Many can be traced back to a single personal letter or talk. This is why leaders at every level need to be so careful to say: “this is my own opinion about cola, or piercings, or pants in church, or humans living on the moon, or socialism, or ______.” This is why GAs now begin non-general conference talks with a plea not to record them.
Thanks for this explanation. I love the nuggets you excavate. Historians and reporters bear some responsibility for providing context, but the ultimate responsibility for determining what they mean is mine.
This summer, 2017, my teen daughter performed baptisms and confirmations in the Accra Temple in Ghana. The temple was short staffed and asked if there were any endowed women available to witness confirmations. One of the female trip leaders served in this capacity. At the time they were told that if no priesthood holders were available, endowed women could fulfill this role.
Fascinating, Lehua!
In today’s world of 100+ temples, it’s easy to believe that there MUST have been some others with female witnesses, but 1959, the Church had only a handful, most of which were along the Wasatch Front and could be closely monitored by the General Authorities. Other isolated temples? Perhaps the then-new ones in England, Switzerland, and New Zealand. Maybe Hawaii. Everything else (Idaho Falls, Mesa, and SLC, Logan, Manti, St. George) was located in a region with plenty of priesthood holders (and therefore witnesses).
This is my first time on your blog. I just want to say I found it extremely interesting & informative. Thank you! Tanya Cummins
Thank you, Tanya. I hope you’ll be back.
Thanks for this. I’m excited to read more from you.
Brava, dear Ardis. There certainly need to be more people who know you and your work.
Thank you, Ardis. Good work and a standalone lesson in careful attribution and interpretation.
Maybe because I’ve already seen much of this in pieces elsewhere, I found especially interesting the opinion statement at the end (made to Peggy, not included in the SLT article).
Of course perfectly stated and explained. I expect no less from one of my favorite bloggers (writers? Mormon historian? Person I wished I knew in real life? Pick one :).
[I heart you, Amanda! — AEP]
This is great, Ardis. Thanks for your example of being careful with evidence.
To quote Prince Edward to Ulrich (Heath Ledger) from that great historical drama, A Knight’s Tale:
“Your [friends] love you. If I knew nothing else about you, that would be enough. But you also tilt when you should withdraw… and that is knightly, too.” As the beneficiary of a few bits of Ardis’s research skills, her extensive personal archive, and phenomenal memory, I can confirm that she is indeed a most careful researcher, and especially careful in the conclusions she can and can’t draw from such items. She’s been a great mentor to me, and an inspiration for what an independent historian can accomplish.
I am aware of a case, in Pasadena, California, in about 1984, where a fairly recent convert received his temple endowments, went through the M.T.C., and arrived in his mission before he was actually ordained to the Melchizedek Priesthood. I do not know all the circumstances of how this oversight came about, but I do know (because I was clerk in the ward he attended, and handled his membership record) that the First Presidency chose to ratify his temple ordinances, with a permanent notation in his membership record, rather than make him repeat them after he was finally ordained. (Though I’ve posted approximate date and venue, I’ve felt it prudent not to post my own name, which would point to a specific ward, out of some lingering respect for privacy. Ardis doubtless can deduce who I am from my email address in the site logs, if she wishes.)
It seems obvious to me that the decision of the First Presidency to regard the temple ordinances as valid in this one case does not mean that it is mere policy, rather than doctrine, for a brother to be ordained to the Melchizedek Priesthood before being endowed.
This case is a little different from Ardis’ example of sister witnesses in that there appears to have been some written instructions suggesting policy rather than doctrine. Still, as Ardis has explained so well, one should be careful not to infer too much from how the Brethren choose deal with these kinds of anomalies.
A. Noma Lee is a trusted Keepa’ninny who has not been prone to exaggeration in previous comments.
Ms. Parshall, maybe missed them or don’t know where to look on your site, but do you have citations of any kind for your comments above?
[What you missed, Mr. Scheer, is the link near the top of the sidebar to “Before You Ask for My Sources”. The penultimate paragraph in this post also speaks directly to why I am withholding citations in this case. — AEP]
Thank you for the clarification. I am not a scholar by any stretch of the imagination. Just a friend of a guy who is trying to find answers to questions raised by Ms. Stacks’ article in which you and your work are mentioned. With that said, and with no desire to use your citations to further my financial interests, what would the cost be? Or in this instance would helping me help someone else with their concerns be enough?
Dan, this is one of those cases where I must reserve the citation for formal publication. The work I do not only supports me financially, but also is the basis for my own claim to scholarship. That means I have to protect my more important sources — and I count the documents for this story among the important ones — until they are published in a formal, scholarly setting. If I couldn’t claim my own work that way, the only alternative would be not to tell the story in an informal venue like Keepa at all, which would do nobody any good. You have the facts here, you have my reputation and detailed analysis here telling you that the records exist and that they say what I claim they say. That will have to be enough for the time being.