Zina D. H. Young

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Zina D. H. Young bigraphy, stories - American activist

Zina D. H. Young : biography

January 31, 1821 – August 28, 1901

Zina Diantha Huntington Jacobs Smith Young (31 January 1821 – 28 August 1901) was an American social activist and religious leader who served as the third general president of the Relief Society of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) from 1888 until her death. She was a polygamous wife of Joseph Smith, and later Brigham Young, each of whom she married while she was still married to her first husband, Henry Jacobs.

Childhood

Zina Huntington was born in Watertown, New York the eighth child of William and Zina Baker Huntington. She was taught household skills, such as spinning, soap making, and weaving, and received a basic education. She developed musical talent by learning to play the cello. In 1835, when Zina Huntington was fourteen, her family was contacted by Hyrum Smith and David Whitmer, missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. With the exception of her oldest brother, the entire family joined the newly formed church. Zina was baptized by Hyrum Smith on August 1, 1835.

After receiving advice from Joseph Smith, Sr., Zina’s father sold their property and relocated to the Church’s headquarters in the community of Kirtland, Ohio. Zina was a member of the Kirtland Temple Choir. Nineteen months later, they moved again to Far West, Missouri. They arrived in Far West at a time of violence between Missouri residents and the newly arrived Mormons. After Missouri Governor Lilburn Boggs issued the Extermination Order, Zina’s father helped coordinate the evacuation of church members to Illinois. During an 1839 cholera epidemic in Nauvoo, Illinois, Zina and her mother became ill. Her mother died but she recovered after receiving care in the home of Joseph and Emma Smith. Zina was eighteen years old.

Marriages and children

Zina recorded in her autobiography that when she was twenty and being courted by Henry Bailey Jacobs, she received a secret proposal from the prophet, Joseph Smith, Jr.Todd Compton, In Sacred Loneliness, 1997, pp.77 – 79Bradley and Woodward,"Plurality, Patriarchy, and the Priestess", Journal of Mormon History 20, Spring 1994, p. 93 As Smith was already married to his wife Emma, Zina claimed Smith explained to her that the Lord was restoring the ancient order of plural marriage (Van Wagoner 1992, p. 44). Zina declined the proposal and on March 7, 1841 she married Jacobs. Nauvoo mayor John C. Bennett conducted the ceremony.

Zina wrote that within months of her marriage to Jacobs, Smith sent word to her that he had "put it off till an angel with a drawn sword stood by me and told me if I did not establish that principle upon the earth I would lose my position and my life." Compton 1997, p. 80 – 81Zina Young, "Joseph the Prophet His Life and His Mission as Viewed By Intimate Acquaintances", Salt Lake Herald Church and Farm Supplement, Jan. 12, 1895 She and Smith were married on October 27, 1841, a date Zina celebrated as her anniversary of her marriage to Smith.Compton 1997, pp. 81-82; ; . At the time of her marriage to Smith, she was about seven months pregnant with a child (Zebulon William Jacobs),. which has been confirmed to be that of Jacobs by DNA evidence.. Jacobs was eventually aware of the wedding, because after Smith’s death in 1844 Jacobs stood by while Zina was sealed to Smith in the Nauvoo Temple. After the 1841 wedding, Zina and Henry Jacobs continued to live together, except when he was away serving a mission. Zina and Henry Jacobs had another son, Henry Chariton Jacobs, on March 22, 1846, almost two years after Smith’s death.

Soon after Joseph Smith was killed in 1844, Zina was married to Brigham Young. In May 1846, Brigham Young called Henry Jacobs to serve a mission to England. During Jacobs’ absence, Zina began living openly in a marital relationship with Brigham Young, and continued to do so for the rest of her life, without ever obtaining a divorce from Henry Jacobs.Todd Compton, In Sacred Loneliness, 1997, pp. 84, 88, 90-91Richard S. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy: A History, pp. 44-45 She had one child with Brigham Young, Zina Prescinda Young, in 1850.Zina and Her Men:An Examination of the Changing Marital State of Zina Diantha Huntington Jacobs Smith Young