Авраам Оуэн Вудруфф: Апостол Церкви Иисуса Христа Святых последних дней

Apostle of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints

Abraham Owen Woodruff (November 23, 1872 – June 20, 1904) was an American missionary who was a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints (LDS Church). He was also the son of LDS Church president Wilford Woodruff. Owen Woodruff was born near Salt Lake City, Utah Territory and grew up working on his family's farm. Then, as a young man, he attended the Latter Day Saints' College and obtained a job at the Zion's Saving Bank and Trust Company. After serving a mission in Germany, he was ordained an apostle at the relatively young age of 24. In this capacity, he traveled throughout the Intermountain West, Canada, and Mexico, attending stake conferences of the church and identifying areas for potential Mormon colonies. Woodruff played a major role in the establishment of a Latter day Saint settlement at Bighorn Basin, Wyoming. During one of his trips to Wyoming in 1901, he met and married his second wife, thus practicing plural marriage eleven years after his father issued the 1890 Manifesto that ended polygamy as an official practice of the church. Woodruff contracted smallpox while visiting his second wife in the Mormon colonies in Mexico and died in 1904 at the age of 31.

On November 23, 1872, Woodruff was born just south of Salt Lake City, Utah Territory, to Wilford Woodruff and Emma Smith Woodruff. He was the sixth of eight children. His mother was the second plural wife of Wilford Woodruff and the niece of Abraham O. Smoot, after whom Woodruff was named. On May 3, 1881, he was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. He attended Brigham Young's funeral as a child. Woodruff's childhood home was a log house on the Woodruff homestead that his father had established after traveling across the Great Plains as a Mormon pioneer. By the time he was ten, his job was to herd cows. He attended the local public schools Woodruff's father performed the sealing ceremony. The following October, during a general conference of the church, he was called by his father as an apostle. He was 24 years old. Woodruff was the youngest member of the quorum at the time. and was tasked with "traveling to various LDS congregations to dedicate buildings, call church leaders, and generally oversee the operations of the church." He then motioned for all the bishops and high councilors to stand up; and when it became obvious that only half of them were in attendance, Woodruff told the crowd that he "wished they [the absent bishops and high councilors] would hand in their resignations." At a stake conference in St. George, Utah, he told attendees of the importance of "improving [their] horses, cattle, sheep and fowls in general." At a conference of the Granite Stake in 1903, Woodruff quoted Theodore Roosevelt on the value of labor. Woodruff also took part in various additional functions as an apostle: he was present for the celebration of the thirteenth anniversary of the establishment of LDS College and, in 1901, he took part in planning the Brigham Young anniversary celebration. He was also a member of the general board of the Young Men's Mutual Improvement Association. Owen Woodruff inherited from him two shares in the Zion's Savings Bank and Trust Co. Woodruff's father also appointed him, along with Asahel Hart, David Patten, Newton Woodruff, and Wilford Woodruff Jr., to compile and publish his biography. He focused much of his efforts as apostle on establishing new LDS settlements outside of Utah Territory. Additionally, Woodruff told the Salt Lake Herald Republican, "Our people are naturally agriculturalists, industrious and thrifty, and if the Big Horn country is what I am told it is, the colony should prove very successful." Land in the basin cost 25 cents per acre for settlers. Preparations for the settlement were finalized in March 1900. Under Woodruff's direction, 500 Latter day Saints settled in Big Horn County, Wyoming in May 1900. He was there to greet them upon arrival. Then, in July 1901, group of Latter day Saints from Sanpete County, Utah; Ogden, Utah; and Coalville, Utah left for Big Horn as well. One of the settlers' first projects was the construction of an irrigation system.

During one of his trips to Bighorn Basin, Woodruff met Eliza Avery Clark in Star Valley, Wyoming. He married her in 1901 while still married to his first wife, Helen, thus entering into plural marriage 11 years after his father issued the 1890 Manifesto, which ended polygamy as an official practice of the church. Woodruff was not alone in entering into post Manifesto polygamy; there is evidence that other church leaders did the same, recognizing the Manifesto as the end of practicing plural marriage publicly but not privately. His marriage to Clark was largely kept a secret, and it is unknown if Joseph F. Smith, the church president at the time, gave permission for the union to take place. Of his decision to practice plural marriage, authors Lu Ann Faylor Snyder and Phillip A. Snyder wrote: "Eventually, apparently after much soul searching, Owen determined to embrace post Manifesto polygamy because he must have believed that the laws of God would eventually supersede those of the government despite the Manifesto’s promise of the church’s legal compliance."

While in Mexico, his wife Helen Woodruff contracted smallpox and died on June 7, 1904 The couple had been encouraged to be vaccinated against the disease, but Woodruff had opted not to receive the vaccine. he began to travel back to the US, Woodruff died on June 20, 1904, at the age of 31 in the Granite Stake Tabernacle. The Deseret Evening News reported that around 1,500 people were in attendance. Francis M. Lyman, Seymour B. Young, Junius F. Wells, Martha H. Tingey, Maria Young Dougall, and J. Golden Kimball participated in the program. W. W. Maughan "read a biographical sketch of Apostle Woodruff." Heber J. Grant and his wife took care of Owen and Helen Woodruff's four children after their deaths. On July 17, 1993, Woodruff's body was transported from El Paso to Salt Lake City and was reinterred in the Salt Lake City Cemetery. His wife Helen's body was moved from Mexico City to rest beside Woodruff's.