╪Smith, Eliza Roxey Snow1804╨1887Mormon leader and poetBorn on January 21, 1804, in Becket, Massachusetts, Eliza Snow grew up from the age of two in Mantua, Ohio. She attended a local ╥Grammatical Institution╙ and in her youth won a local reputation as a poet with verses published in various newspapers. Her family was deeply religious and in the 1820s joined the Campbellite sect of ╥reformed Baptists.╙ Mormon proselytizers came to their region of Ohio about 1830, and in 1831 Joseph Smith himself called at the Snow home. In 1835 Eliza Snow and her mother joined the Mormons, and in April she was baptized by Smith at the Mormon settlement in Kirtland. In December 1836 Snow moved to Kirtland and became a boarding governess to Joseph Smith╒s children. She also conducted a school for girls. She accompanied the Mormon migration to Jackson County, Missouri, and thence back to Nauvoo, Illinois. In June 1841, after Smith╒s revelation concerning polygamy, she became one of Joseph Smith╒s plural wives. In Nauvoo she played a leading part in creating the role of women in the Mormon church. She became secretary of the Female (later Women╒s) Relief Society on its formation in March 1842 and pioneered in ╥temple work,╙ the ritual, genealogical and administrative tasks that were to become permanent tradition. Eliza Smith emigrated to ╥Deseret╙╤Utah╤in 1847 in one of the first companies of Mormon pioneers. In 1849 she was sealed to Brigham Young as one of his plural wives. In May 1855 she was given charge of the Endowment House, where religious work was conducted before any temples were built, and in 1866 she became general president of the Women╒s Relief Society. In that post she oversaw the development of cooperative stores, women╒s classes, various charitable works, and the opening of a women╒s hospital in 1882. In 1869 Brigham Young gave her responsibility for the newly organized Young Ladies╒ Retrenchment Association, a group formed to combat a decline in public decorum. Under her guidance the association evolved in 1878 into the Young Ladies╒ Mutual Improvement Association, which remained an important lay organization in the church. In 1880 she was named president of Mormon women╒s organizations throughout the world. In the midst of these activities she had found time to accompany her brother, Lorenzo Snow (president of the church in 1898╨1901), on a missionary tour of Palestine in 1872╨1873. She also continued to write throughout her life; of her several hymns, ╥O My Father, Thou That Dwellest╙ remained the best known. She published two volumes of Poems, Religious, Historical and Political in 1856 and 1877 and a Biography and Family Record of Lorenzo Snow, 1884. She died in Salt Lake City on December 5, 1887. &styl ` ! ¬ 5¬ " 5¬ : !I Ö 5¬ Ü !I 1 5¬ 2 !I ▀ 5¬ α !I
