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Frances Ward ("Fanny") Alger Custer (September 30, 1816 – November 29, 1889)〔Todd Compton, ''In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith'' (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1997) has no date for Alger's death; however, a descendant has since discovered a clipped ( obituary ) in a family Bible.〕 was possibly the first plural wife of Joseph Smith, the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, although scholars have disagreed about whether Smith's relationship with Alger was an early plural marriage or simply a sexual indiscretion. ==Biography== Alger was born to Samuel Alger and Clarissa Hancock on September 30, 1816, in Rehoboth, Bristol County, Massachusetts, the fourth of eleven children. Samuel was a carpenter who had built a house for the father of future Mormon leader Heber C. Kimball. Clarissa was a sister of Mormon stalwart Levi W. Hancock. The Algers first moved to Ashtabula, Ohio, and then to Mayfield, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, ten miles southwest of the Mormon settlement at Kirtland. In 1830, Samuel (and apparently Clarissa) were baptized into Mormonism and thus became some of its earliest converts.〔Compton, ''In Sacred Loneliness'', 26. Samuel was baptized by Parley P. Pratt.〕 In September 1836, after Fanny had spent some time as a teenage servant in the home of Joseph and Emma Smith, the Algers left Kirtland. Joseph Smith asked Fanny's uncle, Levi Hancock, to conduct her to Missouri, but she accompanied her parents instead. The Algers stopped in Dublin, Wayne County, Indiana, and there Fanny met and, on November 16, 1838, married Solomon Custer, a non-Mormon, listed in various censuses as a grocer, baker, and merchant. Although her parents continued on their way to Nauvoo, Illinois, and eventually Utah Territory, the Custers remained in Indiana. Fanny bore nine children, only two of whom survived her. In 1874, she joined the Universalist church in Dublin. Her funeral was held at the Dublin church after she died at the home of her son in Indianapolis, Indiana, on November 29, 1889.〔Compton, ''In Sacred Loneliness'', 39-42; Richard Lyman Bushman, ''Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling'' (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), 323-27; ( obituary ). Alger's mother and father died in Utah in 1870 and 1874 respectively. According to a (genealogy posted on the internet ), the two Custer children who survived their parents were Benjamin Franklin Custer (October 17, 1849 - July 16, 1923, d. Dublin, Indiana) and Lafayette Paul Custer (August 29, 1854 - August 19, 1930).〕 Many years later, an early acquaintance remembered the young Alger of Kirtland as a "very nice and comely young woman ... toward whom ... everyone seemed partial for the amiability of her character."〔(Benjamin F. Johnson, ''My Life's Review'' )(Independence, Missouri: Zion's Printing and Publishing Co., 1947).〕 Her obituary reported that in Indiana she was "generally beloved by all who knew her and was noted for her benevolence of spirit and generous-heartedness."〔(obituary ).〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Fanny Alger」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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