In October 1890 Church President Wilford Woodruff issued a Manifesto indicating that the Mormons had ceased taking plural wives. At that time there were 2,451 plural families reported in the Church. By 1899 there were only 1,543, and by 1903 just 897.628
When President Woodruff proclaimed the Manifesto in 1890, Andrew was thirty-two years old. He had not yet married a second wife, but it is clear that he believed in “the Principle” and even considered taking another one after the 1890 pronouncement. As an insider he probably knew that a few people had continued to follow the Principle.
Two women about the same age as Andrew and Ollie maintained especially close friendship to both of them. Andrew’s journal refers to them often in ways that suggest a special friendship, one that might have ripened into plural marriage had it not been for the 1890 Manifesto. He often visited Ziba Alvira Rees (Vi) of Brigham City629 and Mary Wallace in Salt Lake City.630 In his 1897 journal summary Andrew notes debts of about $1,000 to two building societies plus a $300 note to Vi and $200 note to Mary, notes on which he did not pay interest.
The Kimballs move to Arizona interrupted, to a large degree, the relationships Andrew and Ollie had with Mary and Vi.631 At the 1898 fall general conference, after Andrew moved with his family, he records that he took Vi to the train and had a good talk. He also had a talk with Mary Wallace and “bid her goodbye.”632
In 1900, Vi Rees asked Andrew, “What would you think should I accept an offer of marriage from Bro. Blackburn? I will appreciate an expression from you.” According to Vi’s granddaughter, Vi did marry Thomas Blackburn, a widower, in 1900. Her family tradition has it that Vi had called off Andrew’s courtship because of the 1890 Manifesto against plural marriage, although she considered Andrew “the love of her life.”633
Ten years after the Manifesto, President Lorenzo Snow proclaimed that the Church had abandoned polygamy and that any member who disobeyed the law must bear his own burden.634 Then on December 2, 1902, new Church President Joseph F. Smith said essentially the same thing to the press. The repeated denials had an impact within the Church as well as without.
The clearest view we have of Andrew’s attitude toward plural marriage comes from a letter he received from Matthias F. Cowley on July 11, 1902, concerning a meeting between Elder Cowley and Mary Wallace:
I have been awaiting a favorable opportunity to meet the individual named in your letter. I have done as you requested me, and had a long talk with the party but without the results you so much desired. I discover from the conversation that the party had been wavering and in doubt about taking the step for a long time, not because of any doubt on the principle but with the feeling that love and devotion on their own part ought to be more intense and sincere than it was, and while you are held by the individual in high esteem as a brother and friend, it was felt that the Sacred Union was too serious to justify them without more deep and personal attachment on the part of the individual here. I found dear brother that persuasion would only set them more decided in the way they are feeling and so I left the matter by giving them a good kind talk on the subject. Allow me now to say privately that I think you can secure some one that will be more appropriate for you. Be more loving and be of more benefit to you, because of the too advanced age of this one. When people of 44, in the condition they are, are either wavering or decided against what you desire, it would be unhappy to persuade them against their will. I do not say this with any feeling to depreciate the party here. I have no doubt they are good and noble, but I feel impressed that you can do just as well elsewhere so far as good qualities are concerned, and far better so far as personal benefits and blessings to yourself and family are concerned. The Lord overrules all things for the good of those who love and obey him, and that you are doing and He will bless you in a way so plainly that you will see his hand in all things.
Mary reported on this same meeting:
Dear Andrew, . . . Bro Cowley called on me but I feel that you do not think enough of me to ever be just [?]. Andrew remember I think as much of you as ever but could not ever bind my self to any one that did not care for me. I think as much of the principle as ever and never expect to marey aney other way. I hope this will not brake our friendship and when you come to confrance call and see me. Remember me to Ollie and tell her I will ansure her letter in a few days Ansure this letter will be home in two weeks With best wishes to you all good night. Mary635
A year later there is one more letter from Mary to Andrew:636
I know I ought to ansure your letters. Andrew I am unchanged in my feelings. Things have happened that have convinced me that you do not care enough for us to be able to stand the trils which we would have to pass thrue, but I hope you don’t think I have gone back on the principle for I have not, and I want you to distinctly understand I think a great deal of you and all ways shall as a friend I love the family and I also love Ollie I think she is a lovely noble little woman she has all ways been kind to me. I hope and trust we may allways be friends.637 Andrew don’t write only [unless or except] as a friend. I hope we all ways be like we have been we don’t know what is in the future for us. Alice has gon[e] to Portland with Bro Smith.638
The potential relationship with Mary as a marriage partner seems to be closed with this correspondence, mainly on personal grounds.
A letter from Ollie to her sister Fannie Woolley, dated August 4, 1903, shows Ollie’s attitude toward Fannie’s secret plural marriage:
. . . I am pregnant and will keep you company. . . . This will be my tenth child. . . . I knew you had your mind set on someone and perhaps the knot had been tied, but was surprised when I heard of your condition. Oh Fan, it made me feel so blue, when I knew you had to leave home loved ones and friends, and go away by yourself.
It does not seem possible dear sister, that you are in that condition. I am so anxious to know who the lucky man is. I do not know but I have thought strongly who it is, but I do hope and pray whoever it is he will be kind and good to you.
. . . Andrew would feel awful if he knew I knew your condition and did not let him know. He has asked me several times if I thought the knot had been tied. . . . He could keep it alright. . . . when do you expect? I will be sick the forepart of November. I have not told anyone, only Andrew and Clare, and I wrote sister Zenger to know if she could come down and wait on me and two or three others if we would pay her fare. . . . [I] hope she will, for I do not want to have a doctor if I can help it. Of course there are women here that can deliver one alright, and do it daily almost, but they will not give Chloroform and I am so in love with it at such times that I want someone that will give it.
. . . I am your loving sister Ollie639
J. Golden Kimball wrote to Andrew, “A great many young people are shattered in their faith because of their suspicions being aroused that marriages have taken place since the Manifesto, notwithstanding the denial of the Presidency.”640 In April 1904 general conference, Joseph F. Smith declared in a written statement that no plural marriages had been solemnized with the sanction, consent, or knowledge of Church leaders since the Manifesto and that the leaders were ready to take disciplinary action against anyone involved with any new polygamous relationship. That no such marriages had occurred with the “knowledge” of the leaders would be true only if there was a distinction between the “knowledge” of the formal Church apparatus and “knowledge” of some individual Church leaders acting on their own.
In 1904 another friend of Andrew’s commented, “The [recent 1904 ‘Second’] Manifesto of Pres. Smith caused quite a ripple of excitement [in general conference] but, thank heavens, it is not ex-post-facto and now applies only where there is a law of the land against the principle. . . . I expect to go to Mexico again in June and will make arrangements to invest there.”641 Polygamy was against the law in both Canada and Mexico, but since the law was not actively enforced in Mexico, people rationalized that it was not “against the law,” especially if they separated their families to obscure their polygamous relations.
For his continued promotion of plural marriage the Twelve dropped Matthias F. Cowley from its quorum in 1905. He said, “In relation to the trial which has come to me will say that I accept it in all humility and meekness, with no fault to find against my brethren, but a strong desire to continue faithful and to devote my life and all my energies in the service of the lord.”642 Elder John W. Taylor resigned from the Quorum in October 1905 and was excommunicated in 1911 for his persistence in performing plural marriages.643
Family tradition has it that about 1904 Andrew asked his brother-in-law, President Joseph F. Smith, whether he should still enter into plural marriage and was told, “The time has passed.”644 Even after they no longer considered plural marriage, Mary Wallace and Vi Rees remained the Kimballs’ good friends.645
