Helen Mar Kimball

Helen Mar Kimball (20 August 1828 in Mendon, New York - 13 November 1896 in Salt Lake City, Utah) was a wife of Joseph Smith, Jr., founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Early life

Helen was born on August 22, 1828 in Mendon, and was the third of nine children born to Heber C. Kimball and Vilate Murray. She was the only daughter to survive, and grew up being very close to her younger brother William. Being the only daughter, she was somewhat pampered by her parents Harv|Compton|1997|p=487-8. Helen was three years old when her parents were baptized into the Mormon Church in 1832. Helen’s family moved from Mendon to the church headquarters at Kirtland, Ohio in the fall of 1833. When her father Heber was called to be an apostle in 1835, it required him to travel on missions and be away from home for significant lengths of time Harv|Compton|1997|p=488-90.

Helen was baptized by Brigham Young in the Chagrin River during the winter when the river was frozen over. In order for her to be baptized, her father had to cut a hole in the ice. Helen later wrote that she was not bothered by the cold water because she had “longed for this privilege” and that she “felt no cold or inconvenience from it" Harv|Compton|1997|p=490.

In 1838 the Kimball family moved from Kirtland to Far West, Missouri to join the rest of the church. Their arrival in Far West occurred soon after the Battle of Crooked River, and tensions between the Mormons and Missourians were beginning to reach a peak. In early 1839, the family was forced to leave Missouri as a result of the Extermination order issued by Governor Lilburn Boggs. Leaving during the middle of winter, Helen remembered how they had to walk in order to keep from freezing Harv|Compton|1997|p=491. The family eventually arrived in the town of Commerce, Illinois, which would later become the city of Nauvoo. Helen's father Heber eventually built a house in Nauvoo near the temple lot. Heber's rising importance within the church leadership made him a very close associate of Joseph Smith Jr..

Marriage to Joseph Smith Jr.

According to Helen, her father Heber wished to create an eternal link between his family and the family of Joseph Smith Jr. Harv|Anderson|Faulring|1998. [Helen explains that her father took the initiative to arrange the marriage: "Having a great desire to be connected with the Prophet Joseph, he offered me to him; this I afterwards learned from the Prophet's own mouth.”]

Author Todd Compton describes the reason for the marriage:

“The prophet’s marriage to her seems to have been largely dynastic- a union arranged by Joseph and Heber to seal the Kimball family to a seer, church president, and presiding patriarchal figure of the dispensation of the fullness of times" Harv|Compton|1997|p=486.

In the early summer of 1843, shortly before her fifteenth birthday, Helen’s father Heber described the doctrine of plural marriage to her. He then asked if she would consent to be “sealed to Joseph” Harv|Compton|1997|p=498. Helen describes her reaction to this proposition,

“My father was the first to introduce it to me, which had a similar effect to a sudden shock of a small earthquake. When he found (after the first outburst of displeasure for supposed injury) that I received it meekly, he took the first opportunity to introduce Sarah Ann [Whitney] to me as Joseph's wife" Harv|Whitney|1880-1883. [During the time that she lived in Nauvoo, Helen and Sarah Ann Whitney, who was also one of Smith’s plural wives, became very close friends. According to Helen, she and Sarah were like “the two halves of one soul.” Sarah’s brother Horace Whitney married Helen Mar Kimball “for time” after the death of Joseph Smith Jr. in 1844. See Harvnb|Compton|1997|p=342]

Helen took 24 hours to respond to this request, and consented after Smith explained to her that it would ensure her eternal salvation along with that of her family. Helen was ‘’sealed’’ to Joseph Smith in May 1843. The marriage was kept secret, and Helen continued to live with her parents Harv|Anderson|Faulring|1998.

Initially, Helen despised the concept of polygamy, stating that, "seeing the trials of my mother, felt to rebel. I hated polygamy with my heart." Later in her life, however, she became a vigorous defender of the practice and wrote a number of publications praising it (Harvnb|Brodie|1971|p=479-480;Harvnb|Whitney|1884). With regard to her feelings about Joseph Smith's implementation of the practice, Helen states,

“It was a strange doctrine, and very dangerous too, to be introduced at such a time, when in the midst of the greatest trouble Joseph had ever encountered. The Missourians and Illinoisans were ready and determined to destroy him. They could but take his life, and that he considered a small thing when compared with the eternal punishment which he was doomed to suffer if he did not teach and obey this principle. No earthly inducement could be held forth to the women who entered this order. It was to be a life sacrifice for the sake of an everlasting glory and exaltation" Harv|Whitney|1880-1883.

Marriage to Horace Whitney

With the death of Smith in 1844, Helen was once again able to associate with her normal peer group, and by age sixteen had formed a relationship with twenty-two year old Horace Whitney. After a period of courtship, the two decided to be “married for time” on February 3, 1846 Harv|Compton|1997|pp=503-504. Shortly before the exodus from Nauvoo, in the Nauvoo Temple, Helen was married to Horace Whitney for time, and sealed to Joseph Smith Jr. (deceased) for eternity, with her husband Horace standing in as proxy for Smith. The following day Horace was sealed to Elizabeth Sykes (deceased) for eternity, with Helen standing in as proxy for Sykes (Harvnb|Brodie|1971|p=479-480;Harvnb|Compton|1997|p=486).

Helen bore eleven children with Horace Whitney Harv|Brodie|1971|p=479-480.

Pioneer

Helen and Horace Whitney began the journey across the plains during the exodus from Nauvoo. They reached Winter Quarters in June 1846. Nineteen year old Helen bore her first child in May 1847 while her husband was away on an expedition to Salt Lake Valley. The child was stillborn Harv|Compton|1997|p=507. In August 1848, while on the plains during the journey west, Helen had, and lost, another child. This birth resulted in complications to the mother’s health, which almost resulted in her death. Following a long battle to regain her health, Helen bore her third child, who was born and died in September 1849 Harv|Compton|1997|p=510-511.

Controversy regarding Helen's marriage to Smith

The marriage of Helen Mar Kimball and Joseph Smith Jr. has long been a subject of controversy, most often with regard to her age at the time of the marriage. Author Jon Krakauer in his book "Under the Banner of Heaven", claims that of the women married to Joseph Smith Jr.: "Several were still pubescent girls, such as fourteen-year-old Helen Mar Kimball" Harv|Krakauer|2003|p=120. Krakauer states his opinion more bluntly during an interview in 2003, in which he states "They will not like the fact that I point out that Joseph Smith told 14-year-old girls ‘God says you should marry me, if you don’t...’ His way of getting laid doesn’t reflect well on him.” [Citation|last=Nashawaty| first=Chris| title=Jon Krakauer Gets Religion| journal=Entertainment Weekly|year=2003| date=18 July 2003|page=47]

Responding to Krakauer’s characterization of Helen’s marriage to Smith, Mormon author Craig Foster states,

Falling into the same trap as many people and even some historians, he places his own modern values onto another place and time and, when their marriage patterns do not conform to his worldview, he looks upon it and writes about it with an open-mouthed, suitably shocked, and offended approach" Harv|Foster|2004|p=169.

Foster then cited examples of women marrying at a young age in colonial America, arguing that it was a common practice. Harv|Foster|2004|p=170-172. [Foster cites: Michael Gordon, ed., "The American Family in Social-Historical Perspective", 3rd ed. (New York: St. Martin’s, 1983), 16, and Fischer, "Albion’s Seed", 674–75.]

Notes

References

#Citation
last=Anderson
first=Richard Lloyd
author-link=Richard Lloyd Anderson
last2=Faulring
first2=Scott H
title=The Prophet Joseph Smith and His Plural Wives
journal=FARMS Review of Books
volume=10
issue=2
publisher=Maxwell Institute
place=Provo, Utah
year=1998
pages=67-104
url=http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/display.php?table=review&id=290
accessdate=2007-05-04 .
#Citation
last=Brodie
first=Fawn M
authorlink=Fawn Brodie
title=No Man Knows My History
publisher=Alfred A. Knopf
place=New York
year=1971
isbn=0679730540 .
#Citation
last=Compton
first=Todd
author-link=Todd Compton
title=
publisher=Signature Books
place=Salt Lake City
year=1997
date=Dec. 1997
isbn=156085085X .
#Citation
last=Foster
first=Craig L
title=Doing Violence to Journalistic Integrity
journal=FARMS Review
volume=16
issue=1
publisher=Maxwell Institute
place=Provo, Utah
year=2004
url=http://farms.byu.edu/pdf.php?filename=MzQ3MTkzMjExLTE2LTEucGRm&type=cmV2aWV3
accessdate=2007-05-08 .
#Citation
last=Holzapfel
first=Jeni Broberg, and Richard Neitzel Holzapfel, eds.
title=A Woman's View: Helen Mar Whitney's Reminiscences of Early Church History
year=1997
place=Provo, UT
publisher=Religious Studies Center, BYU.
#Citation
last=Krakauer
first=Jon
author-link=Jon Krakauer
title=
year=2003
publisher=Doubleday
isbn=0385509510 .
#Citation
last=Whitney
first=Helen Mar Kimball
title=Helen Mar Kimball Whitney, 1828-1896, Autobiography (c. 1839-1846), "Life Incidents," Woman's Exponent 9-10 (1880-1882) and "Scenes and Incidents in Nauvoo," Woman's Exponent 11 (1882-83)
year=1880-1883
url=http://www.boap.org/LDS/Early-Saints/HWhitney.html .
#Citation
last=Whitney
first=Helen Mar Kimball
title=Why We Practice Plural Marriage
place=Salt Lake City
publisher=Juvenile Instructor Office
year=1884 .
#Citation
last=Whitney
first=Helen Mar Kimball
title=A Widow's Tale: the 1884-1896 Diaries of Helen Mar Whitney
place=Logan, UT
editor1-last=Compton
editor1-first=Todd M.
editor1-link=Todd Compton
editor2-last=Hatch, eds.
editor2-first=Charles
publisher=Utah State University Press
year=2003 .

External links

* [http://www.wivesofjosephsmith.org/26-HelenMarKimball.htm Remembering the Wives of Joseph Smith] , section on Helen Mar Kimball.
* [http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/6552/helenkimball.htm The Wives of Joseph Smith] , section on Helen Mar Kimball with photo and list of her eleven children by Horace Whitney.

* [http://www.signaturebookslibrary.org/journals/helen.htm Helen Mar Kimball Whitney,Woman's Exponent 11 (1881-82)]