![Louie Felt and May Anderson
[A]t least one Mormon woman went so far as to request that her husband marry polygamously after she fell in love with another woman, so that the two women could openly live together. Sarah Louisa Bouton married Joseph Felt in 1866 as his first wife but according to a 1919 biography, around 1874, Louie (the masculinized nickname she used) met and “fell in love with” a young woman in her local LDS congregation named Alma Elizabeth (Lizzie) Mineer. After discovering her intense passion for Lizzie Mineer, a childless Louie encouraged Joseph to marry the young woman as a plural wife, explaining “that some day they would be privileged to share their happiness with some little ones.” Joseph married Lizzie Mineer in 1876. But Lizzie’s new responsibilities of bearing and raising children evidently proved too great a strain for her and Louie’s relationship. Five years later Louie Felt fell in love with “another beautiful Latter-day Saint girl” named Lizzie Liddell, and again Joseph obligingly married her for Louie’s sake. Thus Louie “opened her home and shared her love” with this second Lizzie.
In 1883, 33 year old Louie Felt met 19 year-old May Anderson, and they also fell in love. This time, however, May did not marry Joseph Felt. In 1889 May moved in with Louie, and Joseph permanently moved out of the house Louie had built and bought on her own. Thus began one of the most intense, stable, and productive love relationships in turn-of-the-century Mormonism. These two women lived together for almost 40 years, and together presided over three of Mormonism’s most significant institutions: the General Primary Association (for Mormon children), the Children’s Friend (a magazine for young Mormons), and founding the Primary Children’s Hospital. Louie and May were fairly open about the romantic and passionate aspects of their relationship, as reported in their biographies published in several early issues of the LDS Children’s Friend. According to their recent biographer, Felt and Anderson’s relationship was a “symbiotic partnership with each compensating for the weaknesses and complementing the strengths of the other”. The 1919 Children’s Friend biography more bluntly declared that “the friendship which had started when Sister Felt and [May Anderson] met…ripened into love. Those who watched their devotion to each other declare that there never were more ardent lovers than these two”. The same biography also calls the beginning of their relationship a “time of love feasting”, and makes it clear that the two women shared the same bed. Twice in the Children’s Friend, Anderson and Felt were referred to as “the David and Jonathan” of the Primary, which, the magazine explained, was a common appellation for the women. For centuries, the biblical characters David and Jonathan have been classic signifiers of male-male desire and homoeroticism, because in the Hebrew scriptures, it was written in 2 Samuel 1:26 that upon Jonathan’s death in battle, David lamented, “very pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.” That these two women were described as “David and Jonathan” simultaneously masculinizes them and firmly encodes their love for each other in a homoerotic context.
From the essay “The Abominable and Detestable Crime Against Nature”: A Revised History of Homosexuality & Mormonism, 1840-1980 by Connell O’Donovan](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lwii8r4GSl1qdxm2to1_400.jpg)
Louie Felt and May Anderson
[A]t least one Mormon woman went so far as to request that her husband marry polygamously after she fell in love with another woman, so that the two women could openly live together. Sarah Louisa Bouton married Joseph Felt in 1866 as his first wife but according to a 1919 biography, around 1874, Louie (the masculinized nickname she used) met and “fell in love with” a young woman in her local LDS congregation named Alma Elizabeth (Lizzie) Mineer. After discovering her intense passion for Lizzie Mineer, a childless Louie encouraged Joseph to marry the young woman as a plural wife, explaining “that some day they would be privileged to share their happiness with some little ones.” Joseph married Lizzie Mineer in 1876. But Lizzie’s new responsibilities of bearing and raising children evidently proved too great a strain for her and Louie’s relationship. Five years later Louie Felt fell in love with “another beautiful Latter-day Saint girl” named Lizzie Liddell, and again Joseph obligingly married her for Louie’s sake. Thus Louie “opened her home and shared her love” with this second Lizzie.
In 1883, 33 year old Louie Felt met 19 year-old May Anderson, and they also fell in love. This time, however, May did not marry Joseph Felt. In 1889 May moved in with Louie, and Joseph permanently moved out of the house Louie had built and bought on her own. Thus began one of the most intense, stable, and productive love relationships in turn-of-the-century Mormonism. These two women lived together for almost 40 years, and together presided over three of Mormonism’s most significant institutions: the General Primary Association (for Mormon children), the Children’s Friend (a magazine for young Mormons), and founding the Primary Children’s Hospital. Louie and May were fairly open about the romantic and passionate aspects of their relationship, as reported in their biographies published in several early issues of the LDS Children’s Friend. According to their recent biographer, Felt and Anderson’s relationship was a “symbiotic partnership with each compensating for the weaknesses and complementing the strengths of the other”. The 1919 Children’s Friend biography more bluntly declared that “the friendship which had started when Sister Felt and [May Anderson] met…ripened into love. Those who watched their devotion to each other declare that there never were more ardent lovers than these two”. The same biography also calls the beginning of their relationship a “time of love feasting”, and makes it clear that the two women shared the same bed. Twice in the Children’s Friend, Anderson and Felt were referred to as “the David and Jonathan” of the Primary, which, the magazine explained, was a common appellation for the women. For centuries, the biblical characters David and Jonathan have been classic signifiers of male-male desire and homoeroticism, because in the Hebrew scriptures, it was written in 2 Samuel 1:26 that upon Jonathan’s death in battle, David lamented, “very pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.” That these two women were described as “David and Jonathan” simultaneously masculinizes them and firmly encodes their love for each other in a homoerotic context.
From the essay “The Abominable and Detestable Crime Against Nature”: A Revised History of Homosexuality & Mormonism, 1840-1980 by Connell O’Donovan
![“Newspapers critical of Mormon polygamy also published cartoons of polygamous relationships as salacious and lascivious. Some cartoonists could not resist titillating the public with quasi-Lesbian images of multiple women sharing one bed with their lone husband. One such image, circa 1880, is captioned, “Last into Bed Put Out the Light”. As the 15 or so wives clamor to get into one large bed, their husband claps his hands in glee and says, “O let us be joyful” (not legible in the image [above]). The observer is left to ponder what the obviously sexually-anxious women will do who can’t get close to the solitary man in the bed.”
- from The Abominable and Detestable Crime Against Nature: A Revised History of Homosexuality & Mormonism, 1840-1980 by Connell O’Donovan](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3i48kENjO1qdxm2to1_1280.jpg)
![Perrigrine Sessions with six of his wives. Perrigrine was the founder of Sessions Settlement, which later became Bountiful, Utah
front row, l-r: Lucina Call, Fanny Emerett Loveland, Sarah Crossley, Sarah Ann Bryson
back row, l-r: Esther Mabey, Perrigrine Sessions, Elizabeth Bridno
itlookedlikethisonce:
A Latter-day Saint with his six wives [posed on porch]
c1885
Photoprint copyrighted by John P. Soule.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lyebuxXTnN1r3cne2o1_1280.jpg)
