Margaret Y. Taylor biography

L. Tom Perry Special Collections is pleased to announce the availability of a new digitized collection: Margaret Y. Taylor biography (MSS 1153). This is a typewritten biography by an unknown author with handwritten corrections. Margaret Young Taylor (1837-1919) was one of Latter-day Saint Church President John Taylor’s wives and served as vice president of the General Board of the Young Ladies’ Mutual Improvement Association.

Margaret Young was born in Westport, Connecticut on April 24, 1837, to Ebenezer Russell Young and Margaret Holden Young, the oldest of eight children. In November 1852, she converted to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She received her education at a young ladies seminary and became a schoolteacher in Westport when she was 18 years old. She met John Taylor while he was serving as president of the Eastern States mission for the LDS Church. On September 27, 1856 she married Taylor as a plural wife. They emigrated to Utah Territory in 1857 where she taught school for two years.

Taylor became secretary of the Salt Lake Stake Relief Society upon its organization. In 1880, when Elmina Shepard Taylor became the first general president of the church’s Young Ladies’ National Mutual Improvement Association, Margaret Taylor was chosen as the first counselor in the presidency. After John Taylor died on 25 July 1887, Margaret Taylor resigned her position and was replaced by Maria Young Dougall.

Taylor died in Salt Lake City, Utah on May 3, 1919. She was the mother of nine of John Taylor’s 34 children.

(From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Young_Taylor)