". . . I anointed her with the oil in the name of the Lord. I rebuked the power of death and the destroyer, and commanded the same to depart from her, and the spirit of life to enter her body. Her spirit returned to her body, and from that hour she was made whole." She did, however, precede him to the next world. Unable to attend the funeral because he was wanted by federal agents in a polygamy crackdown, President Woodruff arranged to have her procession pass the house in which he was hiding. Because of the pain this caused him emotionally, there is a weeping willow on her headstone just a few feet from where he would later be buried.
Plural wife, Mary Jackson Ross, through disappointment and dissatisfaction she left her husband and married another. In later years she realized her mistake and desired her love to take her back into his family and eternity. At her death she was laid away in this family plot.
Probably most recognized at his time as Prophet was when plural marriage was leading toward the economic and political destruction of the Church. Shortly after these decisions, a revelation was received by President Wilford Woodruff, in 1890 he concluded that "for the temporal salvation of the church" it was necessary to end the practice of plural marriage, who then withdrew the requirement for worthy males to take plural wives and announced the manifesto, formally stating his counsel to Latter-day Saints to abide by anti-bigamy laws (see D&C Official Declaration-1). The Manifesto by revelation ended the legal confrontation between the U.S. government and the Church. The deeper threat was reflected in the massive economic, social, and political dislocations, eventually facing even the loss of our temples.
He died on September 2, 1898, at the age of ninety-one, in San Francisco, California, where he had occasionally gone to seek relief from the ailments of old age. Unusually he left behind directions for his family concerning his own burial, "I wish my body washed clean and clothed in clean white linen, according to the order of the Holy Priesthood, and put into a plain, descent coffin, made of native wood, with plenty of room. I do not wish any black made use of about my coffin, or about the vehicle the conveys my body to the grave . . . if I am true and faithful unto death, there will be no necessity for any one to mourn for me. I have no directions to give concerning the services of my funeral, andy further thatn it would be pleasing to me for as many of the Presidnecy and Twelve Apostles who may be present to speak as my be thought wisdom. Their speeches will be to the living.
"If the laws and customs of the spirit world will permit, I should wish to attend my funeral myself, but I shall be governed by the counsel I receive in the spirit world.
" I wish a plain marble slab put at the head of my grave, stating my name and age, and that I died in the faith of the Gospel of Christ and in the fellowship of the Saints."
