Emily Dow Partridge

Emily Dow Partridge Young was a wife to both Joseph Smith, Jr. and Brigham Young. She wrote about her marriage to Joseph Smith:

I was married to him on the 11th of May, 1843, by Elder James Adams. Emma was present. She gave her free and full consent. She had always up to this time, been very kind to me and my sister Eliza, who was also married to the Prophet Joseph Smith with Emma's consent; but ever after she was our enemy. She used every means in her power to injure us in the eyes of her husband, and before strangers, and in consequence of her abuse we were obliged to leave the city to gratify her, but things were overruled otherwise, and we remained in Nauvoo. My sister Eliza found a home with the family of Brother Joseph Coolidge, and I went to live with Sister Sylvia Lyons. She was a good woman, and one of the Lord's chosen few.

After the martyrdom of Joseph Smith, Emily was sealed for time to President Brigham Young in September 1844. Emily lived one winter at Mount Pisgah, Iowa, and another at Winter Quarters, Nebraska, before arriving at last at the Salt Lake Valley in 1848. In all, Emily and Brigham had seven children together.

Emily was born the third daughter to Edward Partridge and Lydia Clisbee on February 28, 1824 in Painesville, Geauga County, Ohio. Her father was a well to do hatter and provided a comfortable living for his family.

The family was converted to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1830. Afterwards, their comfortable existence was lost as they moved to Kirtland, then with the Saints to Missouri, and then to Nauvoo, Illinois.

Her father was very ill when he attempted to build his family a home. “Father had the chills and fever, but he felt so anxious to build a house for his family, which had to be done mostly by his own labor, that he felt he could hardly spare time to be sick, so he would take quinine and break up the chills for a week or two, so that he could labor on his house, and when the chills returned he would take more quinine and go to work again; but he saw that it would take a long time at this rate to get into his house, so he concluded to build a stable for his cows and move his family into that; but moving was the last thing he ever did in this life. He died on the 27th of May, 1840, in his forty-seventh year.”[1]

Emily and her sister Eliza were forced by their poverty to help support the family. Emma Smith sent for her to come and live with the family and help her care for her new baby. “It seemed as if the Lord had opened up my way, it was so unexpected, and nothing could have suited me better, for tending babies was my delight. My sister Eliza also went there to live, which made it pleasanter for me and more home-like. Joseph and Emma were very kind to us; they were almost like a father and mother, and I loved Emma and the children, especially the baby, little Don Carlos.”[2] Emily named one of her children, Don Carlos Young after him.

Emily died in December 1899 at the home of her daughter, Mrs. Emily Clawson.