[Eliza Jones & Wilford Woodruff correspondance]
[Eliza Jones:] Will you please answer a few questions I wish to ask you. I am the widow of Thomas C. Jones of your Circle. He died soon after we came from [the] Logan Temple working for our Dead and having our 2d [an]o[i]nting[s] where we [were] told to attend to the Washing of Feet at home. The baby was sick after we came home so I asked Bro[ther] Jones when we should attend to it and he said we had better wait till the baby is better but he was taken sick and Died before it was attended to. Can that be done by Proxy or not as I feel sorry about it for he was a good man and I gave him 2 living Wives and 3 Dead ones and worked hard to help him to keep them.
[Wilford Woodruff response:] The ordinance of which you speak, and which you say you failed to attend to before the death of your husband, is one that should not be written about, and it cannot be attended to by proxy. Your husband is dead and, so far as the ordinances is concerned, it is all right. If there are any of his children who were not born in the covenant and they are dead, a living child, or children can officiate for them in being sealed to their parents. You ask a question whether a sister can be sealed to her first husband, who never heard the gospel, if she has embraced it and has married and [has been] sealed to another. We do not consider it safe for a woman in the Church to be sealed to a man who died before receiving the gospel.
[Eliza I. Jones to Wilford Woodruff, Feb. 24, 1888; Wilford Woodruff to Eliza I. Jones, Feb. 24, 1888. These sources are from Anderson, Devery; The Development of LDS Temple Worship, 1846-2000: A Documentary History, http://amzn.to/TempleWorship]
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