Her divorce from Young reached a national audience when Ann Eliza sued with allegations of neglect, cruel treatment, and desertion.

[4]: 32  Ann Eliza was about a year old when her father took a second wife, Elizabeth Taft, in accordance with the contemporary polygamous practices of the LDS Church.

[7] According to her biographer, Irving Wallace, "for the rest of her days Ann Eliza would always refer to James Dee as the man who 'blighted' her life.

"[4]: 150 On the advice of her family, Ann Eliza married Brigham Young, the second president of the LDS Church, when he was 67 years old and she was a 24-year-old divorcee.

[4]: 175  At her request, Ann Eliza was set up in a separate home in Salt Lake City, on the condition that she visit the Lion House on occasion.

In a statement, Stratton denied having any influence on Ann Eliza's decision, claiming instead that he had encouraged her to stay in her situation with Young.

Her bill for divorce alleged neglect, cruel treatment, and desertion, and claimed that her husband had property worth $8 million and an income exceeding $40,000 a month.

[4]: 329  A couple months later, the Poland Act was signed into law,[4]: 330–331  which reorganized the judicial system of the Utah Territory and facilitated the federal prosecution of LDS Church polygamists.

In it, she wrote that she had "a desire to impress upon the world what Mormonism really is; to show the pitiable condition of its women, held in a system of bondage that is more cruel than African slavery ever was, since it claims to hold body and soul alike".

[18] After her divorce from Brigham Young in 1875, Ann Eliza married 53-year-old Moses R. Denning of Manistee, Michigan,[8] a non-Mormon and wealthy logger known to have only one arm.

[20] Ann Eliza scaled back her crusade against Mormonism and polygamy and stopped delivering lectures the week she married Denning.

[19][21] A 1907 article on the 30th anniversary of Brigham Young's death updated the public on his then-surviving widows and stated that Ann Eliza was divorced for the third time and living in Lansing, Michigan.

"[24] She died at her home in Sparks of pneumonia, related to old age,[25] and was buried on December 9, 1917, in Mountain View Cemetery, Reno, Nevada.