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On the 200th anniversary of President Wilford Woodruff's birth, hundreds of his descendants gathered in the Assembly Hall on Temple Square March 1 to mark the occasion and to hear addresses from Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve and his wife, Patricia.
Though neither is a Woodruff descendant, both Elder and Sister Holland have significant Wilford Woodruff heritage, of which each spoke: Sister Holland is descended from Zera Pulsipher, one of two missionaries who brought the message of the restored gospel to Wilford in 1833; Elder Holland's ancestor is John Benbow, who was converted in England in 1840 — along with some 600 other members of the United Brethren — by Elder Woodruff.
Aside from observing President Woodruff's bicentenary, the gathering in the Assembly Hall was significant for other reasons. For one, it harkened back to President Woodruff's 90th birthday celebration in 1897 in the Salt Lake Tabernacle, just 200 feet to the north of the Assembly Hall.
"There, on two different nights, as many as 10,000 people gathered, one night for the Primary children, and one night for the adults," Wilford Bruce Woodruff, president of the
Woodruff Family Association, told the congregation.
One of the events of that 1897 occasion was replicated for the 200th birthday observance. It is reported that children came forward one by one, each bringing a white rose to President Woodruff, who was seated on the stand in the Tabernacle. Accordingly, with the Hollands sitting as proxy for President Gordon B. Hinckley, children in the Assembly Hall congregation came forward, each giving a white rose to the couple. On the rose blossoms were imprinted special greetings to President Hinckley or allusions to his "Be's" address (as in "be grateful," "be humble," etc.).
The next morning, all 97 roses — one for each year of President Hinckley's life — were taken to Church headquarters where they were placed in a vase and delivered to President Hinckley, said Richard Woodruff Lambert, vice president of the Woodruff Family Association.
In her talk, Sister Holland told of President Woodruff first learning about the Church while living near his home in Connecticut and then later encountering missionaries in New York.
On Dec. 29, 1833, two elders of the Church came to his home in Richland. "They were Zera Pulsipher and Elijah Cheney," Sister Holland recounted. "At the time of their appearance, Wilford and his brother Azmon were at work in the fields, but Azmon's wife welcomed the two elders kindly and reassured them her husband would be anxious to hear them preach."
Sister Holland read President Woodruff's own account from his journal of his hastening to a schoolhouse where a meeting with the two elders had been scheduled. Two days later, the Woodruff brothers were baptized.
"My part in this program is to give thanks that my grandfather, who was baptized a scarce two years before Brother Woodruff, accepted the gospel and the responsibility to preach it," she said. "For my grandfather (technically my great-great-grandfather) was Zera Pulsipher, the very missionary who knocked on the Woodruffs' door in Richland, preached that night at the schoolhouse, and baptized President Woodruff two days later in that ice-encrusted water."
Elder Holland then gave "the rest of the story," recounting Elder Woodruff's "remarkable success at Benbow's Farm, near Ledbury, England, the scene of perhaps the most famous and oft-told missionary story in this dispensation."
Sent in 1840 to England along with other apostles, Elder Woodruff was assigned to Staffordshire in the heart of the "potteries" district, Elder Holland said. There, he received the distinct impression he was to go south. Conversing with his newfound friend, William Benbow, Elder Woodruff learned that other Benbow family members resided in Herefordshire. There, in company with Brother Benbow, he journeyed.
At the Benbow Farm, he met John Benbow, his wife, Jane, and a 14-year-old niece who all received the message of the restored gospel with joy.
"Of course, we know that not only did the Benbows rejoice in the news of the gospel," Elder Holland said, "but Elder Woodruff noted that he 'rejoiced greatly at the news that Mr. Benbow gave me, that there was a company of men and women — over 600 in number — who had broken off from the Wesleyan Methodists and taken the name of United Brethren.... (Benbow said that the Brethren had been) searching for light and truth, but had gone as far as they could, and were continually calling upon the Lord to open the way before them, (to) send them light and knowledge that they might know the true way to be saved."'
"Now, and only now," Elder Holland added, "do we get to the real import of all this history, for the next day, Monday, March 9, Elder
Woodruff baptized 12 more members of the Benbow family, including (and especially, I might say) my great-great-grandmother Ellen Benbow, that 14-year-old niece by birth and daughter by adoption of John and Jane Benbow I mentioned earlier. You see, just as with Sister Holland's story, this is not just a Woodruff celebration tonight, but it is a celebration for her, and so, too, for me. Within six months John, Jane and Ellen were sailing to join the saints in America, and that is how, just a short 167 years later, I get to be with you tonight on President Woodruff's 200th birthday anniversary."
Several events are planned this year in commemoration of the anniversary, some of which were mentioned in a March 3 Church News article. In that article, it was mentioned that seminars will be held in historic sites significant to President Woodruff's life. The seminars will be under the auspices of the Mormon Historic Sites Foundation, not the Mormon History Association, as erroneously reported in that article.
E-mail to: rscott@desnews.com
