Eliza Roxcy Snow

In the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, she was a well-known and significant figure. Several Hymns authored by her are still widely sung today in LDS Sacrament Meetings: a notable example of which is the Hymn O My Father, which makes reference to teachings concerning a Pre-Mortal Existence and a Heavenly Mother.

• Name — Eliza Roxey Snow • Birth Name — Eliza Roxey Snow • Born — 21 January 1804 • Birthplace — Becket, Massachusetts, United States • Died — 5 December 1887 • Place of death — Salt Lake City, Utah, United States • Resting Place — Mormon Pioneer Memorial Monument • Spouse — Joseph Smith Jr (1842–44; sealed) Brigham Young (1844–77; deceased) • Portals — LDS • Position Or Quorum1 — 2nd Relief Society General President • Start Date1 — 1866 12 • End Date1 — 1887 12 05 • Predecessor1 — Emma Smith • Successor1 — Zina D. H. Young • Position Or Quorum2 — 1st Secretary of the Relief Society • Start Date2 — 1842 • End Date2 — 1844

Eliza Roxey Snow was born in Becket, Massachusetts, the second of seven children (four daughters and three sons) to Oliver Snow III (1775–1845) and Rosetta Leonara Pettibone Snow (1778–1846). Her parents were of English descent and their ancestors were among the earliest settlers of New England. Although her middle name is a namesake from her paternal aunt Roxey Snow (1776–1817), her middle name is also frequently spelled as Roxcy. When she was two years old, her family left New England to settle on a new and fertile farm in the Western Reserve valley, in Mantua Township, Portage County, Ohio. The Snow family valued learning and saw that each child had educational opportunities. Although a farmer by occupation, Oliver Snow performed much public business, officiating in several responsible positions. His daughter, Eliza, being ten years the senior of her eldest brother, was employed as secretary, as soon as she was competent, in her father's office as justice of the peace. She was skilled in various kinds of needlework and home manufactures. Two years in succession she drew the prize awarded by the committee on manufactures, at the county fair, for the best manufactured leghorn bonnet.

Snow's Baptist parents welcomed a variety of religious believers into their home. In 1828, Snow and her parents joined Alexander Campbell's Christian restorationist movement, the Disciples of Christ. In 1831, when Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, took up residence in Hiram, Ohio, four miles from the family's farm, the Snow family took a strong interest in the new religious movement. Snow's mother and sister joined the Church of the Latter Day Saints early on. Several years later, in 1835, Snow was baptized and moved to Kirtland, Ohio, the church's headquarters. After arriving, Snow donated her inheritance, a large sum of money, toward building the church's Kirtland Temple. In appreciation, the building committee provided her with the title to "a very valuable [lot]-situated near the Temple, with a fruit tree-an excellent spring of water, and house that accommodated two families." Here, Snow taught school for Smith's family and was influential in interesting her younger brother, Lorenzo, in Mormonism. He later became an apostle and the LDS Church's fifth president. Snow moved west with her family and the body of the church, first to Adam-ondi-Ahman, a short-lived settlement in Missouri, and then to Nauvoo, Illinois. In the 1930s, Alice Merrill Horne wrote in her autobiography that when she was a girl she overheard a conversation that in Missouri during the 1838 Mormon War, Eliza Snow was brutally gang-raped by eight Missourians, which left her unable to have children. Later, according to Horne, Joseph Smith offered her marriage as a plural wife "as a way of promising her that she would still have eternal offspring and that she would be a mother in Zion." In Nauvoo, Snow again made her living as a schoolteacher. After Smith's death, Snow swore in an affidavit recorded by a notary public that she had secretly wed him on June 29, 1842, as a plural wife. However, Snow had organized a petition in that same summer of 1842, with a thousand female signatures, denying that Smith was connected with polygamy and extolling his virtue. As secretary of the Ladies' Relief Society, she organized the publishing of a certificate in October 1842 denouncing polygamy and denying Smith as its creator or participant. Decades later Snow publicly described Smith as, "my beloved husband, the choice of my heart and the crown of my life." Years later, when Snow was informed that Smith's first wife, Emma, had stated on her deathbed that her husband had never been a polygamist, Snow was reported to have stated she doubted the story but "If... [this] was really [Sister Emma's] testimony she died with a libel on her lips -- a libel against her husband -- against his wives -- against the truth, and against God...". After Smith's death, Snow married Brigham Young as a plural wife. She traveled west across the plains and arrived in the Salt Lake Valley on October 2, 1847. There, childless Eliza became a prominent member of Young's family, moving into an upper bedroom of Young's Salt Lake City residence, the Lion House.

Snow wrote poetry from a young age, one time even writing school lessons in rhyme. Between 1826 and 1832, she published more than 20 poems in local newspapers, including the Western Courier of Ravenna, Ohio, and the Ohio Star under pen names such as Narcissa and Tullia. Her first published poem was a requiem she was requested to write for John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, in light of their simultaneous deaths July 4, 1826. A number of Snow's poems were set to music and have become important Latter-day Saint hymns, some of which appear in the current edition of the Church's hymnal. One of her hymns, "Great is the Lord", was published in the first Latter Day Saint hymnal in 1835, the year of her baptism. In Nauvoo, Snow gained minor distinction as a Mormon poet featured in local newspapers. She continued to write poems as she journeyed to the Salt Lake Valley, documenting the pioneer trail and life in Utah, and in 1850 she penned a humorous riposte regarding visiting United States officials who had not impressed the Saints. where she would rise to prominence, being called "Zion's Poetess." The first of her two volumes of Poems, Religious, Historical, and Political appeared in 1856, followed by the second in 1877. Some of her poems are: • "How Great the Wisdom and the Love" • "Invocation, or the Eternal Father and Mother" [retitled "O My Father"] • "Be Not Discouraged" • "My First View of a Western Prairie" • "Mental Gas" • "Think not When You Gather to Zion Your Troubles and Trials are Through" • "O Awake! My Slumbering Minstrel" One of her best-known poems, "Invocation, or the Eternal Father and Mother," was written soon after the death of her father and just over a year after the death of Joseph Smith. The poem, renamed "O My Father" after the first line, is included in the LDS Church's current hymnal, as are Snow's hymns "Great is the Lord"; "Again We Meet Around the Board"; "Awake, Ye Saints of God, Awake!"; "How Great the Wisdom and the Love"; "The Time Is Far Spent"; "In Our Lovely Deseret"; "Though Deepening Trials"; "Behold the Great Redeemer Die"; and "Truth Reflects Upon Our Senses". Eliza Snow and her brother, Lorenzo Snow, founded the Polysophical Society in December 1854 in Salt Lake City. Members shared poetry and musical and dramatic performances. Church leaders Jedediah M. Grant and Heber C. Kimball halted the society's activities because of its "adulterous spirit."

• Illustration — Snow's biographical sketch at the Pioneer Memorial Museum (PMM) • Illustration — Snow (by Ortho R. Fairbanks; 1952) in front of the PMM • Illustration — Snow's embroidery (1830) in the PMM • Illustration — Snow's pocket watch from Joseph Smith, located in the Church History Museum • Illustration — Snow (by Lewis Aquilla Ramsey; 1909) • Illustration — Snow (by Charles Roscoe Savage & George Martin Ottinger) • Illustration — Snow (by Danquart Anthon Weggeland; 1883) in the PMM • Illustration — Snow (by Edward Martin) • Illustration — Snow (by Marsena Cannon; 1852) • Illustration — Snow (by Hippolyte Délié & Emile Béchard; 1873)

The authorities additionally record the headings Eliza R. Her recorded language was English. Her recorded confession was The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She was the child of Oliver Snow III and Rosetta Lenora Snow (Pettibone). She married Brigham Young and Joseph Smith. Recorded with the occupation lyricist. Recorded as lyricist, hymnwriter, poet and writer.

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