BURIED TOGETHER
Partner Louie B. Felt
Queer Places:
209 Douglas St, Salt Lake City, UT 84102
Salt Lake City Cemetery, 200 N St E, Salt Lake City, UT 84103
May
Anderson (June 8, 1864 – June 11, 1946) was the second general president of
the children's Primary organization of The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) between 1925 and 1939. Anderson also served as
the first counselor to general Primary president
Louie B. Felt from 1905 to 1925. An issue
of Children's Friend paid tribute to the relationship of Louie B. Felt,
president of the Mormon organization for young children, and May Anderson, who
worked in Felt's organization and edited Children's Friend. Felt's intimacies
with women began within her polygynous marriage when she “fell in love” with a
woman named Lizzie Mineer and asked her husband to marry her. But it was
Anderson who came to share Felt's life. “Those who watched their devotion to
each other declare that there never were more ardent lovers than these two.”
They moved in together, and Felt's husband went to live with his other wives.
“Unless duty called them away from each other,” they never separated. “When
they were too tired to sit up any longer they put on their bathrobes and
crawled into bed to work until the wee hours of the night.”
Anderson was born in Liverpool, England, the third of Scott Anderson and
Mary Bruce's 12 children. She emigrated to Utah Territory with her family
after the family had been baptized by missionaries of the LDS Church. During
the journey to Utah, Anderson met Louie B. Felt, who would become a lifelong
friend and co-worker in the Primary Association of the church.
On October 5, 1890, Louie B. Felt, the general president of the Primary
Association, asked Anderson to become a member of the general board of the
organization. For the next forty-nine years, Anderson would work in some
capacity in the Primary organization of the LDS Church. She was the general
board's secretary for fifteen years (1890–1905), Felt's first counselor in the
general presidency for twenty years (1905–25), and general president of the
organization for fourteen years (1925–39). Anderson was also the first
editor-in-chief of The Children's Friend, the church's official
magazine for children.
During her tenure in the presidency of the Primary, Anderson initiated the
Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake City, which is today part of
Intermountain Healthcare. Anderson also helped establish kindergartens in
Utah. Anderson's successor to the Primary general presidency was May Green
Hinckley.
Anderson did not marry and died at Salt Lake City of arteriosclerosis.[1]
She was buried at Salt Lake City.
Anderson had a lifelong friendship with fellow church leader Louie B. Felt.
When Felt was suffering an illness in 1889, Felt's husband Joseph requested
May to stay there to care for her while he was away on a business trip. During
the period that Anderson was the editor-in-chief of The Children's Friend,
it published an anonymous account of the friendship that existed between Felt
and Anderson; the article referred to the couple as the "David and Jonathan of
the Primary" organization.[2]
This has led two dissident Mormon historians to theorize that Anderson and
Felt had a partially closeted lesbian relationship.[3][4]
However, other LDS researchers have disagreed with this theory, calling it
a distortion of LDS history and a misrepresention of facts.[5][6][7]
Two researchers have stated: "No evidence exists to lead us to believe that
their relationship was anything but that of true and chaste Christian
friendship and sisterly love."[5]
My published books:
BACK TO HOME PAGE
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_Anderson
- Rupp, Leila J.. A Desired Past (pp.61-62). University of Chicago
Press. Edizione del Kindle.