Polygamy

[Martin Hash]

My wife, Gwynne, loved that television series, “Big Love,” about the Mormon man with 3 wives, so she was very interested when I told her that I was descended from a polygamous marriage, my ancestors being Mormon and me being born in Moab, Utah where my grandfather was mayor for 16 years. She wondered why I hadn’t told her before? I think I had but maybe not, my cousin didn’t know when she heard me talking about it at her nephew’s wedding in Salt Lake. My mom had a handmade biography of the culprit, if that’s the word for him, John Solomon Fullmer, Mormonism’s founder and first prophet Joseph Smith’s private secretary, and his sister was one of Smith’s 40+ plural wives.

John Solomon Fullmer & Olive Amanda Smith.jpg

John Solomon Fullmer married Olive Amanda Smith (the middle of 3 wives, no relation to Joseph Smith), followed by:
Mary Ann Fullmer
Mary Drucilla Lisonbee
Maud West (my great grandma)
Irvin Winford Bunce (my grandpa)
Merilee Hash (my mom)
Martin Hash (me)

My DNA ancestry trace, 23andMe, shows hundreds of relations but only one, besides my mom, as high as 10%, which seems pretty diluted considering all the Mormon cousins marrying cousins over the generations since they settled in Utah. Gwynne never said whether she would have consented to a plural marriage; I suspect she would have given the circumstances. Those guys back-in-the-day who had multiple wives certainly didn’t need anything else to entertain them.

[Haumana]

I bet it would have cured your car enthusiast proclivity. Maybe you would have gotten your doctorate in OB/GYN.

[Martin Hash]

I bet it would have cured your car enthusiast proclivity. Maybe you would have gotten your doctorate in OB/GYN.

I’ve delivered babies.