Background
Taylor was born to James and Agnes Taylor in an English village called Hale in Westmorland.
Taylor was born to James and Agnes Taylor in an English village called Hale in Westmorland.
In 1838, 17-year-old Taylor married John Rich in Carthage, Illinois. They eventually settled in Nauvoo and had four children before divorcing when Taylor wanted to go west with the main body of Latter Day Saints in the late 1840s. John Taylor reluctantly moved into the Gardo House in 1882, three years after church members voted to make the then-uncompleted mansion the official parsonage for church presidents.
In 1882, Congress passed the Edmunds Acting, which made polygamy a felony and posed a serious threat to Utah"s long-stalled bid for statehood.
Shortly after the law was passed, John Taylor called 16 general authorities to a meeting at the Gardo House. According to attendee Wilford Woodruff, "President Taylor with the rest of us came to the conclusion that we could not swap off the Kingdom of God or any of its Laws or Principles for a state government." Federal enforcement pressure increased, forcing John Taylor to withdraw from public view and go "underground": frequently on the move to avoid arrest.
In March 1885, soon after his final public appearance, federal marshals made a massive raid on the house to capture him. This and subsequent raids were unsuccessful, and his "tough-minded sister.. often held raiding marshals and deputies at bay at the front door of the mansion, admitting no one unless he presented papers properly signed by a federal judge." After her brother"s 1887 death while still underground, Taylor vacated the house.
Taylor died on December 12, 1911, in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Joseph F. Smith, Francis M. Lyman, Charles West. Penrose, Frank Y. Taylor, and Hyrum M. Smith each spoke at her funeral.