A SECOND WIFE
Not
only after returning from Germany, and before real prosperity had been
achieved, Ed took a second wife. In 1903, he married Caroline’s younger sister,
Emma Romney. He was encouraged to do so by his father-in-law, who had declared
Ed “an ideal husband” (Eyring, Interview by Leonard R. Grover, 26). The Church
had instructed its members in the United States to cease the formation of
polygamous marriages in 1890, thirteen years earlier. However, polygamy was not
prosecuted in Mexico—that was the reason for both the Eyrings and the Romneys
being there—and Church leaders in the Mormon colonies continued to selectively
encourage polygamy until a final, worldwide prohibition was issued by the First
Presidency in Salt Lake City in 1904.
Ed’s
taking a second wife redefined his life. Already the father of our children, he
would ultimately become “papa” to eighteen, nine by each wife. One of the last
faithful Church members to contract a polygamy marriage, he would preside as
patriarch over his two families into the late 1950s. (Henry J. Eyring, Mormon
Scientist: The Life and Faith of Henry Eyring [Salt Lake City: Deseret
Book, 2007], 103)