Post Manifesto Fallout
Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2012 11:35 pm
I've been reading about my ancestors who lived in Mexico to avoid being prosecuted for living with multiple wives and stumbled upon an interesting question:
What was the fallout from the Manifesto?
I'm very surprised that the church would excommunicate members that were living in polygamy prior to the Manifesto and continue living it afterward outside the United States. Why wouldn't there be a grandfather clause for the folks who followed the commandment to begin with? It seems to me that the church broke up families unnecessarily. Why didn't the church just say, "Don't practice polygamy if you live in the U.S."?
Here is an interesting excerpt from a website that contains the history of some of my ancestors:
http://www.orsonprattbrown.com/Polygamy ... combe.html
What was the fallout from the Manifesto?
Is this true?The L.D.S. Church outlawed polygamy after Wilford Woodruff issued the 1890 Manifesto. This became a difficult time for those men and women who were already livng a polygamous lifestye. Some had already moved to Canada and Mexico to escape the Edmunds-Tucker law, but even those weren't safe when the Manifesto was passed and anyone entering polygamy around now would be excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
I'm very surprised that the church would excommunicate members that were living in polygamy prior to the Manifesto and continue living it afterward outside the United States. Why wouldn't there be a grandfather clause for the folks who followed the commandment to begin with? It seems to me that the church broke up families unnecessarily. Why didn't the church just say, "Don't practice polygamy if you live in the U.S."?
Here is an interesting excerpt from a website that contains the history of some of my ancestors:
Orson Pratt Brown... had five wives, Martha Diana Romney Brown, Jane Bodily Galbraith Brown, Elizabeth Graham Macdonald Webb Brown, Eliza Skousen, and Angela Gabaldon. Orson had a total of thirty-five children from all five wives. He was not excommunicated from the Church for polygamy. Three of Orson's wives divorced him in what seemed to be mutual abandonment after the Mormon Exodus from the Colonies in Mexico uprooted the families from their homes mid-1912. Martha Romney moved to Utah. Jane Galbraith moved to California where her mother and other family lived. Eliza Skousen moved to Utah for a time then returned to live in Mesa, Arizona. Elizabeth Macdonald had died in 1904 in Morelos. Orson continued to support his three wives and children by purchasing homes, stores, farms, and businesses for them to maintain for their support. He had lost almost all his assets during the Exodus and while fulfilling his Church assignments to help resettle the homeless Mormon colonists and moderate negotiations to receive reimbursement for the colonists lands and property. A destitute and lonely Orson worked to eke out a living in El Paso and Mexico between 1914 and 1919...
http://www.orsonprattbrown.com/Polygamy ... combe.html