Fascinating Newly Discovered William Griffiths Reese Letters

One of the great joys in studying history (and particularly family history) is that there are always new things to be learned if you just keep looking. I thought I knew quite a bit about my great-grandfather, William Griffiths Reese, but during a recent Internet search I ran across some fascinating new information — including letters from William to two LDS Church presidents — that the Church History Department has recently posted on its website. I had no idea the letters existed, nor did I know about the matters contained in them. I wonder whether any of my other living Reese relatives knew?

 

William Griffiths Reese

First, a little background to set the stage. Will was born August 15, 1857 in Stepaside, Amroth Parish, Pembrokeshire, South Wales, the oldest child of Charles and Sarah (Griffiths) Reese, who had converted to the Mormon Church a few years earlier. When Will was just two years old, the Reese family (father, mother and infant brother, Charles) immigrated to America, spending the first winter in Missouri, and then crossing the plains in 1861 with a pioneer wagon company.

The family eventually settled on a farm in the community of Benson, Cache Valley, Utah. Will attended school and apparently was a bright student and quick study, because by the time he was 17 years old he was teaching in the Benson School and had charge of 24 students. While teaching, he took the initiative to establish a Sabbath School for children and the first Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Association in the area.

When Will was 21 years old, he decided to pursue a higher level of education, so he enrolled in Brigham Young College in Logan. He continued his studies for several years while he remained a teacher. By early 1882, when he was 24 years old, he had several years of college under his belt. He also had become attracted to a 17-year-old fellow student named Mary Maria Rees.

It was at this point that an important event occurred in Will’s life. As he describes it in his autobiographical sketch:

After helping with the farm work and doing some hauling lumber for the temple out of Logan Canyon, I started to the Brigham Young College on September 26.  I attended school until April 1, 1882, when I received a letter from President John Taylor calling me on a mission to Great Britain.

Note that he says he received a letter from President John Taylor “calling [him] on a mission to Great Britain.” We shall return to this later, but to finish the background story, Will served an honorable mission in the British Isles and was able to spend much of his time in Wales. While there he visited relatives and learned more about his Welsh heritage. He kept a journal during his mission and (thanks to the help and influence of retired BYU Professor Ron Dennis) it has been transcribed and is accessible online at this link.

 

William Griffiths Reese as a young man

Will returned to Utah after serving the usual two years, arriving home on April 27, 1884. Two months later, on July 2, he married Mary Rees in the Logan Temple.

The foregoing was well known by me and most of Will’s descendants, at least those who have an interest in family history. What I did not know, because it is nowhere mentioned in any of Will’s journals or biographical sketches, is that his original letter from John Taylor apparently did not call him to serve in Great Britain. I learned this recently as I was searching online and ran across a new Church History Department resource called “Early Mormon Missionaries.” This site has a page devoted to William Griffiths Reese. Apparently it has been posted fairly recently because it cites News From the Antipodes as one of its sources of information.

 

John Taylor, third president of the LDS Church

In addition, the site has links to several letters written by Will that I had no idea existed. The first is dated March 17, 1882, just a few weeks before he left for Great Britain, and is addressed to John Taylor. The letter (written in blue ink in Will’s excellent handwriting) reads as follows:

Benson, March 17th 1882

Prest: John Taylor

                           Dear Brother,

Please allow me to ask if it is convenient to change my mission from the Southern States to Wales. My reason for asking a change is that my parents are anxious to get the genealogy of their dead.

Should you be willing to have me go to Wales, will you please inform me at your earliest convenience that I may make arrangements accordingly.

I am, Your Bro. in the gospel

W. G. Reese

President Taylor responded by writing, at the bottom of the letter, in pencil, “Change him to Wales — J.T.”

 

 

I find several things interesting about this letter. I love that the 24-year-old Will had the chutzpah to write directly to the 73-year-old prophet, a man who had been one of the original apostles called by Joseph Smith. Today, a newly called missionary wouldn’t think of addressing a letter to the president of the Church asking for such a change, and even if it were to happen, there is little likelihood that the president would ever read it. Of course, the Church was smaller then; still, I don’t think this sort of letter was particularly common, even in the 1880s.

It is to Will’s credit that he recognizes President Taylor is a busy man and doesn’t waste space with a lot of extraneous detail. The letter is direct, to the point and achieved its purpose.

I can think of another possible reason Will and his parents might not have been thrilled about a call to the Southern States mission (although, of course, I have no idea of what was actually in their minds). The American South was a violent place in those days. You either belonged to one of the mainstream religions or you were persecuted. With the hot-tempered Scotch-Irish making up a significant proportion of the population, persecution could turn bloody. Perhaps understandably, some Southerners viewed Mormon missionaries as having a motive to lure local women to Utah, where they would become plural wives in a Mormon harem. One particularly sad incident of violence happened just two years after Will received his call. In 1884, John Gibbs, a Welsh immigrant who was serving in the Southern States mission, was shot and killed by vigilantes in Cane Creek, Missouri, along with another young missionary, William Berry. For an excellent book on anti-Mormon violence in the South, see The Mormon Menace: Violence and Anti-Mormonism in the Postbellum South, written by my friend and Claremont Mormon History Studies chair, Professor Patrick Mason.

I have no way of knowing whether this was in the minds of the Reese family at the time, but Will definitely was on safer ground when he returned to his Welsh homeland to serve his mission.

My next unexpected find was a two-page letter written by Will to Elder George Reynolds about 13 years later, on May 13, 1895. By this time Will was 37 years old. He and Mary had four children (the youngest of whom was my grandmother, Sarah Wanda) and Mary was expecting her fifth.

George Reynolds was a British convert who was retained as secretary by most of the 19th Century LDS Church presidents after Joseph Smith. He had enjoyed considerable renown in Utah as one of the Seven Presidents of Seventy, a member of the Utah territorial legislature and a regent of the University of Deseret (later University of Utah). Perhaps Reynolds’ most lasting historical impact, however, was when Brigham Young asked him to submit to prosecution to test the validity of the 1862 Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act. Reynolds (who at the time had only two wives, compared to Brigham’s more than 40) agreed to stand trial and was convicted. His case eventually made its way to the United States Supreme Court where his conviction was affirmed and Reynolds was sentenced to prison. Reynolds v. United States was to become a leading case, cited countless times in succeeding years, for the proposition that a religious duty is not a defense to a criminal indictment, assuming the criminal statute is not contrary to the Constitution.

 

George Reynolds, a President of Seventy and secretary to several Church presidents.

By the time Will wrote his letter, Reynolds had been released from prison and was serving as secretary to then-President Wilford Woodruff. The letter reveals that Will had first been called to the Australian Mission in 1895, some eleven years before he actually served, a fact of which I was completely unaware. Here is the text of the two-page letter:

Benson, May 13, 1895.

Elder George Reynolds.

Salt Lake City.

Dear Brother.

Your letter of the 15th ultimo came the hand the 5th inst.

I was surprised upon receiving it as I had spent two years as a missionary to Great Britain in ’82-3-4.

During the past eight years I have been an assistant in the Supt. of the Cache Stake Sunday Schools which I look upon as quite an important mission.

However, I consider it an honor to be considered worthy to labor in the vineyard of the Lord, and regret that my circumstances are such that I cannot go this coming fall.

About a year ago I purchased a farm in consequence of which I a [sic] nearly $1000.00 in debt.

By economy, industry, and the blessings of the Lord upon my labors, I feel quite certain I can pay my indebtedness in one year and hope to be ready to go as an embassador [sic] of the Gospel about a year from next Oct.

Hoping this will be satisfactory,

I remain,

Your brother,

W. G. Reese

Again there is a handwritten pencil note, this time from Joseph F. Smith, who was then serving as Second Counselor to President Woodruff. It reads, “This will be all right. Let him have what time he needs and when ready he can let us know. J. F. S.”

 

 

I find this letter interesting on several levels. First, it appears that the mission call had come via a letter from Reynolds, rather than President Woodruff, since Will says he is responding to “your letter….” Second, it is apparent that the letter had taken Will by surprise. He already had served an honorable mission; he had a young family, a recently purchased farm, and was $1,000 in debt. It was not a good time for Will to travel halfway around the world to Australia.

A third noteworthy aspect of this letter is Smith’s notation that William is to let them know when he is ready to serve. Apparently, he was not ready a year later, as he predicted. Then, three years after sending the letter to Reynolds, tragedy struck the Reese family. On June 7, 1898, Will’s wife, Mary, died unexpectedly from a sudden illness. A year after that, the 42-year-old widower married Karen Andrea Andersen, a 23-year-old Danish immigrant. Within a few months, she was pregnant and another child came along every other year for the next decade. The Australian mission was put on indefinite hold.

In the decade following his request to defer his second mission call, Will wrote rather infrequently in his journal. In the summer of 1905 he reported that he had received a letter from the Logan Board of Education offering him the principalship of either the Woodruff or Benson school at a salary of $77.50 per month, and he replied by post that he would accept. However, a few weeks later he explained that, due to a misunderstanding, he had not taken the Logan City examination and the principalship offers were rescinded. This must have been a great disappointment to him. He then received an offer to teach in the Trenton school for $62.50 per month, but he negotiated the salary up to $65. After a few weeks on that job he wrote: “I am getting along alright, but at times I feel rather lonely to be off in that scattered district, but if I can do the young people of that part good I shall feel compensated.”

In order to provide for his ever enlarging family, Will worked both as a teacher and a farmer. On September 10, 1905, he wrote: “I have harvested and threshed my crop and have a very good grain but on account of sweet clover the binder could not cut [all of] it, but I harvested some over 300 bushels of grain.”

 

Joseph F. Smith, sixth president of the LDS Church

A few months later, in March 1906, Will evidently received a letter from then President Joseph F. Smith renewing his calling to the Australian mission. I do not have that letter; if any other Reese ancestor knows its whereabouts I would dearly like to see a copy of it. There are no journal entries describing its receipt so Will does not explain what thoughts went through his mind when he received it. Did it come as a complete surprise or was he expecting it? It must have been a bit unwelcome; he now had eight children and was working two jobs to help support them. His wife, Karen, was pregnant with their ninth child. Nevertheless, he replied to President Smith as follows:

Trenton, Apr. 3. 1906

President Joseph F. Smith.

Dear President Smith,

Your letter of the 28, ult., calling me to take a mission to Australia came duly to hand.

I know of no reason why I cannot take the mission. While it is a long distance from home, I feel that the Lord will open my way; and if His servants feel that I may be able to do good in that part of the world, I feel to comply with their wishes.

I am away from home teaching school and in order to avoid delay in answering your letter by getting the bishop’s signature, I send you this letter and if you desire I will write you another letter and have our bishop endorse it.

Your brother in the Gospel,

W. G. Reese,

King, Cache Co, Ut.

 

 

The same day that Will wrote to President Smith, he also wrote a letter to George Reynolds, who was still serving as secretary to the First Presidency. In that letter he asked for more details:

 

Trenton, Apr. 3, 1906

Elder George Reynolds.

Dear Brother: — I recently received a letter from Pres. Joseph F. Smith calling me on a mission to Australia. The letter stated that it was desired to sail on Oct. 25. I do not know whether I am to start from Salt Lake City on that date, or whether I am to leave Salt Lake City in time to take steamer on that date. Will you please inform me in regard to the matter.

Will you please inform me what the trip to Australia would cost me and in what way the Elders travel?

Any other information you feel would be of advantage to me would be very much appreciated by

Your brother in the gospel,

W. G. Reese.

There is a pencilled note, which I believe is from Reynolds: “He sails from S. F. Oct 25.”

 

 

When October 25, 1906 rolled around, Will (now 49 years old and father of nine children) was in San Francisco, preparing for a nearly two-and-a-half-year mission in Australia that has been chronicled in News From the Antipodes: The Australian Letters of William Griffiths Reese (1906-1909). (Click on this link if you would like to buy the book on Amazon.com.)

I have some final comments as I end this blog post. First, if any Reese descendant who reads this has knowledge of letters that Will saved (such as the letters issuing his mission calls), I would very much like to get copies of them.

Second, I find it interesting that William wrote a couple of autobiographical sketches and kept a fairly extensive journal, but never mentioned the call he received in 1882 to serve in the Southern States Mission or the first call he received in 1895 to serve in the Australian Mission. I don’t know why, of course, but I wonder if he felt a degree of shame in asking to be relieved from these calls. I hope he didn’t; I certainly don’t think the less of him because it. He proved his dedication to the Church by serving two missions, the second one at especially great sacrifice to him and his family. If anything, I have greater compassion and respect for him, knowing that he was willing to stand up for what he believed was the best course, even though it required asking to have calls from Church presidents modified. We sometimes forget that Church leaders are not infallible, that not every calling issued is necessarily the right one under the circumstances, and that each Church member has a responsibility to seek inspiration as it pertains to him or her and their family. I assume Will did exactly that before writing his letters.

— Morris Ashcroft Thurston