Sarah was the first of four children born to Phineas Wright and Amanda Finch.
The family lived for some time in Knox County, Illinois, a Mormon community
with close ties to the Mormon city of Nauvoo. Moses Smith, who later became
James Strang's brother-in-law, and one of his most ardent supporters, was
the presiding High Priest of the Knox County Branch of the Mormon Church. Later, the Wright family lived in Potosi, Wisconsin, about 10 miles west of present day Platteville, in the southwestern corner of the state, along the Mississippi River. Phineas Wright probably found work in the nearby lead mines. In 1847, the family moved to Voree, where Phineas became a high ranking official in Strang's church. Phineas Wright and his family were among the original founders of the Order of Enoch. His brothers, Benjamin and Samuel Wright and their families, also joined Strang's church and communal society. The three Wright brothers were married to three sisters. On January 1, 1848, after a five day illness, Amanda Finch Wright, Sarah's mother, passed away. She was only 26 years old. The loss of their mother at such a young age must have affected the family deeply. Amanda had been "full of life and laughter." Strang described her as "one of the best of God's creatures." On January 2, 1848, she became the first person to be buried in the new Mormon cemetery in Voree. Sarah, 10, was the oldest of the four Wright children, and no doubt had much responsibility to take on. The other children, Phineas, Elizabeth Jane, and Zenas, were only 2, 6, and 8-years-old, respectively, at the time of their mother's death. Sometime in the next two years, Phineas Wright married Rebecca Wagenor, a young woman of 19. He moved to Beaver Island with his new wife and children in the summer of 1850, and was ordained an apostle at the July conference in 1850. Phineas was a farmer, as well as a "cooper," or barrel maker. He made barrels for the fishermen on and around Beaver Island to place their fish in for salting and shipping. Sarah and the other young people on Beaver Island likely worked hard, helping to clear the land, raise the crops, and to build wooden-framed homes. Between April 11, and June 23, 1851, 99 Mormon men were arrested and taken off the island to answer to trumped up criminal charges, pressed by hostile "gentile" neighbors. Before the end of August, every man had been legally acquitted. A great number of men were also taken away on compulsory service as witnesses, leaving at one time, only 24 men on the island. The women cultivated the fields and produced the crops which saved the settlement from starvation the following winter. James O. McNutt, who lived on the island as a child, said that the women and children carded wool and spun it into thread on spinning wheels. He said that the Mormons on Beaver Island raised and grew everything they ate, except for flour. They also grew feed for their animals. Sarah's father was opposed to her marrying the "prophet," James Strang. Phineas Wright, although one of the apostles, may not have been a supporter of polygamy. Records show only two marriages for him, the first with Amanda Finch, who died, and the second with Rebecca Wagenor after Amanda's death. Phineas's brother, Benjamin Wright, took four additional wives on Beaver Island, and Samuel Wright, his other brother, married at least one more woman while his legal wife was still living. Phineas told Sarah he was afraid that she would not be happy, and that " he would almost as soon see her buried, as married in polygamy." "But I took the chance," Sarah told Milo Quaife, sixty years later. "I thought he was the Lord's chosen prophet and all would be right." It was widely rumored among the people on Beaver Island that Strang married Sarah at the same time that he married her cousin Phoebe. Sarah told Milo Quaife that the marriages were contracted in the summer of 1855, but that she married Strang a few months before his marriage with Phoebe. One of Strang's apostles married them on July 15, 1855, during a visit to Holy Island. She was 18, and he was 42. Both Sarah and Phoebe were honored to be chosen as plural wives of the prophet, she said.  Quaife asked Sarah if all four wives lived in the same home. ". . . we did, but had separate rooms--and all met in prayer and ate at the same table--he [Strang] was a very mild-spoken, kind man to his family, although his word was law--we were all honest in our religion, and made things as pleasant as possible--there were four of us living in one house, " she said. "We had no quarrel, no jealousies, that I knew of . . . ." she added. Sarah was ordained to be a church teacher, and as a general recorder to keep the list of baptisms for the dead on Beaver Island. After Strang was shot, his wives Betsey McNutt and Phoebe Wright accompanied him back to Voree, while Sarah and Elvira left the island a few days later. Sarah was on board the steamer Buckeye State on July 9, 1856, with her father and his family, when she learned of Strang's death. A son of Benjamin Wright met the boat at the pier in Racine, Wisconsin, with the news that Strang had died that morning. Strang's followers were thunderstruck. They had expected their prophet to survive, and to complete the work Joseph Smith had started. Sarah, five months pregnant, went with her father's family and a few other followers, to Black River Falls, Wisconsin, to live. "I had no other way to live, only with my father," she said. Sarah's son, James Phineas Strang, was born in Black River Falls, on November 11, 1856. A portrait taken of Sarah about 1857, after the death of James Strang, shows an attractive, sad-eyed woman with dark hair and fair skin, holding her baby on her lap. While living near Black River Falls, Sarah met a member of the Mormon Church who supported Brigham Young, a young doctor by the name of Joseph Smith Wing. Sometime before 1859, while Sarah was still in her early twenties, she and Wing were married. Sarah's younger sister, Elizabeth Jane, married Wing's nephew. Both women joined the other Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and moved with their husbands to Utah in 1862. Among Sarah's possessions that she carried across the plains, was a small portrait of James Strang that he had given to her at the time of their wedding. Sarah had five children with Joseph Wing. One child was born along the now famous Mormon Trail near Florence, (Omaha) Nebraska. Wing taught Sarah the medical profession, and she later became a doctor in her own right. The family settled in Springville, Utah, about five miles south of Provo.  Sarah renounced the practice of polygamy after Strang's death in 1856. When her second husband, also, took multiple wives, Sarah participated once again in a polygamous marriage, but separated from her husband sometime before 1868. She set up a medical practice in her Springville home, where she was highly respected in the community. Sarah, and at least two of her six children, became inactive in the Mormon church in Utah. James Phineas Strang, Sarah's son with James J. Strang, was raised to believe that his last name was Wing. Fearful that he might follow in his father's footstep's, Sarah made every effort to hide from him all knowledge of Strang's career. Until he was almost grown, James Phineas did not even know who his real father was. At one time, Sarah became very ill, and was told that she would not recover. She ordered "her people" to gather up all of James Strang's books and papers, and to burn them. "If the Lord wanted my son to do any work, he was abundantly able to tell him without any old books or manuscripts of his father's," she said. Sarah died on August 18,1923, at the home of her daughter in Boise, Idaho. She was 87 years old |