In the letter written by Helen Mar Kimball Whitney to her children, she says:

"Two years after the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum I loved and married your father, Horace Kimball Whitney, eldest son of Bishop Newel K. and Elizabeth Ann Whitney. He stood proxy for Joseph & I stood for Elizabeth Sikes. We were sealed in the Nauvoo Temple over the alter on the 3d of Feb. 1846."

Can someone explain this second wedding? So were they living a PROXY MARRIED LIFE?

I knew they believed you could marry by proxy, but I didn't know about living a proxy married life, if that is what she was describing.

it sounds to me that she was in a loving marriage and had children by him. I think what she was describing was she and her husband were proxies for Joseph Smith to be sealed to Elizabeth
Sikes. I had heard that a lot of women had themselves sealed to
Joseph after his death. It also sounds like while they were at it she had herself sealed to this man Horace Kimball Whitney.

I could be wrong but that's what it sounds like to me.

So, back in the original Mormon cult, a temple-married widow was allowed to get married in the temple again?

Huh?

What I took from it was that Helen COULD NOT marry again in the temple because she was already sealed to Joseph Smith.

She fell in love with Horace and wanted to marry him, so they did a proxy wedding for Joseph Smith to Elizabeth Sikes as a WAY for Helen and Horace to have a sort of temple wedding of their own.

But then I wondered if it meant even more than that.

Back in those days there were a lot of things that women were allowed to do that they can't do now. They could give

blessings that were considered equal to Priesthood blessings. Considering the changes that have taken place

in just my life time, anything is plausible that far back in time. Maybe it was her way of thumbing her nose

at her first marriage and no one caught it. There was no internet, phone, or anything to really prove who she was at

the time. Did you ever think you would hear that Joseph Smith was marrying other men's wives. I doubt it.

I have a copy of A Widow's Tale, Helen's diaries edited by Todd Compton. I don't have it here now, but as I remember, Horace was her true love. Very sad, she belonged to JS in the next life, so Horace had to marry a second wife so that he would have someone in the next world. As I remember, she was married to Horace for life. She defended plural marriage, but as I remember, didn't have much to do with wife #2.

The diaries cover her life beginning just before Horace died in the early 1880s. She was unhappy, in poor health with lots of terrible headaches, and used wine for pain killer then felt bad. Remember, the WoW wasn't such a serious matter then. I do remember the overall tone of the diaries was lots of sadness and suffering. Also, she didn't have enough money--really a struggle after her husband died.

Her younger son Charles accidentally or deliberately shot and killed himself at age 21. More sadness. Her older son Horace was kind of a goofball himself--into spiritualism, but later straightened up.