REMEMBERING FRANCES MONSON and contemplating the lives of prophets's wives

Frances Monson died this week. 

She was for 65 years the wife of Thomas Monson, who has served as an apostle of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints since 1963, a member of The First Presidency since 1985 and President of the Church since 2008. 

She married Tom back in 1948.   She married him when they were both quite young, and I suspect that she expected he would probably have  a long editing and publishing career at Deseret Book and serve in  some church leadership callings.  Instead, he rose high quickly.  Tom served as a bishop to a large ward full of old people when he was in his mid 20s.  At the age of 32, he served as a Canadian mission president during a period of time when the First Presidency, influenced by President Henry D Moyle, like to call young,  $ucce$$ful men to lead missionaries.   When Tom was 36, President McKay ordained him the youngest apostle of that generation. 

The practical result of this was  –  He traveled away from home for weeks at a time.  She got to raise her three children as a solo act for long stretches of time.   She got to attend all sorts of meetings and talk at them whether she really wanted to or not. 

I heard Camilla Kimball speak at BYU in 1982.  I heard Frances Monson speak at a regional conference in the early 2000s — I think it was her.    I remember elements of Camilla’s talk very clearly.   I do not remember the other talk at all. 

When Mrs. J Reuben Clark was asked once about her life as J Reuben’s wife, she reply simply and with a certain resignation, “Fate decreed otherwise.”  A Mormon  girl simply cannot specifically plan or prepare for the sort of existence that engulfs the wife of an apostle or church president.   It’s not a tough life in the sense of repairing desert railroads or working  in a coal mine or hunting in the Arctic.  It is a tough life, though;  it takes its toll on health and energy.

 The press releases would not say what Frances died of except the euphemistic “causes incident related to age.”  I know I would die from exhausted by that sort of siege mentality lifestyle, especially when one cannot really retire from it. 

Frances Monson is only the latest church president’s wife who died before her husband.    Since 1945 most church president’s wives have died before their husbands.  The mortality-timing issue in regards to the Church President’s wife features is startlingly noticeable —  even before some presidents’s ordinations.

Frances Monson    2013    
President Monson outlived her

Marjorie Hinckley    2004    
President Hinckley outlived her
 
Clara Hunter        1983    
President Hunter outlived her.                                        Second wife Enis Egan outlived him by 12 years
 
Flora Benson        1992    
President Benson outlived her
 
Camilla Kimball       
Outlived President Kimball by 2 years
 
Fern Lee        1962    
 President Lee outlived her.   Second wife Joan outlived him by 11 years

Jessie Evans Smith    1971    
President Smith outlived her and she was years younger than he.    He outlived all three of his wives
 
Emma Ray McKay    1970    
 Outlived President McKay, though she also died in 1970
 
Lucy Smith        1937    
President Smith outlived her and served as president  as a widower  


In my lifetime

Members of the First Presidency J Reuben Clark, Hugh B Brown, and Marion G Romney all outlived their wives.

Apostles L Tom Perry, Russell M Nelson, Dallin Oaks, and Richard G Scott all outlived their first wives.   


As for the LDS Church Presidents who practiced plural marriage:

Two of President Grant’s three plural wives died before him.    His third wife Augusta outlived him by 6 years.

Brigham Young, John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff, Lorenzo Snow and Joseph F Smith all experienced divorce and or death of plural spouses.   This tends to illustrate the fact that polygamy as an institution increases a man’s measure of grief. 

Considering President Monson

Frances’s death raises the issue as to whether President Monson will now occupy the penthouse reserved for the President of the Church –  a penthouse where Presidents Benson (1994), Hunter (1995), and Hinckley (2008)  all died.   No president of the LDS Church has remarried while in office.  One president served his entire administration as a widower with a widower counselor. 

He and Frances were married for 65 years and they knew each other longer than that.   This is no passing fancy or minor loss.   Not many relationships of that vintage are still around in Ameica's throw away / burn-out young culture.    The president’s bereavement and grief will be a leadership issue that the institutional church must endure.