Taylor falls in love with work on Wilford Woodruff Papers

Last February in Trophy Club, Texas, Kristy Taylor was a guest speaker in the series, Voices of Faith, hosted by the Alliance congregations of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She shared how her faith in Christ has been strengthened by studying the stories of the restoration of the Gospel, as recorded by former prophet and president of the Church, Wilford Woodruff. Over the past five years, Taylor has played a central role in the work of the Wilford Woodruff Papers Foundation, a non-profit formed to collect, digitize, transcribe and publish all of his meticulously recorded personal documents from his long life. Taylor humbly attests that the evolution of events that led to her participation in this massive project was “no coincidence.”

No Coincidence

In January 2020, Kristy Taylor was looking for a “new project.” She had spent many happy years devoting her time and talents to raising her four children alongside her husband, Rob, who works as an aerospace engineer. But with three kids in college and the fourth starting high school in the fall, she found herself at a crossroads. Not one to sit idly by, she was ready for a new challenge. 

It was during this period that Taylor was invited to attend the first official board meeting of the Wilford Woodruff Papers Foundation. A close acquaintance, Matt Kotter, who was serving as bishop of the Heritage congregation at the time, had been involved in the papers project with his brother from the very beginning. Knowing Taylor’s talents and dedication, he urged her to attend.

“I got into it a little nervously,” she recalls. “I thought I could stay in the background and observe for a while.” 

Taylor may have been expecting to just dip her toe in, but she laughingly admits she was “thrown into the deep end.”

At the meeting, she sat quietly observing until the director announced they were nominating Taylor to be board secretary. She looked at Bishop Kotter in shock and whispered, “What have you done? This was not the deal.” 

His reply: “Just go with it. It’ll be fine.”

Though a little stunned, Taylor agreed. “It was the first meeting, I didn’t feel like I could say no.”

After somewhat of an awkward start, Taylor soon fell in love with the work and committed to diligently apply her knowledge and skills to making the story of the restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ more accessible to the world. Surely, her involvement in this work was no coincidence. As Taylor says, “God is in the details.” 

Her strong faith in the Lord, along with her keen mind and extensive education had prepared her to accept this challenge and assist in perpetuating this work of sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Prepared for the Work

Taylor grew up in historic Boston where she naturally developed a love of history and the arts from an early age. She fondly remembers visits to the home of Louisa May Alcott with her mother and going on school field trips to places like Revolutionary War battlefields and Paul Revere’s house. 

“There was just so much history all around us,” she said. “I kind of thought that’s what people did when they were kids.”

Of all the historical destinations surrounding her childhood home, Taylor most loved visiting the museum of Isabella Stewart Gardner — a 19th century American philanthropist, art collector and patron of the arts. The collections of paintings, sculptures, furniture, tapestries, manuscripts, rare books and decorative arts were undoubtedly formative in her young mind and instilled in her an intriguing curiosity and love for art.

As a freshman at Brigham Young University, her major was still undecided until her sister encouraged her to consider humanities. “Humanities is really about how the arts and history intersect,” she shares, “so I didn’t have to pick one as my favorite.” 

Taylor went on to receive a degree in humanities from BYU and a master’s degree in Italian Renaissance Humanities. As it turned out, she and Rob were expecting their first daughter while she was defending her thesis. “I don’t recommend it,” she quips.

When asked if she found some portion of her degree useful in her work on the Wilford Woodruff Papers, she replied: “Well, there were some of the same skills, but there’s not a whole lot of Italian art in Wilford Woodruff.”  

After graduating from BYU, the little Taylor family moved to West Lafayette, Indiana, where Rob pursued his Ph.D and Kristy taught English at Purdue University until they had their second baby. The young couple did their best to balance teaching, schooling, a baby and another one on the way, but it was quite the juggling act.

“I taught afternoon classes,” she says, “so I would take the baby in the stroller up to his office, leave her there, go teach my class and he’d bring her home. My last semester teaching, I was pregnant and threw up in class and I was like, ‘that’s it.’” 

She finished up the semester and was done teaching. 

Among other things, Taylor also spent time working as a copy editor for a travel website and did technical writing and grant writing (which was not her favorite). Maybe it didn’t seem obvious at the time, but the experience and skills she gained while pursuing her education and raising a family became the perfect prelude to the work she would do for the Wilford Woodruff Papers. 

Working with Wilford

A self-proclaimed nerd, Taylor quickly fell in love with the work being done on the Wilford Woodruff Papers. “Writing and research are my thing, but never original historical documents. However, I think it’s super fun! I’m kind of nerdy like that,” she said. 

In another non-coincidence, Taylor’s parents had simultaneously become involved in the Wilford Woodruff Papers. In the preface to her book, “Prepare Me For Thy Use: Lessons from the Wilford Woodruff Mission Years”, Taylor recalls how she and her mom were assigned the work of transcribing and verifying documents:

“The first letter we transcribed was from September 1840, long before Wilford was sustained as the fourth president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, when Phebe Woodruff and her friend Margaret Smoot wrote to Wilford while he was serving a mission in England.

In the letter, Phebe and Margaret described the death of the Woodruffs’ oldest child, two-year-old Sarah Emma. It is a heart-wrenching account; my mom and I were both in tears by the end. I think our executive director, Jennifer Ann Mackley, gave us that particular letter on purpose, as a hook to keep us engaged and eager to learn more. It worked, and I’ve been on the project ever since.”

Taylor’s passion and excitement for Church history and this enormous project is contagious. “We are finding new things all the time,” she says. “Just when we think we are done, we find some more.”

Among the most remarkable examples was a recently discovered “treasure box” of letters, found sitting beside a furnace in an old family home. (For more on this story, visit the project’s website and watch the video titled “Treasure Box”.)

Currently, the bulk of the work Taylor is doing for the project, in addition to her role as board secretary, involves “topic tagging”. This is the last step in the process of identifying and coding names, places, scriptures and subjects to enhance accessibility across platforms like FamilySearch.org and match topics found on ChurchofJesusChrist.org. “Basically, you can search for whatever Wilford Woodruff had to say about any given topic,” she explains. “However, you can really get sucked in. Every time I look at it, I find something new.”

Her work represents only a portion of the enormous efforts of men and women who continue to volunteer countless hours in order to roll this marvelous work forward. 

“There’s a lot of time, money and expertise that goes into this work,” says Taylor.

Prepared for the Work

In 2023, Taylor’s dad, a former mission president, business leader and Harvard professor, spoke at a Wilford Woodruff conference at BYU. His address focused on the lessons of leadership and discipleship found in Woodruff’s mission experiences and what those lessons can teach faithful followers of Christ today. She played a crucial role in gathering the research for his presentation, which she later adapted into an article for Meridian Magazine. It was an exciting collaboration. She remembers her dad on multiple occasions would make comments like, “someone should write a book about this.”

Every time, Taylor would look around and think, “Who are you talking to?” Eventually a little light bulb went off atop her head and she realized this repeated sentiment from her dad was actually a gentle nudge from her Heavenly Father.

For years she had immersed herself in President Woodruff’s personal documents. She had transcribed and cross-referenced his 64 years of daily journal writings, countless letters, speeches and his meticulous historical records. She knew his words and his manner of speaking, and, like her father, she knew there was a message in there that needed to be shared with those seeking to follow Jesus Christ today. A first-time book writer, she spent just three-and-a-half weeks writing the entire thing. It was Christmas 2023 and her husband and older children were away traveling, and her youngest daughter spent much of her time with friends. This left her with a lot of time alone to write. With the research already compiled and indexed, she was able to complete her work before the new year. 

If He Does it For Them, He Does it for You 

While reflecting on her experiences, Taylor emphasized a central lesson: “God is in the details.” 

After studying nearly 70 years of writings from President Woodruff, recorded during some of the most tumultuous and miraculous years of the Restoration, Taylor can testify that, “the more you study Church history, you see a pattern of God’s dealings with his children,” she says, “things that didn’t make sense in the beginning, make sense in the end.”

She firmly believes that Church history offers powerful lessons for the present. She continues, “Learning more can only be good for you.”

Taylor encourages others to search with confidence and come to know and see the Savior’s hand in their lives. “You read the Doctrine and Covenants and it is filled with the Lord’s words; which means he was involved in all those things that were happening, but if he does it for them, he does it for you.”

Taylor’s journey—marked by unexpected turns, divine nudges and a profound love of the Savior—has not only deepened her faith in Jesus Christ, but has also helped illuminate the life and teachings of Wilford Woodruff for generations to come.

*Kristy Taylor is currently serving as Relief Society President – a women’s organization of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints – in the Alliance, Texas, area.

*Her book: “Prepare Me For Thy Use: Lessons from the Wilford Woodruff Mission Years” is being published by Deseret Book and BYU Religious Studies Center and will be released May 2025

*You can learn more about the Wilford Woodruff Papers by visiting their website at https://wilfordwoodruffpapers.org/