LDS prophet Brigham Young asked a Catholic nun to be his 28th wife – or so the story goes

I first heard the fascinating (and rather sweet) story of Brother Brigham and Sister Augusta over a year ago.

I spoke with Mary Emmie Gardner, CEO of Salt Lake City’s Holy Cross Ministries. HCM is the nonprofit organization that the Sisters of the Holy Cross founded to continue their good work in Utah after they sold Holy Cross Hospital in 1993.

Emmie is a reliable source for all things Holy Cross. She told me that she had heard that polygamous Latter-day Saint leader Brigham Young once suggested that Utah’s first Catholic nun be “sealed” to himself so that she could be part of the Celestial Kingdom, the highest heaven of Mormonism, as he understood it.

Since then I have been trying to find out more about the story. I did a little research after Emmie first told it, but I have found nothing.

However, that all changed when I began researching an article about the upcoming 150th anniversary (in 2025) of the Holy Cross Sisters’ arrival in Salt Lake City in 1875.

I love the Holy Cross Sisters. They were my teachers, good friends and inspiration for many years. And the charity work they did in Utah is legendary.

From my reading, I learned that the pioneers of the Utah Holy Cross nuns were Sister Raymond (Mary) Sullivan and Sister Augusta (Amanda) Anderson.

They traveled by train and stagecoach from their convent in South Bend, Indiana, to Salt Lake City, arriving on June 6, 1875.

Father Lawrence Scanlan (soon to become Utah’s first Catholic bishop) had invited them to come here to build schools and help educate children.

About the two sisters

Sister Raymond was born in County Cork, Ireland, in 1830. She worked as a seamstress, porter, assistant superior, mistress of scholastics, secretary, and archivist in the convent of Indiana. She also devoted about 17 years to teaching and hospital work in Utah.

Sister Augusta (later known as Mother Augusta after she was chosen to lead the Holy Cross Sisters) was born in 1830 in Virginia. Her mother died when she was 4, and the surviving Anderson family moved west via prairie schooner.

Augusta/Amanda settled in Ohio with her aunt and uncle. She became the child they never had. They taught her about religion, books, farming, and how to care for others, including Native Americans.

Augusta joined the Holy Cross Order and worked in the schools and medical institutions. She managed two Union army hospitals during the Civil War, prompting General Ulysses S. Grant to exclaim, “What a great woman she is! She can control the men better than I can.”

Her command eventually sent her to Salt Lake City with Sister Raymond. The two Holy Cross sisters stayed with Thomas and Sarah Marshall when they arrived. Marshall, a nephew of Chief Justice John Marshall, was a prominent lawyer. His wife, Sarah, the daughter of a Missouri congressman, was a devout Catholic.

In the midst of the sisters’ work assessing and strategizing local needs (particularly in health care and education), Bishop Scanlan introduced them to Brigham Young, though the Lion of the Lord who made the desert bloom was still quite powerful in the last two years of his life.

Young was reportedly cordial to the sisters, offering whatever help he could give, except financial aid. Thereafter, the Latter-day Saint pioneer prophet greeted the two Catholic nuns warmly whenever he met them on the street.

I thought that was the whole story of their encounters. Then I came across a 1987 article written for the Holy Cross History Association by another Holy Cross nun. A few lines deep in the story jumped out at me:

“There is an oral tradition in the community that Mother Augusta taught some of Brigham Young’s children at the Beehive and/or the Lion House. The same tradition states that he asked her to be ‘sealed’ to him for eternity so that she could be a part of the Celestial Kingdom even after her death. There is no written evidence.”

A platonic proposal

Excitedly, I wrote to officials at the Holy Cross Archives, asking if they had any more information about this fascinating tidbit. They sent me a copy of the only source cited, a 1969 article (“His 28th Wife”) by Gloria J. Skurzynski in a Catholic magazine called Marriage, published by St. Meinrad Archabbey.

Skurzynski is a well-known author who lived in Utah for a time and now lives in Idaho. She has written more than 50 books for children and young adults and has won numerous awards.

Skurzynski’s 1969 Marriage article gave the basic and well-known backstory of the Holy Cross Sisters’ arrival in Utah, but also noted that Young asked the two pioneer nuns to tutor his own children. They agreed.

Sisters Augusta and Raymond taught Young’s children for a time how to paint porcelain, color in oils and watercolors, and languages. The lessons took place in the church leader’s neighboring homes, the historic Beehive House and Lion House, both of which are being renovated.

The sisters apparently made an impression on Young. To give context to what she thought might have happened next, Skurzynski explained the early Mormon idea of ​​Platonic sealing:

“By the time (Young) took his 27th wife in 1869, he had fathered 56 children. Nineteen of the women were wives in the physical sense. His (eight) platonic unions were based on concern for the spiritual welfare of the women, since, according to original revelation, a woman could only reach heaven by marrying a Mormon man.”

Skurzynski then went on to delightfully talk about the potential marriage proposal. Here’s an excerpt:

“One can only imagine the inevitable scene. Sister Augusta may have just finished teaching in the classroom when she was told that Brigham Young wanted to speak with her. She went to him, perhaps in his office on the second floor. He asked her to sit down.

“Brigham Young was 74 years old, but he was no feeble, confused old man. Only five years earlier he had fathered his 56th child. He was robust, stocky, with a full beard—the picture of patriarchal authority. His gray eyes were level and fearless.

“Sister Augusta was not a docile, submissive woman. She was an organizer, accustomed to exercising authority in her own order. In 1875 she was forty-five years of age, quite stout, her blue eyes and round, fair face framed by her starched white crown. In expression and character Sister Augusta and Brigham Young were both similar. Both were successful leaders who had accomplished great things against great odds, both were fearless, both wanted to do God’s will, both were confident in their religious convictions.

“And then Brigham Young asked Sister Augusta to marry him. He did not ask her to be his wife in the physical sense of the word. He asked her to be ‘sealed’ to him for eternity, so that after her death she could be a part of the Heavenly Kingdom. In that way she would certainly go to heaven. This was surely the deepest compliment he could pay the lady.

“But the lady undoubtedly preferred to get to heaven in her own way. She declined Brigham’s proposal with great tact, one may assume.”

Brigham Rejected

I also enjoyed Skurzynski’s assessment of the likely aftermath of what would have been an unusual event:

“Brigham Young’s historical position is beyond dispute. But one cannot help but wonder how this rejection affected the man who built a city on a deserted salt flat by sheer force of will. The nun’s refusal to marry must have certainly confused Young, who had saved the souls of eight other women with a heavenly marriage.

“We also wonder what effect it had on Mother Augusta. The proposal must have become at least a famous story in the convent of the Sisters of the Holy Cross.”

And that happened, and that’s probably why I eventually heard about it.

I asked friends who worked in Catholic archives, at Brigham Young University and in the history department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, if they had ever heard of this story. No one had.

I even emailed Gloria Skurzynski about the article. I never heard back, but maybe I had an outdated address.

So the beautiful story remains unconfirmed, and probably never will. I still like it anyway.

Many people — Catholic or not — admire the Holy Cross Sisters. I would like to see some of them in my eternity.

I can’t blame Brigham Young for being so in love.

Michael Patrick O’Brien is a writer and attorney who lives in Salt Lake City and frequently represents The Salt Lake Tribune in legal matters. His book “Monastery mornings: my unusual childhood among the saints and monksabout growing up with the monks in an old Trappist monastery in Huntsville, was published by Paraclete Press and chosen as the best nonfiction book of 2022 by the League of Utah Writers.

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