Robert Albert BERRY

                   Par: Charles HARRIS & Louisa Maria HALL
Md: 1)Clarence MERRILL 8 Oct 1879 (div) St. George, Washington, Utah
        SS: 8 Oct 1879
Md: 2) Nils Lars NELSON 1Aug 1887 (div) Logan, Cache, Utah SS: 1 Aug 1887
Obit:  Provo Herald Tuesday Mary 31, 1938 p. 1 Isabelle Harris Berry.  "Noted Woman Dies Unexpectedly at Provo Residence."  ...one of Utah's most widely known women where she died at her home 230 W 4th N Street at the age of 77 years.  Death was due to a heart attack.  She was the wife of R. A. Berry.
      Mrs. Berry was born in Willard April 15, 1861, the daughter of Charles and Louisa Hall Harris.  ...She attended BY academy during its early years.
      She md. Clarence Merrill at St. George Utah.  2 children Dr. Horace G. Merrill San Diego and Albert Merrill Salt Lake City.  Following the divorce of her husband Mrs. Berry came to Provo to resume her studies.
      She md. Professor N. L. Nelson, head of BYU English Dept and a noted writer.  Some children.
      A devout LD Saint Mrs. Berry served for many years a president of YMMIA in Provo 3rd Ward.  She was active in charity and welfare work and widely known for her ability in encouraging those who were down hearted and discouraged.  She taught school at Richfield a number of years...
      Old residents of Utah remember the time when she was supoened into court to testify against her husband in a polygamy trial.  Refusing to testify against him, she was adjudged in contempt of court.  She refused to yield when a principle was at stake and prefeffed to serve a four-month term in the state prison.
      ...Services at 4th Ward Chapel.  Interment at Provo Burial Park.
Quote from Dallin Oaks: "My great-grandfather, Charles Harris, was sent to prison in Utah territory in 1893 for his practice of plural marriage.  His eldest daughter, my great-aunt Belle Harris, was one of the first women to be imprisoned during federal prosecuation of the Mormons in the 1880s." (US Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Hearings Concerning S. 2148, The Religious Liberty Protection Act of 1998.  testimony of Dallin H, Oaks 23 June 1998.  Cited in Richard N. Ostling and Joan K. Ostling: Mormon America, Harper Collings, San Francisco 1999 p. 238.
Edwin Brown Firmage and Richard Collin Mangrum: Zion in the Courts, University of Illinois Press, Urbana and Chicago, 1988, p. 206.  Notwithstanding the clear command of the Act, a number of Mormon women were required to testify against their husbands or be held in contempt of court.  Probably the most egregious instance of judicial misconduct in this regard is the case of Belle Harris {Ex parte Harris, P. 5:129 (Utah 1884)}.  In 1883 Mrs. Harris was summoned before a Utah grand jury during the course of its investigation of polygamy charges.  Evidence before the jury indicated that Mrs. Harris was the second wife in a polygamous household.  Mrs. Harris, however, refused to answer any grand jury questions regarding her marital relations on the gound that "her marriage is a matter of which this grand jury has no concern, and that such question is improper."  ...  Belle Harris and her baby ultimately spend three and a half months in prison.
Jessie L. Embry: Mormon Polygamous Families, Iniversity of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, 1987, p. 180.  Belle Harris Merrill Nelson Berry, second wife of Clarence Merrill, gave economics as the reason she left her first husband.  "I said that my failure in marriage to Clarence Merrill was not due to polygamy but he could not support me and I could not endure it because I was ambitious for myself and my children."