Item Detail
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19821
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7
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21
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English
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The Tragic Matter of Louie Wells and John Q. Cannon
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Journal of Mormon History
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Spring 2009
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35
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2
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Salt Lake City, UT
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Mormon History Association
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126-190
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Louie Wells, daughter of Emmeline B. and Daniel H. Wells, died tragically at the age of 24 in 1887. Her death followed her unfortunate relationship with John Q. Cannon, eldest son of Apostle George Q. Cannon. John Q. Cannon was also a member of the Presiding Bishopric, and husband of Louie's older sister Annie. Louie, Annie, and George got along well together, and Louie even lived with her sister and brother-in-law to help tend their children. The first indication of something amiss came when a sensationalized article was published in late 1884 the Salt Lake Tribune alleging that John Q. Cannon had secretly taken Louie Wells as a plural wife. This account was not true, although later testimony would reveal that the two had contemplated plural marriage. In 1886 John Q. Cannon confessed publicly he had committed adultery, and was removed from his position in the Presiding Bishopric. He quickly divorced Annie and married Louie, who was pregnant, in order to avoid prosecution for plural marriage, but was nonetheless prosecuted based on the earlier rumors of his marriage to Louie. Louie died in California after giving birth to a stillborn son. John Q. Cannon and Annie remarried, had additional children, and were resealed, with Annie also standing in as proxy for her sister Louie to be sealed to John Q. Cannon.
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Defender : The life of Daniel H. Wells
Emmeline B. Wells : An Intimate History
“I am not considered much of a polygamist”: Sarah Peterson Lund Writes to Her Missionary Husband
Playing with Shadows : Voices of Dissent in the Mormon West
Sister Saints : Mormon Women since the End of Polygamy
William Hope Harvey and the Ogden Mardi Gras
Wives and Other Women : Love, Sex, and Marriage in the Lives of John Q. Cannon, Frank J. Cannon, and Abraham H. Cannon -
A Comprehensive History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
A Mormon Woman in Victorian America
An Advocate for Women : the Public Life of Emmeline B. Wells, 1870-1920
Early Utah Journalism
George Q. Cannon : A Biography
Growing Up in Early Utah : The Wasatch Literary Association, 1874-1878
History of Utah
In Memoriam : Elizabeth Ann Whitney
Isn't One Wife Enough?
Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia
Letters from Exile : The Correspondence of Martha Hughes Cannon and Angus M. Cannon, 1886-1889
Qualities that Count : Heber J. Grant as Businessman, Missionary and Apostle
Representative Women of Deseret : A Book of Biographical Sketches to Accompany the Picture Bearing the Title
Sunbonnet Sisters : True Stories of Mormon Women and Frontier Life
The First 100 Years : A History of the Salt Lake Tribune, 1871-1971
The Mormon Hierarchy : Extensions of Power
The Mormon Question : Polygamy and Constitutional Conflict in Nineteenth-Century America
The Mormons and the Law : The Polygamy Cases
The Wasatch Literary Association
Through Memory's Halls : The Life Story of Orson F. Whitney
Utah Gazetteer and Directory of Logan, Ogden, Provo and Salt Lake Cities, for 1884