Persecution and Prosecution
In my first chapter I must relate the incidents which occurred before our going to Colorado that you may understand why we were almost compelled to make that trip.
The Lord had revealed to Joseph Smith our L. D. S Prophet the principle of plural marriage and had commanded him to marry other wives. That principle had been practiced in the Church for years. My mother was married in the temple at Nauvoo in January, 1846, a plural wife. Her first baby was born in Winter Quarters 15 Jan. 1847. I myself was a product of that order of marriage. I believed that God had revealed it, and that some of the finest men and women on earth had been born and reared in polygamous families.
I knew that people must have self control. They must master selfishness, and greed, and try to love all members of their husband’s families, or there could be no happiness in plural marriages. We were taught that there was no way of getting into the Celestia1 Kingdom only by plural marriage.
I, as I grew to maturity, thought of life as a great school with all its departments, its grades, it’s colleges, to prepare us for the great beyond, that we might there, go on advancing and progressing. And if plural marriage was the cap-stone, I was afraid I wasn’t equal to the occasion. I had a lot of proposals before I accepted. I went into it hesitatingly, reluctantly. I could not think of hurting a man’s wife by marrying her husband, but Aunt Julia told me she would feel much worse if I did not marry her husband than she would if I did. She said that she and Bent had planned for a long time that if they could get my consent, they sure wanted me to be a member of their family.
On Feb. 25, 1880 I married Bent Rolfsen Larsen in the St. George Temple. I lived in that 3 roomed home with Aunt Julia for 7 years. And in all that time we never quarreled – not once, but I cannot say that we didn’t sometimes feel like it; but we had gone into that order of marriage because we fully believed God had commanded it, and while we had human nature to contend with, we worked and prayed for strength to overcome selfishness and greed and live on a higher plain, learn to love each other, or there would never be happiness in our hearts and homes.
The home was built with a large living room, a good sized bed room, a kitchen and one big basement room and an attic. The large living room [Page 62] was Aunt Julia’s, the bed room was mine. We did the kitchen work in turns every other week. When she did the kitchen work I did the milking and made the butter and kept the milk shelves and basement in order. Each of us looked after our own room. We did the washing together, each one did her own ironing.
Each autumn we made from 50 to 100 pounds of potato starch which was used for cake, puddings, and for the laundry. Also during the summer months we made soap to last the year round from the waste fats.
Bent’s Mission to Norway
During the summer of 1881 our husband was called on a mission to Norway. It was very hard to have him go, as I had nearly died in September the year before with a premature birth. And I was pregnant again, and was afraid I would never see my husband again.
Bent had always said it would be impossible to surprise him, so Julia and I decided we would give him that kind of home party before he left for the mission field. We got permission from the Louis Andersons, our neighbors who lived across the street to do the cooking at their home, and keep everything for the party luncheon there until serving time. Bent was very busy all day getting ready to leave. It was Sept. 24, 1881, his birth anniversary. And when the guests arrived in a group, he was a very badly surprised man. Everybody had a very enjoyable time.
He left Salt Lake City for that mission at the close of October conference.
On May 10, 1882, my son Bent Franklin was born. I was sick for 3 days and nearly died again. Thank heaven, it was the power of God which saved my life.
While my husband was on this mission we held the Y. L. M. I. A. meetings at our home every Wednesday evening, I was President and Julia was one of my councilors. Every girl in town except one or two were regular members and we all loved each other, and had a splendid time.
Aunt Julia and I were sure glad there were two of us.
The weeks, months, and years passed by. After 2 years our husband returned. He left home in perfect health, but because he and his companion were compelled to sleep in a barn one night after traveling for hours in a [Page 63] snow storm, he came home almost like a skeleton. Julia and I often knelt in humble prayer asking God to restore our husband to health. He returned in the summer of 1883.
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The Edmonds Tucker Law was signed by the President of the United States on 21st of March, 1882, and thereafter the storm clouds of persecution began to rise, at first slowly, then terrifically, and from 1883 to 1890, the storm raged.
Our church had law suits trying to test the legality of that law. George Reynolds offered his as a test case, and was sent to the pen. for 5 years. There were lots of polygamous prosecutions during that period. President John Taylor went into hiding in Jan. 1885. His last public address was Feb. 1, 1885. All of our apostles and leading men were in hiding. Pres. John Taylor had one wife who died and he couldn’t go to see her, neither in sickness nor death because her home was constantly watched by deputy marshals who were trying to arrest him. He died in exile on the 25th of January, 1887.
Those fine men who had married more than one wife were hounded day and night, by despicable scoundrels, who would stoop to any low down thing which came their way, but who had gotten themselves the job of U. S. Deputy Marshals, to sneak around and help find those in polygamy, many of whom were living on higher standards than ordinary people had yet attempted. And so the pen was well filled with some of the finest people in the land.
During the summer of 1888 my husband, Bent Rolfsen Larsen, spent 5 months in the Utah penitentiary for having two wives. He was sentenced for 6 months, but five days were taken off from each month for good behavior. While there he made 4 beautiful tidies, a large and a smaller one for each of his wives. They were made on a frame, and wound onto the frame forming squares, and then tied in squares. White crochet cotton was the background and beautifully colored wool zepher yarns for the bordering and lettering. One of the large ones had the motto in the center “Sweet Home” the other one had “Happy Home”. He had a ship builder who was in the pen at the same time make a small toy sail boat for Bent Franklin, our oldest son. He also hired another man to make a horse hair riding whip with 1888 woven into the handle of the whip, and for Ida, Lottie, Maria, Minnie and Clara he hired a man to make beautiful wood rattle boxes, and other things.
The penitentiary was filled with Mormon men who were there for the same cause. [Page 64]
Oppression and Persecution Deeply Affected Fathers, Mothers and Children
Little Soldier
I am a little soldier brave
For truth I’m going to fight
We boys will scare bad marshals
And put them in a fright
They’re afraid we’ll be like Samson
So mighty and so strong
They think they will stop our progress
But in that they are surely wrong.
If strength like that of Samson
Were given unto me,
I would push the Utah prisons down
And set the good men free.
I would scare off wicked marshals
By one glance of my eye.
Evil judges and their juries
From the Utah courts would fly.
Written at Monroe, 1886.
One of B. F.’s first readings in public.
Utah Penitentiary, July 29, 1888.
Comrad, Friend and Brother,
I trust we will all fare well
In taking meals and lodgings
At the Grand U. S. Hotel.
When once departed from this place
I trust we shall ne’r return,
For boarding here with Uncle Sam
Man’s heart doth seldom yearn.
Bent Larsen, Monroe, Sevier Co. , Utah.
This verse was written by Bent Larsen in the autograph album of Mads Christensen, father of Dr. P. A. Christensen. The album is now in P. A. C.’s possession. [Page 65]
Wilford Woodruff was sustained President of the L. D. S, Church April, 1889.
Persecution continued until our church property and temples were about to be sized and taken over by those scoundrels. Pres. Woodruff worked heroically to ward off this awful calamity. He called upon the members of our whole church to fast from Saturday night sundown until Sunday night sundown, and to pray earnestly that God would bring peace to our people. Parents were requested to have perfect peace in their homes during that fast-day. They must not scold or slap a child. There must be perfect peace and harmony, and in each ward public prayer meetings were held.
Soon after this fast day the dark clouds began to lift. It was so arranged that the church property was legally held by the Ecclesiastical Ward in which it was located. Many other problems were solved.
The Manifesto was issued Oct. 1890.
Arrested for Polygamy
One bright moonlight night (in the fall of 1887) just before moving to my new home, about 2:00 A. M., we discovered that our house was surrounded by deputy U. S. marshals who were peeking in the windows, although Andy Sargent, our local deputy marshal had previously sent word to my husband to just keep out of his way and he would not bother him, and we felt perfectly safe. But there he was with three other marshals, McGary, Mowers, and Hutchings, prowling around our home at that hour of the night. Finally they knocked on the front door; we were all dressed and my husband said, “Is it you, Andy?” He said it was so we opened the door and they all came in. [Page 66]
They were so snoopy they went and looked in every bed and examine the pillows to try to find out who had slept in the beds. Aunt Julia was going out of a back door, but was stopped by McGary. Later she slipped out and brought Bro. Jenson, a neighbor. I gave Mr. Sargent a Scotch blessing, he supposed he could bring that dishonorable group to our home, and after arresting Chris Anderson, and Hans Brown for the same offense and bringing them there, that we would cook and serve them a nice breakfast before dragging our men to Beaver for a hearing. They had a subpoena for me. I was ill, and after I gave Andy a piece of my mind, they brought the Justice of the Peace there. And I was bound over to appear later before the Grand Jury at Provo.
Bro. Jenson told the group what he thought of them, and McGary handcuffed him. Among other things I told Mr. Sargent he would sure reap his reward for his filthy work. Before 2 years had passed Sargent was busy trying to capture or kill a man who had been too familiar with his wife. And Sargent said, “I did not think that my reward would come so soon.”
(In the summer of 1892) Marshal Redfield came to subpoena my husband and me to appear at Provo. He and Ole Larsen, my husband’s brother, had been good friends before he got into his present position. And when he came down to Monroe he came and stopped at Ole’s home. Ole asked him what he was in Monroe for, and he said to serve some papers on a few people. Ole said “Now if any of those papers are for any of my family you are no longer my friend, and cannot stay at my home.”
It was mid afternoon on a bright sunshiny day. I think it was August; I was cutting out clothes on the kitchen table when a man knocked at the door which stood open. I said, “How do you do?” He stepped inside, closed the door and stood against it, and was trembling from head to foot. I thought he was insane and I was trying to plan how I could make my escape. The door to the next room was only 2 feet from him, and I figured if I tried to go through that door he would grab me, so I stood perfectly still and looked at him. He fairly shook, then he began to speak, he said, “I beg your pardon, Madam, I beg your pardon. I did not know when I came to this town that I had to serve papers on you.” Then I knew he was a deputy marshal. I found later that he was Redfield one of the worst ones on the list.
I was relieved to find out who he was, and so amused at his trembling that I stood and smiled while he made his exit. [Page 67]
At the hearing in Provo my husband was sentenced to 6 months in the Utah Penitentiary for having two wives. The pen was filled with our Mormon men. George Reynolds was there writing books. His was a test case and went before the Supreme Court to see if the Edmonds Tucker law was constitutional.
The Mormon men were very busy in there making souveniers to take home to their families. My husband had the blacksmith in there twist a wire handle with two short prongs at one end for his eating fork, and his knife was a broken table knife with about 1 inch blade. He carried them in his pocket while there, except at meal time. He brought them home and gave the knife to Aunt Julia and the fork to me.
While he was in the pen we surely missed him. Baby Lottie would stand in the door and call “Daddy, Daddy.”
My brother in law Alfonzo Wingate, was very kind to my children, and he often passed by our home going to his farm. Ida would stand on the door step and say to him, “Lal, I do like you.”
The year slipped by, and the children grew and matured beautifully. They were such a source of comfort and blessing to me. I had so much pleasure in making beautiful clothes for them, and when I took them to Sunday School or church, or saw them in groups with others, I always knew that God had sent me some of his choicest treasures.
I made Bent F. a beautifu1 black velvet suit something like this with detachable white collar and cuffs.
[Page 68]
Late in the year 1888 I was pregnant and knew that I must go in hiding or my husband go to the pen again. I couldn’t tell just how things could be arranged, and I loved my little home so much. I and the children had been so happy there, and we had lived there only a little more than a year and a half. My husband had been in the Utah pen 5 months of that time.
I had had a premature baby during that time, a little boy, perfectly formed.
When we first moved to that dear little home one day I noticed Ida on the door yard mixing the soft dirt with a spoon. I saw eggshells near by and when I came closer I asked what are you doing? Little Ida looked up with a smile and said. “I am making Prudence pudding for Pa.” She was stirring eggs in the dirt. She knew that we took pains to have something extra nice when Pa came. [Page 69]
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