Three years ago, I came to know this marvelous woman. Her name is America Ann (Steele) Beirdneau. The reason I never knew about her for most of my life was because my sweet grandmother Pearl Harrison, did not like her mother in law. How does that affect my relationship with America Ann? Well, Pearl’s mother in law was America’s daughter Capitolia. So our family was stuck at Capitolia, we never even asked about those who came before her. We never brought her name up in my grandmother’s presence. In fact their disdain for each other was the thing of legends.
I have some semblance of an understanding of the discord between my grandmother Pearl and my great grandmother Capitolia, but I suspect there was another side which I never heard. And it doesn’t even matter. As a mother in law myself, I decided to give Capitolia a little grace, and to try to know her notwithstanding my grandmother’s prejudice. To give Pearl some credit, she was a sweet, kind and loving woman, not given to hating anyone or anything to my knowledge – ‘except her mother in law’. I’m sure she had what she considered good reasons, but I expect she regrets most of them now, and can recognize her part in them a little better from her present vantage point in the spirit world. In fact it’s entirely possible that it is her influence prompting me to get to know America. Who knows how things like this work in the spirit world?
America was born in Kentucky in 1829 just one year before the Church was organized. When she was a little girl her folks moved west to Iowa, where they heard the Restored Gospel preached and embraced it wholeheartedly. Abandoning previous plans, they moved to Nauvoo Illinois, becoming one of the hundreds of convert families who gathered there to live among the Saints.
There, with people like themselves, they enjoyed a brief time of peace. America was baptized January 1 1844, just 6 months before Joseph and his brother Hyrum were murdered. She was 15 years old.
Her father William H. Steele worked on the temple in Nauvoo, and was in attendance at the meeting where it was reported that Governor Ford “pledged the honor of the State of Illinois that the Prophet and his brother should be protected, and have a fair trial”. It was recorded that when William told his wife Margaret about it later, he remarked that he knew from Governor Ford’s looks and actions, that Brother Joseph would be killed before morning.
When the ‘Mormons’ (those who followed the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) were expelled from Illinois (and everywhere else), the Steele family joined the refugees in their trek to find a place to live and be safe, gathering with others in Council Bluffs Iowa. It was there that America met her future husband Nehemiah Wood Beirdneau (he was called ‘Wood’) in 1846.
She was nearly 17 and he was 22 when they married. I don’t know the events of the next few years. They had 5 children in the transitionary 11 years it took them to reach Utah. Their 5th child was Mary Capitolia, reportedly born in a covered wagon enroute to Zion on 12 August 1859, 17 days before they entered the Valley of the Great Salt Lake (on August 29, 1859). Mary Capitolia later became the mother of Leland Albert Harrison, my grandfather.
In April of 1861, nearly two years after arriving she received her endowment and was sealed to Wood and children in the Endowment House.
The family settled in Logan and built a home where Wood was a successful blacksmith, earning a comfortable living for them. Wood and America had a total of 8 children, 3 of them being born under the covenant in Logan. Like many men, Wood worked on the Salt Lake Temple. He had also worked on the Nauvoo Temple.
What I didn’t know until recently, was that somewhere along the line, not uncommon among the Saints, Wood took a second wife, Mary Bird Farrell a convert from Wales. Polygamy suddenly got real for me, and my heart breaks for the real people in such a difficult situation. Mary and America both received their endowments on the same day April 13 1861. They were both sealed to their husband Wood 10 days earlier, April 3 1861.
I do not know if they had separate homes or not; some polygamous families did, some did not, but clearly they knew each other well. Mary’s first child (a son Charles) was born 6 November 1862, a year and a half after they were sealed, so the implication is that they were married close to their sealing date. Mary had 6 children (all sons), and was 5 years younger than America. I hope they were friends.
22 years later, Wood was called to assist in the settlement of Arizona. He was 59 years old when he took up the immigrant trail again to carve out a new life in the desert with Mary. America was 54 years old, and Mary was 49. Wood and Mary settled in Gila Valley Arizona. America refused to go, staying back with her two youngest (teenage) children, close to her six married children. I can hardly breathe when I try to imagine what that must have been like – for all concerned, but especially for America. I would have liked to have known them, these people from whom I came. About this – I would have cried with them. ALL.
It is interesting to note that beginning in 1862, the U.S. government passed a series of laws designed to force Latter-day Saints to relinquish plural marriage. From the very beginning, there had been tremendous opposition to polygamy, which continued to escalate. “In 1882, the U.S. Congress passed the Edmunds Act, which made unlawful cohabitation (interpreted as a man living with more than one wife) punishable by six months of imprisonment and a $300 fine.” 1 Up till that time, the Church did all it could to protect their right to live their religion, including years of court action, but after 1882. living plural marriage became an issue that conflicted with ‘the law‘. As a Church, a foundational tenet of their faith was to obey the law “We believe in . . . . obeying, honoring and sustaining the law.” (Article of Faith 12). Up till now, though unpopular, plural marriage was not against the laws of the land. Now it was. And now what?
Members of the Church were used to living with opposition; plural marriage was just part of the package, but now there was the added heartache of the uncertainty about the future of their families. Nehemiah Wood Beirdneau had two wives, and by 1883, had 14 children between them. Decisions had to be made. Very hard decisions. Painful decisions – that no one should ever have to make.
Wood never saw America or his first 8 children again. And in turn, though they communicated by letter, they never saw their husband, father and grandfather again.
In 1887 Congress went one step further, passing the Edmunds-Tucker Act to punish the Church itself, not just its members, for continuing to live as plural families. In consequence of tremendous pressure and at risk of losing all property, including the existing temples, Three years later, and more than a decade of fighting in the courts for their right to ‘live their religion’, President Wilford Woodruff announced on September 25 1890, what came to be known as “The Manifesto”. In it, he said, “Inasmuch as laws have been enacted by Congress forbidding plural marriages, which laws have been pronounced constitutional by the court of last resort, I hereby declare my intention to submit to those laws, and to use my influence with the members of the Church over which I reside to have them do likewise.” The Manifesto was presented formally to the Church one week later at General Conference. While some no doubt were relieved, many Saints were devastated. It was an entire generation that had been raised in a world of plural marriage.
Zina Young – then General President of the Relief Society wrote this in her journal: “Today the hearts of all were tried but looked to God and submitted.”
Years later Wood’s daughter Chloe wrote “We tried to persuade him to return to Utah, but he always remarked, ‘I was called to Arizona and I will remain here until I am honorably released.’ He was honorably released by death September 7, l90l in Thatcher Arizona. He was 77.”
Her daughter Chloe said of America “My mother was a typical pioneer woman, taking the raw material and spinning and weaving yarn for stockings and cloth for dresses, petticoats, men’s clothing, blankets, etc. She was a member of the Logan choir for a good many years, and was a member of the Relief Society from the time of its first organization. She raised a family of eight children, but with it all, she had time always to assist the needy and those who were in distress.“
During the later years of her life she was a widow and spent her time with her children in Utah, Idaho, Oregon and Canada. She was active until the last few months of her life. She died in her 80th year in Logan, Utah.” (journal of Chloe Beirdneau) I find these words of her daughter Chloe interesting. She mentions her mother’s last years as a widow (which were 13 years), but before then she had lived 18 years separated from her husband by 800 miles, which may well have been 8000 miles for all their ability to travel them.
Thank you America Ann Steele Beirdneau, for accepting the gospel and for living it’s precepts all your days. Thank you for raising a good posterity, and for every tear you shed while doing so. Thank you for your mother’s heart. I’m sure it would have made you sad to learn of Capitolia’s poor relationship with her daughter in law, and subsequently with 16 of her grandchildren. I wonder what your counsel would have been to her through all those years?
I’ll give my gramma Pearl Harrison one more thing. She knocked herself out to have a loving relationship with her daughter in law – my mom. You’d have been proud of that. And she made a good wife and lifelong companion for your grandson Leland.
Warmly,
Cindy Suelzle
- The Manifesto and the End of Plural Marriage https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/the-manifesto-and-the-end-of-plural-marriage?lang=eng ↩︎