Born in Becket, Massachusetts on January 21, 1804, Eliza Roxy Snow was the second of seven children born to Oliver and L. Pettibone Snow. Her younger brother, Lorenzo Snow, born ten years later, would go on to serve as President of the Church.
The Snow family descended from the Puritans in New England, but embraced the Baptist religion. Still, they frequently invited members of other religions into their home, including Sidney Rigdon. After five years of pondering and prayerful consideration, Eliza was baptized on April 5, 1835 at the age of 31. She soon moved to live with the Saints in Kirtland, Ohio, where she became one of the first women schoolteachers in the Church.
As the sisters came together to plan a women’s organization, Sarah Kimball asked Eliza to draft a constitution for the group. When the Relief Society was organized on March 17, 1842, she was called as Secretary under Emma Smith.
Eliza was renowned for her writing skills. She penned many poems and hymns – including “How Great the Wisdom and the Love” and “In Our Lovely Deseret” – for the church. She also wrote a petition to Illinois Governor Thomas Carlin pleading for his assistance in returning the Prophet Joseph from prison in Missouri. This petition was signed by a thousand women of Nauvoo, and was hand delivered by Eliza and Emma Smith.
Eliza was sealed to Joseph Smith for time and all eternity on June 29, 1842, two years before he was martyred. She was later sealed to Brigham Young prior to the exodus from Nauvoo.
One of the first women to leave on the trek west, Eliza carried with her the minutes from the first two years of Relief Society. But she was greatly weakened by the exposure and hardship of the travel. When President Young asked her to preside over the sisters’ work in the Endowment House in 1855, Eliza expressed doubt that she would physically be capable of serving. President Young blessed her and promised that her health would return if she accepted the call. She did, and her strength returned to her. Eliza also served as the first President of Desert Hospital in July of 1882.
Relief Society at this time had lost its cohesiveness. Meetings were sporadic and varied throughout the wards. President Young called Eliza as President in 1866. She spent much of her twenty-one years as President traveling to various wards and stakes and helping them to organize their Relief Society meetings. She brought along the minutes from the original gatherings of sisters and shared information on the purpose of the women’s organization.
When Eliza passed away in 1887, she requested that no black be worn for her funeral. Accordingly, the Assembly Hall on Temple Square was decked in beautiful white flowers and white draperies.
Said By Her:
“Tell the sisters to go forth and discharge their duties in humility and faithfulness and the Spirit of God will rest upon them, and they will be blest in their labors. Let them seek for wisdom instead of power and they will have all the power they have wisdom to exercise!!!”
“Our enemies pretend that, in Utah, woman is held in a state of vassalage—that she does not act from choice, but by coercion. What nonsense!
“I will now ask of this assemblage of intelligent ladies, Do you know of any place on the face of the earth, where woman has more liberty and where she enjoys such high and glorious privileges as she does here as a Latter-day Saint? No! the very idea of a woman here in a state of slavery is a burlesque on good common sense … as women of God, filling high and responsible positions, performing sacred duties—women who stand not as dictators, but as counselors to their husbands, and who, in the purest, noblest sense of refined womanhood, are truly their helpmates—we not only speak because we have the right, but justice and humanity demands we should!”
“Every sister in this church should be a preacher of righteousness … because we have greater and higher privileges than any other females upon the face of the earth.”
Related Articles:
Relief Society Presidents: Emma Hale Smith
Relief Society Presidents: An Introduction