The 19th Wife (14 page)

As scholars we can change this.

My last reason is more personal. I am the great-great-great-granddaughter of Ann Eliza Young. Although my family has always taken pride in having roots that go back to the Church’s founding, we have also felt shame at being the offspring of such a hurtful apostate. When I was growing up, many in my family would refer to Ann Eliza as “that woman” or simply “her.” They despised her as if they had known her personally. Few had actually read
The 19th Wife.
“Nothing but a pack of lies,” my grandmother used to say.
¹⁸

Despite this, Ann Eliza and her contradictions have long fascinated me. I decided to start my inquiry into her life with her mother, my great-great-great-great-grandmother Elizabeth Churchill Webb. This seemed the best place to begin an effort to unravel Ann Eliza’s true history and legacy. I plan to continue my inquiry into Ann Eliza’s life itself in my graduate studies next year. The research I conducted for this paper is an important foundation for that inquiry. This summer, when I’m in Salt Lake,
¹⁹
I hope to study a wide range of documents in the Church archives, some of which scholars have never had access to. I hope these texts will provide a fuller portrait of this complex woman and her complicated place in the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Lastly, through my research, I hope to determine the fate of Ann Eliza Young. After a second edition of
The 19th Wife
was published in 1908, there is no further record of her. No one knows when she died, or where, or under what circumstances. There are no obituaries, no estate records, not even a death certificate. At some point after 1908 she simply disappeared. She was once one of the most famous women in America. She changed the lives of thousands of women by fighting to end polygamy, nearly bringing down the Mormon Church in doing so. And yet she has been lost from history without a trace. We simply have no idea what happened to her. Ann Eliza’s death remains a mystery. But mysteries, by their very nature, are meant to be solved.

I WAS LIKE WOW

“Johnny, wake up.”

“What the—?”

“I need you to get up.”

“Where are we?”

We were in Mr. Heber’s parking lot. The bank sign across the street said it was eight in the morning and already ninety degrees. The kid sat up, his face creased from the futon. “You got anything for breakfast?”

I threw him a packet of powdered doughnuts and he ate them silently, cautiously, while I listened to the morning news. Ten minutes later Maureen arrived in a yellow Honda with a family of stuffed penguins in the back window. She sat for a minute, flicking a plastic comb through her hair. I got out of the van and knocked on her window.

“Jordan,” she gasped. “Shoot, you scared me.”

“Sorry, but I just realized you never gave me a copy of the police report.”

“All right, just give me a second to land.” Something caught her attention over my shoulder. “Who’s that?”

Johnny and Elektra were coming straight for me, each panting like, well, like a dog. “This is Johnny. I’m looking after him for a friend.” I sent Johnny and Elektra back to the van, but they didn’t want to go. I had to give them each a little shove.

“Dick,” he said.

Inside the office it was dark and warm. Maureen went around turning on the lights and the a/c and her computer while talking about how busy Mr. Heber was lately. Finally she went to the wall of file cabinets and started riffling through the S drawer. “Here it is, let me make a copy. But first I want you to be honest—what’s the story with Johnny?”

“He doesn’t have a place to go right now.”

“If he’s a runaway, you should call the police.”

“He’s not a runaway.”

“I see,” she sighed. “Another lost boy. It just breaks my heart. Did you try Jim Hooke? He runs a shelter. The man’s a saint. Let me give you his number.” She pecked at her keyboard and brought up the guy’s deets.

Maureen put the police report in a file folder for me. “It’s pretty basic,” she said, “but here you are.”

It described the murder scene pretty much the same as the
Register
did. Whoever filled it out had been meticulous, measuring the distance between the door and the chair, the height of the blood splatters on the wall, that sort of thing. There was a diagram of a human body, which the investigator had marked where the bullet entered my dad, and a second diagram of the backside, showing the exit wound. At the bottom of the last page, the investigator signed his name: Hiram Alton. Queenie’s husband. Well, there you go.

More interesting were two little questions next to his signature:
Were photographs taken?
A little yes box was checked.
Is the investigation complete?
No.

“Maureen? Do you have the photographs?”

“What photographs?” I showed her the report. “Let me check the file.” But there weren’t any photos in the file.

“Would you ask Mr. Heber?”

“Ask me what?” Mr. Heber stood in the front door, his wraparound sunglasses making it impossible to tell if he was pissed or what. “Maureen, what’s going on?”

“Jordan wanted the police report.”

“I see.” He moved in the direction of his office, then turned around. “What did you want to ask me about?”

“The pictures. The report says they took pictures.”

“I realize that. I made a request, but they haven’t turned up yet.”

“When will they be here?”

“Should be soon. We’ll call you when they arrive. Maureen has your cell?” He might as well have been wearing a sign that said I don’t have time for this.

“Before I go, I need to tell you something.” I blurted out the whole business about Sister Kimberly and 5, about one of them lying about where 5 was the night my dad was killed.

Mr. Heber removed his sunglasses. He said, “Hmm.” Just hmm. Nothing more.

“Isn’t that fishy?”

“Yes, I’ll agree those stories don’t add up.”

“What do you think it means?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” I’m not sure why I thought he would be able to take this info, drop it into some sort of thinking machine, and come up with the answer that would pop my mom free from jail, but I guess deep down that’s what I expected.

“Unfortunately, there could be a hundred reasons why one of them or both are lying. But before you go any further, let me give you three bits of advice. One: most people lie. Two: the reason they lie usually has nothing to do with your case. And three: unless you’re careful, their more or less innocent lies can really throw you off.”

The thing about Heber was I never could quite tell what he wanted—my mom out of jail or me out of his office. “Come on,” I said. “Not everyone goes around lying.”

“No, not everyone, but you’d be amazed how many liars are always buzzing around a crime.”

Maureen shrugged. “I’m afraid he’s right.”

About fifteen miles outside St. George, Johnny finished eating everything in the van. He wiped his sugary fingers on his thighs, burped, then thought to say, “Where we going?”

“Mesadale Police Department. I want to try to get those pictures myself.”

“Are you out of your fucking mind?”

“Calm down.”

“They’ll kill me.”

“They won’t kill you.”

“Dude, I know that place a whole lot better than you. Everyone’s like freaking out.” He punched the dash. “Stop this van!”

“Johnny, relax. When we get there, you can help me.”

“If you don’t stop right now, I’m going to jump out.”

“Johnny, I know what I’m doing.”

“So do I.” He pulled his bag into his lap, opened the door, said, “You’re so full of shit,” and leaped out. It happened so quickly, I drove another fifty yards before I could stop. In my rearview Johnny rolled down the embankment with his bag tight to his chest. When he came to a stop he stood and slapped the sand out of his hair. Tough little kid. Stupid too. I backed up along the road until I was next to him.

“Get in.”

“Fuck you.”

“I’ll make sure nothing happens to you.”

“You know what they said when they kicked me out? They said if I ever came back, my mom would end up dead. So fuck you for taking me back there, and fuck your fucking van, and fuck your mom, I don’t give a shit about her.”

He started walking in the direction of St. George, hugging his little bag, but there was no way he could walk back to town. I backed up some more until I was next to him again, but he kept walking and I kept driving in reverse. “I didn’t mean to scare you. Come on, get in.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“Fine. What do you want to do?”

“None of your fucking business.”

“Look, all right, don’t come. But let me take you back to St. George. I’ll drop you wherever you want.”

He kept walking but eventually said, “I’m not talking to you.”

“Johnny, you’re acting like a baby.”

“What do you expect?” He wiped his nose with his shoulder. “I thought you were cool.” We went backward like that another twenty yards.

“Hey, Maureen told me about this place, maybe we should go there.”

He stopped. “What place?”

“Some guy named Jim Hooke. He has this house.”

Johnny started walking again, and I threw the van into reverse.

“You know him?”

“You getting ready to dump me too?”

“No, not at all.” Heber was right: people lie all the time. “Tell you what,” I said. “I’ll drop you at the movies and go to Mesadale myself. When I get back I’ll pick you up.”

He stopped. “Only if you promise to come back.”

“I promise.”

He pondered the promise, turning it over like a bit of treasure found in the sand. “Deal. But I’m going to need some cash for candy.” I told him no problem. “And popcorn.”

“I’ll give you five bucks.” I stopped the van and Johnny climbed in. Elektra welcomed him back with a lick. “Put your seat belt on.”

“Whatever.”

We didn’t say anything for ten miles. As we approached St. George, my cell picked up reception again. There was a message. “Yeah, hi, Jordan, it’s me, Maureen. Guess what. Those pictures came right after you left. You can pick them up anytime.”

A PLURALITY OF WIVES
:
²⁰
A DISCOURSE

D
ELIVERED BY
B
RIGHAM
Y
OUNG IN THE
T
ABERNACLE,

Great Salt Lake City, August 29, 1852

Now, following the words of Elder Pratt, I will tell you, in plain language, why we believe in the sanctity of plural marriage and shall always do so. Going forth you will meet those who question your right to this belief, and who shall tell you you are acting outside the law. Yet I shall tell you it is they who do not understand the law, and most certainly it is they who do not understand the will of God.

We believe in plural marriage because God has commanded it. He has spoken, first to Joseph and now to me. I cannot change the word of God to suit my needs, nor can I change His word to suit the politics of today. His word is the word of Eternity, and shall always be. A man who disagrees with our practice of plural wifery is disagreeing with God. His disagreement is not with us, but with his Maker.

We look to the authority of Scripture, for there, in the Old Testament, are many examples of man with many wives. If we accept Scripture as God’s Truth, then we must accept it as unchanging and constant through Time. The Latter-day Saints are here to restore the Truth of God as He intended it for man. The entire Christian world, from Popedom to her many rebellious children, has run amok on the Truth of God. With Joseph as His Prophet, and myself after, God has set out to restore His Truths, and we are doing so.

Further, in taking many wives we are expanding the Kingdom. We are performing the works of Abraham. A man who marries many wives and a woman who joins a plural family—they are doing the work of God and will be exalted for doing so. They are closer to Glory than the man who refuses this doctrine, or the woman who refuses it. This is how it shall be.

Let it be known I am a son of Vermont’s Green Mountains. I was raised with a deep awareness of the rights afforded to all by our nation’s Constitution. The right to religious freedom is a right guaranteed to all. This includes the Saints of Deseret. If you encounter an antagonist who believes none of what I have just said to you, who believes neither in the Truth of God, or the Authority of the Scripture, or my position as His Prophet, then you should remind your enemy of our Constitution. There is no doubt it plainly protects our right to pursue our faith as we so believe. Brothers and Sisters, go forth and defend these rights, for they are ours to claim!