Winter 1845 – 1846
On December 10, 1845, the Anointed Quorum entered the temple and, officiating for one another as Smith had shown them, they repeated the ordinances with the dignity he had intended but circumstances denied. Thus prepared, they invited the general membership to receive what the quorum had to give, including not only the ordinances themselves but also the right to administer them. The quorum was effectively dissolved once its members had performed these duties and their roles as members of other quorums and councils came to the fore. The disbanding of the Female Relief Society of Nauvoo led to the temple remaining the chief locus of women’s priestly activity.
More than 5,000 women and men participated in the temple ordinances over the next two months. Approximately 1,200 marital sealings were performed: some polygamous, most monogamous; some for the living, some by proxy for deceased spouses. Still others, both individuals and married couples, were joined to other marriages by approximately 200 adoption-like sealings, further elaborating on the complex network of kinship created by early Mormon marriage practices.
Sealings Between 1845-1846: List of all time and eternity sealings in the Nauvoo Temple (after 12/10/1845 but before 3/1/1846). Under Construction
Recommended Reading
Anderson, Devery S. The Nauvoo Endowment Companies, 1845-1846. Signature Books, 2005.
Grow, Matthew J., Ronald K. Esplin, Mark Ashurst-McGee, Gerrit J. Dirkmaat, and Jeffrey D. Mahas. The Joseph Smith Papers: Administrative Records: Council of Fifty, Minutes, March 1844-January 1846 (2016)
Madsen, Carol Cornwall. “Mormon Women and the Temple: Toward a New Understanding.” Sisters in Spirit: Mormon Women in Historical and Cultural Perspective, by Maureen Ursenbach Beecher, and Lavina Fielding Anderson, ed., (University of Illinois, 1992): 80-110.
Leonard, Glen M. “Nauvoo: A Place of Peace.” A People of Promise (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2002) 307.
McBride, Matthew S. A House for the Most High: The Story of the Original Nauvoo Temple. Greg Kofford Books, 2007.