Annie Taylor Hyde

Who was Annie Taylor Hyde?

Anna Maria Ballantyne Taylor Hyde was the founder and first president of the Daughters of Utah Pioneers and was a women's leader in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Anna Maria Ballantyne Taylor was born in a Mormon pioneer wagon shortly after her parents, LDS Church Apostle John Taylor and Jane Ballantyne, had arrived in the Salt Lake Valley. Taylor's mother, Jane Ballantyne Taylor, was a sister of Richard Ballantyne, the founder of the LDS Sunday School. Taylor was educated at the University of Deseret; in December 1870, she married Alonzo Eugene Hyde, a son of Orson Hyde, in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City.

On April 11, 1901, she invited 54 other women to join her in creating Daughters of the Utah Pioneers, an organization that would "perpetuate the names and achievements of the men, women and children who were the pioneers in founding this commonwealth [Utah]". Hyde was elected the first president of the organization, and she held this position until her death.

Later in 1901, Hyde was asked by Bathsheba W. Smith to become her first counselor in the general presidency of the Relief Society, the LDS Church organization of women.