Washing, Anointing, and Blessing the Sick Among Mormon Women A MORMON HISTORIAN TRACES CHANGES IN THE PRACTICE Editors Note and Logan temples, the ordinance took place both within This article is taken from a more extensive essay, "’Gifts of the Spirit: the confines of those sacred structures and in the Women’s Share,’" to be pub.lis.hed soon i~1 a collection of essays edited by privacy of individual homes. This paper will focus on the Lavina Fielding Anderson and Maureen Ursenbach Beecher. J-he ]arg~’r latter practice. These washings and anointings v,~-ere work, in addition to the practice of washing and anointing, deals with other clearly done in connection with "administering to the aspect:; of women’s involvement in the spiritual gifts of healing, speaking in sick." The wording took different forms as the occa:sion tongues, prophecy, etc., from 183 0 to the present. The author is indd~ted to demanded. One of the most common uses of the Vella N. Evans and Carol Cornwall Mad~:en f~r sharing some of their washing and anointing blessing came as women extensive research and to Lavina Fielding Anderson tor her able assistan~-e i~ administered to each other pcior to childbirth. putting the material together. That women could and did participate in blessing and healing the sick was already a clearly established and Linda King Newell officially sanctioned fact by the time the Saints had established a refuge in the Great Basin. Women like OR members of the modern Church of Jesus Christ Sarah Leavitt and Edna Rogers left ~’ecords of their Fof Latter, Tday Saints; the term "washing and experiences with healing others in Kirtland.x In Nauvoo anointing is synonymous with the initiatory the Prophet Joseph Smith not only formed the Relief ordinances of the temple endowment. Joseph Smith first Society as an essential part of the Church, but he also introduced the practice to male members of the LDS introduced the ceremony of the temple endowment, church in the Kirtland Temple; he included women including washings and anoir~tings. With the coming of when he gave the endowment and sealing ordinances to the Relief Society the women had .an organization his select "Quorum of the Anointed" in Nauvoo.~ By the through which they manifested the gifts of the spirit. Of time the Mormons had established a refuge in the Great this period, Susa Young Gates, a daughter of Brigham Basin, washing and anointing had also been combined Young, wrote: "The privileges and powers outlined by with healing. Although it grew out of the temple the Prophet in those first meetings [of the Relief ordinances in Nauvoo, tlhe practice by women was Society] have never been granted to women in fu~ll even carried on outside the temple. Even after the yet." Then Susa asked, "Did those women, do you and I, establishment of the Endowment House in Salt Lake in live so well as to be worthy of them all?’’3 1855 and later the dedication of the St. George, Manti, There is considerable evidence within the minutes of Sunstone/16 the Nauvoo Relief Society meetings to suggest that disease?" he demanded. "It is your privilege to do so Joseph Smith seemed to envision the Relief Society as an without sending for the Elders." He laid down some independent organization for women parallel to the practical advice; if the child is ill of a fever or of an upset priesthood organization for men.4 Yet both seemed to stomach, treat those symptoms by all means, beware of come under the aegis of the priesthood as a power from too much medicine, and remember that prevention is God, not as an administrative entity. better than cure. He ended by addressing himself The women themselves saw their organization as specifically to mothers: "It is the privilege of a mother to more than a charitable society. Spiritual gifts such as have faith and to administer to her child; this she can do speaking in tongues and healing the sick were not only herself, as well as sending for the Elders to have the discussed in their meetings but the sisters openly benefit of their faith."8 Having enough faith to heal was practiced them. With Joseph’s approval, Emma and her clearly, for Brother Brigham, "practical religion" like counselors laid hands on the sick and blessed them that having enough food on hand. they might be healed. The fifth time the Relief Society The year before in Cache Valley, Elder Ezra T. Benson convened, Sarah Cleveland invited the sisters to speak had called on all the women who had been ordained to freely, and women stood one at a time in this testimony wash and anoint to exercise their powers to rebuke an meeting. Sister Durfee was among those who spoke. unspecified disease which so destructively coursed its She "bore testimony to the great blessing she received way through the valley.9 This record neither identifies when administered to after the last meeting by Emma the ordained women nor who ordained them. It only said Smith and [her] Counselors Cleveland and Whitney, they were "ordained to wash and anoint." Zina she said she never realized more benefit through an Huntington Young’s journal mentions several healings. administration." She added that she had been healed and On Joseph Smith’s birthday in 1881, she washed and "thought the sisters had more faith than the brethren." anointed one woman "for her health" and administered Following the meeting, Sarah Cleveland and Elizabeth to another "for her hearing." She remembered the Whitney administered to another Relief Society sister, Prophet’s birthday and reminisced about the days in Mrs. Abigail Leonard, "for the restoration of health."5 Nauvoo when she was one of his plural wives: "I have In the intervening week, someone apparently reported to Joseph that the women were laying their hands on the sick and blessing them. His reply to the question of the propriety of such acts was simple. He JOSEPH INDICATED THAT THERE WERE told the women in the next meeting "there could be no SISTERS WHO WERE ORDAINED TO HEAL evil in it, if God gave his sanction by healing.., there could be no more sin in any female laying hands on the THE SICK AND IT WAS THEIR PRIVILEGE sick than in wetting the face with water." He also TO DO SO. indicated that there were sisters who were ordained to heal the sick and it was their privilege to do so. "If the sisters should have faith to heal," he said, "let all hold their tongues."~ practiced much with My Sister Presendia Kimball while In 1857 Mary Ellen Kimball recorded her visit to a sick in Nauvoo & ever since before Joseph Smiths death. He woman in company with Presindia, her sister wife. They blest Sisters to bless the sick." Three months later in washed and anointed Susannah, cooked her dinner, and March 1890: "I went to see Chariton [her son] & watched her "eat pork and potatoes" with a gratifying administered to him, felt so sad to see him suffer .... " appetite. "I felt to rejoice with her for I shall never forget The next year she notes with satisfaction hearing an the time when I was healed by the power of God through address by Bishop Whitney in the Eighteenth Ward faith in him which power has again been restored with wherein he "blest the Sisters in having faith to the priesthood" (a phrase which indicates a distinction in administer to there own families in humble faith not Mary Ellen’s mind). saying by the Authority of the Holy priesthood but in But after I returned home I thought of the instructions I the name of Jesus Christ .... "~0 had received from time to time that the priesthood was Still, healing by women caused some confusion; this not bestowed upon woman. I accordingly asked Mr. quiet, routine practice on the local level occasion.ally [Heber C.] Kimball if women had a right to wash and raised questions which, when answered publicly by anoint the sick for the recovery of their health or is it Church leaders or the Relief Society, seemed to start a mockery in them to do so. He replied inasmuch as they ripple of uneasiness which, sooner or later, set off are obedient to their husbands, they have a right to another inquiry. Church leaders began to issue general administer in that way in the name of the Lord Jesus cautions about women blessing the sick. Angus Cannon, Christ but not by authority of the priesthood invested in president of the Salt Lake Stake, included the following them for that authority is not given to woman. in his answer to a question about women holding the Mary Ellen then noted an argument that would calm priesthood: "Women could only hold the priesthood in apprehensions for the next four decades: "He also said connection with their husbands; man held the they might administer by the authority given to their priesthood independent of woman. The sisters have a husbands in as much as they were one with their right to anoint the sick, and pray the Father to heal them, husband."7 and to exercise that faith that will prevail with God; but At the same time, strong official encouragement for women must be careful how they use the authority of women to develop and use their spiritual powers is the priesthood in administering to the sick."~ ~ Two years evident. Brigham Young, speaking in the Tabernacle on later on 8 August 1880, John Taylor’s address on "The 14 November 1869, scolded both men and women for Order and Duties of the Priesthood" reaffirmed that not improving, themselves.