 His first wife, Mary Ann, died on December 17, 1885, following the birth of a child.In 1890, LDS Church president Wilford Woodruff asked Reynolds to become one of the seven members of the First Council of Seventy, a calling in the church hierarchy that ranked just below the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.Reynolds agreed, and on April 10, Reynolds was set apart to this position by Lorenzo Snow, who was then president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.