January 1913

EVENTS IN EMMELINE B. WELLS’S DIARY FOR 1913

12 May: EBW maintained correspondence with notable women she met in national organizations.
30 September: Upon the marriage of her granddaughter Emmeline Cannon, EBW mourned the loss of a companion and helper in her office work and with personal needs.
1 October: EBW unveiled the new Seagull Monument on Temple Square. The same day, she welcomed a Māori delegation from New Zealand who had come to attend general conference and receive ordinances in the Salt Lake Temple.
2 October: EBW presided at the Relief Society semiannual conference and admonished the sisters to exercise faith. At noon, board members served doughnuts and buttermilk to several hundred visitors.
23 October: EBW attended a Relief Society stake conference in Morgan, Utah, traveling there by train with board member Sarah McLelland. She spoke, gave a blessing, and was hosted graciously.
23 and 29 December: Feeling “very much unsettled in my work,” EBW asked for an interview with President Joseph F. Smith. When it occurred, she said it was “very satisfactory.”

SOURCE NOTE

Vol. 38, 1 Jan.‒27 Nov. 1910; 6 Jan.‒31 Dec. 1912; 1‒6 Jan. 1913

Emmeline B. Wells, Diary, vol. 38, 1 Jan.‒27 Nov. 1910; 6 Jan.‒31 Dec. 1912; 1‒6 Jan. 1913, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah (Vault MSS 510).

Pocket-size diary measuring 7¼ × 5½ × ⅝ inches. This Excelsior diary has a cover of dark brown textured leather. The pages are edged in gold and preprinted for 1910, with one entry per page. The diary includes preprinted postage rate information in the front and pages in the back for notes and memoranda.

This diary contains entries for dates in 1910, 1912, and 1913. In a number of cases, EBW modified the preprinted date or inscribed a new date. Occasionally, the intended date is incomplete or unclear; in these cases, the editors have analyzed handwriting and historical context to provide the most likely date. For the presentation on this website, sections from the original diary are arranged where they belong chronologically.

INTRODUCTION, 1913

As a leader of a major woman’s group, EBW maintained correspondence with women she had met in national organizations. On one day she received letters from May Wright Sewall, Kate Waller Barrett, Emma Bower, and Flo Jamison Miller. As part of her duties, she welcomed visitors, including a “party of educators” from Iowa, and she attended lectures sponsored by the Genealogical Society. Despite a busy schedule, EBW felt her world contract as her eyesight diminished: “I can never tell the sorrow I have experienced in losing the possibility of r[e]ading, it has deprived me of a great pool of knowledge of affairrs as well as of valuable info[r]mation to apply in my contact with people in my daily life.” She also observed younger women on the Relief Society general board taking charge of the agenda, noting that “the things I can do are not what they can do, and so I am left as it were alone in a great measure.” She lamented the limits her eyesight imposed on her literary composition: “I have many beautiful tho[u]ghts and after writing them cannot read or connect them together– Poems are thought out but cannot be made smooth and readable because of my not being able to read what I write.”

Reluctantly, EBW saw her granddaughter Emmeline Cannon leave her employ to marry Lyman R. Martineau in the Salt Lake Temple. He was a previously married farmer and stock raiser. EBW felt particularly close to this young woman who had helped her for several years in her office work and with personal needs. In her diary, EBW explained that now it was “so lonely here when she brought so much gaiety.” A few days later, EBW recalled her own marriage to Daniel H. Wells “in the small adobie house behind the stone wall,” and her outlook brightened as she remembered the promise given her by Brigham Young that she would be delivered up “in the morming of the resurrection with all her posterity.”

Ceremonial occasions brought out the best in this aging president. EBW was guest of honor at the 1 October unveiling of the Seagull Monument on Temple Square, “holding the long streners [streamers] that held the vail in place whiel [while] I spoke the few words that were very significant of the event sixty-five years ago.” Later that day she greeted a company of Māori Saints from New Zealand who had come to receive ordinances in the Salt Lake Temple. “The guests were deligh[t]ed wi[t]h my testimony of the Prophet Joseph,” she reported. The next day, EBW welcomed sisters to the fall general Relief Society conference, and, at noon, Relief Society board members served doughnuts and buttermilk to several hundred visitors. Later in October, with board member Sarah McLelland, EBW attended a Relief Society stake conference in Morgan, Utah. On the train, EBW asked a bishop they met to sit with them in case she became ill. Fortunately feeling well on arrival, she spoke in both morning and afternoon meetings, was treated to an automobile ride and a fine supper, slept in a comfortable room overnight, and gave a blessing the next morning as requested to a “very sweet young woman” before returning to Salt Lake City. Late in December, EBW felt she needed to consult with church president Joseph F. Smith on a Relief Society matter that “unsettled” her. A few days later, she reported in her diary a “very satisfactory” interview with the president.

¹Journal E. B. Wells

1 January 1913 • Wednesday

²1913 Wednesday January One

Dot [S. Isabel Sears Buchholz] came to help mee write my book of account, my cold is very bad I feel quite ill and yet I cannot give up We had an immen[s]e turkey Isabel [Whitney Sears] carved for the whole family, 12 people at table– It did seem a New Year’s dinner I spnt the even[i]ng c[a]me home late and had many sober thoughts of the old home when we were so happy together before any one was taken from the grroup at the fireside even after the marrage of 2 older omes [ones] [p. 338] {p. 241}

³Wednsday, Jan. 1. 9913 [1913]

New Year 1913 begins here. I slept at Anmie [Elizabeth Ann Wells Cannon]’s on the last night of the old year and whn the bells began ringing and whistles blowing we began wishing each other a happy New Year– Soon after we all retireed– the stockings were hung and filled for the younger children and all were at home except the maried ones who were in their own homes All was pleasant a beautiful fire in the open grate and bright faces & delightful converse all around [p. 366] {p. 258}

2 January 1913 • Thursday

Jan. 2, 1913 Thursday George Q. [Cannon] birthday 32 years it seems incedible– now he has marrried and has 3 children) we shall nome [none] of us see him today Indeed I have made a mistake it is the anniversa[r]y of the boy younger the first son of the father– he will be six today I am grieved to commit even an error such as this is I do hope he has a happy birthday I regret I have so little to give my heart is willing and I love to give good gifts [p. 339] {p. 242}

⁴Thurday Jan. 2. 1913.

Board meeting [p. 367] {p. 259}

3 January 1913 • Friday

Fr[i]day Jan. 3, 1913 the day has been full of work and the fact is work such as mine is never done– there are many interruptions, and people coming with all sorts of caus[e]s for advice when one does not know just what is best to say Wisdom is essential and how can onee keep in touch with the right advice, only by the Holy Spirrit– how essential it is to obtain from the fountain of all trruth the choicest gemss of excellence and to be ever in sympathy of the right & [r]ighteouss [p. 340] {p. 243}

4 January 1913 • Saturday

Jan. 4. S[a]turrday⁵– this is really Go. [George] Q. Cannon’s birthday bo[r]n in 1881– how real the scenee is in my mind Dr. Romania B. [Bunnell] Pratt Sister McAllister⁶ the nurse and my own sweet Louise [Louisa Wells Cannon] & myself how proud we all were and how beautiful We sent a letter and messages and we sincerely hone [hope] and pary [pray] [t]hat they may enjoy the day [p. 341] {p. 244}

5 January 1913 • Sunday

Sunday Jan. 5. 1913. A fine meeting in the Temple Presidnt [Joseph F.] Smith was inspired to poclaim certain truths and to denounce thosse who seek to dest[r]oy the faith of our young people– President Penorse [Charles W. Penrose] made eloqunt opening remarks– Apostles George F. Richards and Anthony H. [W.] Ivins sprok [spoke] with greaat p[o]wer and also Elder Andrw [Andrew] Jensen the assistant historian particularly, thn Emma Lucy Gates Gates said a few words and thn sung; it was quite touching and made us all feel her farewell as a bnediction. [p. 342] {p. 245}

6 January 1913 • Monday

Monday Jan. 6. 1913 After the Tenple meeting yestrday I wnt to see sick people at noon to Susan [Alley Wells]’s who has ben ill thn Kate [Catherine Wells] went with me to the Fast mee[t]ing where we had the Sacramnt [p. 343] {p. 246}

Cite This Page

January 1913, The Journal of Emmeline B. Wells, accessed November 21, 2024 https://chpress-web.churchhistorianspress.org/emmeline-b-wells/1910s/1913/1913-01

Footnotes

[1]text: This title is inscribed at the top of the first lined page of volume 40 of the diary.
[2]text: The entries for 1–6 January 1913 come from volume 38 of the diary. EBW wrote entries for the year 1913 in three diaries—volumes 37, 38, and 40. Entries have been pulled from those diaries and arranged here into chronological order. As EBW’s eyesight worsened, her handwriting became less legible. She also sometimes lost track of where she was in some words. Words with extra strokes are represented as closely to the manuscript as possible. Letters with missing strokes are represented as complete.
[3]text: This is a second entry for this date from volume 38 of the diary.
[4]text: This is a second entry for this date from volume 38 of the diary.
[5]text: EBW did not give a year for this entry, but it appears from handwriting and context that the intended year is 1913.
[6]text: EBW has written over a partially erased word here.