| OCR Text |
Show In 1896, Nettie accompanied John W. to open a mission in Colorado. Upon returning from this event, John W. told Nettie to carry out the plans of remOdeling the home in Farmington. The home was started in 1900. Nettie hired Edward A. Cottrell and William Leveda11 to do the brick work on the new addition. It 1s thought that Joseph ChBistensen was one of the carpenters that helped on the construction of the home. In Margaret S. Hess's history of Farmington, she statedl I remember when I (Margaret Steed Hess) was a girl a few of us used to go up in the evening to see how the house was progressing. It was one of the largest in our town and we thought it would' never be finished •••• When the beautiful brickwork was finished. we went up to watch the builders one day and they let us go through the big home. We were shocked to see the beautiful fireplaces in five of the large rooms and wondered why som many were needed. 9 Before the house was completed, Nettie had to go on the underground. This involved moving to Mexico and in later years, to southern Salt Lake . City. These were trying times for the women who were living the principle, but they never let it interfe~wlth their responsibilities as mothers to their children. In discussing life in a polygamist home with Emma Taylor Noon, she stated that "despite all the anxieties that 09' mother faced, she never let us know of them. this was also true of the others." o The challenge of protecting John W. was the greatest to De met. His position of church leadership served as a factor in motivating United Statesbfficials to seek him out and arrest him. In 1905. John W. Taylor resigned his position in the Quorum of the Twelve. His strong belief in the principle had resulted in his'.rnaking a decision between church and family. The love and responsibility that he felt for his familj 1.' and his strong belief in the principle, resulted in his resignation. In 1911, he was excommunicated from the L. D. S. Church. John W. Taylor's resignation came, in part, as a result of the Smoot hearings that had started a year earlier, in ',{ashington D.C •• Smoot's membership in the United States Senate had been in question as a result of the fact that many men, including church authorities, were still living with plural wives. Taylor was one of the stronger advocates of the principle and he now faced pressure from within the church in addition to that from the outside. His resignation helped Smoot receive his seat in the Senate. In Taylor's letter of resignation, he .stateda I have always believed that the goverr~ent of the United states had jurisdiction .only wi thin its own boundaries, and that the term 'laws of the land', in the Hanifesto meant merely the laws of the United States. I find not that this gpinion is different to that expressed by the church authorities,who have declared that the prohibition against plural marriages extended to every place and to every part of the church. It is doubtless true that this view of the matter has been given by President Woodruff and others, but I have never taken tb~t as binding upon me of the church, because it (such interpretation) was never presented for adoption by ' 'common consent' as was the Manifesto itself and I have disputed its authority as a law or a rule of the church. 11 |
