Joseph and Emma

NARRATOR: On the 18th of January, in 1827, a young couple exchanged wedding vows in the home of a Squire Tarbill in South Bainbridge, New York.1 The young man was twenty-one years old, stood six feet two,2 was fair complexioned, with blue eyes and light brown hair. The young woman was twenty-two years old, dark complexioned, with brown eyes and black hair. Later, the young man, Joseph Smith, would be known as the Mormon Prophet, and “the wife of his youth,” Emma Hale, would be designated “the Elect Lady.”

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Joseph Smith was born December 23rd, 1805, in Sharon, Vermont. He was the fifth of eleven children born to Joseph Smith, Sr., and Lucy Mack, and although the fourth of nine sons, the name of his father, Joseph, had been reserved for him.

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Emma Hale was born July 10th, 1804, in Harmony, Pennsylvania. She was the seventh child and the third daughter in a family of nine children born to Isaac Hale and Elizabeth Lewis.

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Of his first meeting with Emma Hale, the Prophet Joseph Smith was to write:

JOSEPH: In the month of October, 1825, I hired with an old gentleman by the name of Josiah Stoal, who lived in Chenango county, state of New York. He had heard something of a silver mine having been opened by the Spaniards in Harmony, Susquehanna county, state of Pennsylvania; and had, previous to my hiring to him, been digging, in order, if possible, to discover the mine. After I went to live with him, he took me, with the rest of his hands, to dig for the silver mine, at which I continued to work for nearly a month, without success in our undertaking, and finally I prevailed with the old gentleman to cease digging after it. Hence arose the very prevalent story of my having been a money digger.

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During the time that I was thus employed, I was put to board with a Mr. Isaac Hale, of that place; it was there I first saw my wife (his daughter), Emma Hale. . . . [Her] father’s family were very much opposed to our being married. I was, therefore, under the necessity of taking her elsewhere; so we went and were married at the house of Squire Tarbill, in South Bainbridge, Chenango county, New York. Immediately after my marriage, I left Mr. Stoal’s and went to my father’s and farmed with him that season.3

[Graphic omitted. See source document.]
NOTE: All the photographs in this article are numbered and identification lines are found on pages 225 and 226.

NARRATOR: When Joseph Smith had approached Emma Hale’s father to ask for her hand in marriage he was told by Mr. Hale that he was a stranger, that he had no steady, remunerative employment, that he had the reputation of looking into peep-stones and hunting for treasures with a witch-hazel.4

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Thus, the young couple was forced to elope. . . . In a letter to one of her sons, October 11th, 1866, Emma was to write:

EMMA: I was visiting at Mr. Stoals, who lived in South Bainbridge, and saw your father there. I had no intention of marrying when I left home; but during my visit at Mr. Stoals, your father visited me there. My folks were bitterly opposed to him; and being importuned by your father, aided by Mr. Stoal, who urged me to marry him, [and] preferring to marry him to any other man I knew, I consented.5

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NARRATOR: And so the Mormon Prophet and his bride were married.

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Exactly eight months and four days later, September 21st, 1827, Emma accompanied her husband Joseph from their residence with his parents in Manchester, New York, to the nearby Hill Cumorah and helped him secure the plates from which the translation of the Book of Mormon was made.6 These gold plates were the subject of much excitement in the vicinity of Joseph’s parent’s home. Gold at that time, of any kind, implied fabulous wealth, and Joseph and Emma had many struggles keeping the whereabouts of the golden plates a secret.

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The next year, Joseph and Emma returned to Harmony, Pennsylvania, to be near her parents. It was here Joseph commenced the work of translating the Book of Mormon. It was also here at this time that Joseph and Emma had a son born to them who lived only a few hours. This son was named Alvin, after Joseph’s deceased brother. The inscription on the old headstone, that still stands in the neglected cemetery at Harmony, reads, “In Memory of an Infant Son of Joseph and Emma Smith—June 15th, 1828.”

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After the translation of the Book of Mormon was completed, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized on April 6th, 1830. During the month following Emma Smith’s baptism, in June of 1830, her husband Joseph received the following revelation in her behalf:

JOSEPH: Hearken unto the voice of the Lord your God, while I speak unto you, Emma Smith, my daughter; for verily I say unto you, all those who receive my gospel are sons and daughters in my kingdom. . . . Behold, thy sins are forgiven thee, and thou art an elect lady, whom I have called. . . . The office of thy calling shall be for a comfort unto my servant, Joseph Smith, Jun., thy husband, in his afflictions, with consoling words, in the spirit of meekness . . . and thou shalt go with him at the time of his going. . . . (D&C 25:1, 3, 5, 6. Italics added)

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NARRATOR: Joseph and Emma did not tarry long in Harmony after the Church was organized and the “elect lady” did go with her husband at the time of his going, . . . from Harmony, Pennsylvania, to Colesville, Fayette, and Manchester, New York. When the Smiths left the shadow of Emma’s parental home in Harmony, the parting was a bitter one. Isaac Hale’s last words to Joseph were:

ISAAC HALE: You have stolen my daughter and married her. I had rather followed her to the grave!7

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NARRATOR: Emma never saw her parents after that time. True to her “elect” call she chose to go with her husband and be his comforter. The love she had for the parents whom she was never again to see . . . would cause her sorrow. This, and the heartache she still carried from the loss of her firstborn, were but the beginning of the pain she would be called upon to bear in her lifetime . . . Emma Smith—the Elect Lady.

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Lucy Mack Smith, the mother-in-law of Emma, wrote of her daughter-in-law during this period:

LUCY MACK SMITH: Emma’s health at this time was quite delicate, yet she did not favor herself on this account, but whatever her hands found to do, she did with her might until she went far beyond her strength, that she brought upon herself a heavy fit of sickness, which lasted four weeks. And although her strength was exhausted, still her spirits were the same, which in fact, was always the case with her, even under the most trying circumstances. I have never seen a woman in my life, who could endure every species of fatigue and hardship, from month to month, and from year to year, with that unflinching courage, zeal, and patience, which she has ever done; for I know that which she has had to endure. . . . She has been tossed upon an ocean of uncertainty. . . . She has bested the storms of persecution, and buffeted the rage of men and devils which would have borne down almost any other woman.8

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NARRATOR: In January of 1831, during the fifth month of her new pregnancy, Emma and Joseph moved to Kirtland, Ohio. Four months later, April 30th, 1831, Emma gave birth to twins. Joseph and Emma named the boy Thadeus and the girl Louisa. Like Alvin, the twins were to enjoy only a few hours of mortality. In the small nearby village of Orange, Julia Clapp Murdock, another Latter-day Saint mother, gave birth to twins and died. She was the wife of John Murdock. The Murdock twins were also a boy and girl. When these twins were nine days old, and because he had five other children to care for, John Murdock gave them to the Smiths for adoption, that Joseph and Emma might enjoy these twins as their own. The Prophet and his wife gladly adopted these motherless infants, naming the boy Joseph, and the girl Julia.

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By March 24th, 1832, Joseph and Emma, with their new family, had moved thirty-five miles southeast of Kirtland to John Johnson’s home in Hiram, Ohio. That evening, the twins were ill with measles. The boy was sleeping with Joseph while Emma cared for the girl. Enemies of the Prophet came into the Johnson home, while everybody was asleep, and dragged Joseph from his bed to a field where they beat, then clawed, and finally left him covered with tar. Joseph recovered, but four days later the baby, Joseph Murdock Smith, died from exposure. This baby became, perhaps, the first martyr in the restored Church (HC 1:265).

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After a little over five years of married life together, Joseph and Emma had buried four children. They had no home to call their own; they were wanderers, suffering revilement and persecution at the hands of vicious enemies of the Church. Still . . . they vigorously sought to establish the “cause of Zion.”

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Three weeks before their next baby was born in Kirtland, on October 13th, 1832, Joseph was absent from his wife and seventeen-month old daughter, on a mission in the eastern states. That particular day he wrote a letter to Emma, describing his anxiety and deep love for her:

JOSEPH: My dear wife . . . the thoughts of home, of Emma and Julia, rushes upon my mind like a flood, and I could wish for a moment to be with them. My breast is filled with all the feeling and tenderness of a parent and a husband, and could I be with you, I would tell you many things. . . . I feel as if I wanted to say something to you to comfort you in your peculiar trial and present affliction. . . . I feel for you, for I know your state and that others do not, but you must comfort yourself, knowing that God is your friend in heaven and that you have one true and living friend in earth, your husband. . . .9

NARRATOR: Joseph Smith returned to Kirtland, from his mission, on November 6th, 1832, immediately after the birth of his son, Joseph Smith III, who was a source of joy and happiness to his parents and a most welcome brother, playmate, and childhood companion for his sister Julia.

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On December 9th, 1834, Joseph the Prophet and his companion, Emma Hale Smith, received their Patriarchal Blessings, under the hands of their father, Joseph Smith, Sr. Joseph, Jr. was told in his blessing that he had been called to do a work in this generation that no other man could do as himself, that he would hold the keys of the ministry, even the presidency of the Church, both in time and in eternity. The Prophet was promised further that his name, and the names of his posterity, should be recorded in the book of the Lord, even the book of blessings and genealogies, for their joy and benefit forever. Joseph was told that thousands and tens of thousands should come to a knowledge of the truth through his ministry and that he would rejoice with them in the celestial kingdom.

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Following his son’s blessing, the Patriarch laid his hands on Emma and said:

JOSEPH SMITH, SR.: Emma, my daughter-in-law, thou art blessed of the Lord for thy faithfulness and truth. Thou shalt be blessed with thy husband and rejoice in the glory which shall come upon him. Thy soul has been afflicted because of the wickedness of men in seeking the destruction of thy companion and thy whole soul has been drawn out in prayer for his deliverance: rejoice, for the Lord thy God has heard thy supplication. Thou hast grieved for the hardness of the hearts of thy father’s house and thou hast longed for their salvation. The Lord will have respect to thy cries, and by his judgments he will cause some of them to see their folly and repent of their sins, but it will be by affliction that they will be saved.

Thou shalt see many days, yea, the Lord will spare thee till thou art satisfied . . . thy heart shall rejoice in the great work of the Lord, and no one shall take thy young from thee. Thou shalt ever remember the great condescension of thy God in permitting thee to accompany my son when the angel delivered the record of the Nephites to his care. Thou hast seen much sorrow because the Lord has taken from thee three of thy children: in this thou art not to be blamed for He knows thy pure desires to raise up a family that the name of my son might be blessed. And now, behold, I say unto thee that thus [saith] the Lord, if thou will believe, thou shalt yet be blessed in this thing and thou shalt bring forth other children to the joy and satisfaction of thy soul and to the rejoicing of thy friends. Thou shalt be blessed with understanding and have power to instruct thy sex. Teach thy family righteousness and thy little ones the way of life and the holy angels shall watch over thee and thou shalt be saved in the Kingdom of God; even so, amen. (Italics added)

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[Graphics omitted. See source document.]

NARRATOR: On June 20th, 1836, shortly after the completion of the Kirtland Temple, and true to the promise of her patriarchal blessing that she should have other children, Emma and Joseph became the parents of another son. This son was named Frederick Granger Williams Smith, in honor of his father’s intimate friend and second counselor in the First Presidency of the Church, Dr. Frederick Granger Williams. During the following year, 1837, in the midst of financial panic in Kirtland, the Kirtland Safety Society Bank failed. Since Joseph Smith had been one of the chief officers of this bank, great hatred arose against him. For their own safety, Joseph and his family had to leave Kirtland in January of 1838. Stopping just long enough for Joseph to earn enough money to care for his family, they arrived in Far West, Daviess County, Missouri, on March 14th, 1838. Less than five months later, on June 2nd, while the Smiths continued to reside in Far West, their eighth child, Alexander Hale Smith, was born. He was named for his father’s friend and lawyer, Alexander Doniphan,10 and his mother’s maiden name, “Hale.” Joseph was quoted as saying that during the birth of this son a real “Hale-storm” was in progress.11

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Before Emma had fully regained her strength from the birth of Alexander, election troubles that summer in Daviess County were followed by the Battle of Crooked River, the Haun’s Mill Massacre, and the siege of Far West by militia-mobocrats. By November 2nd, 1838, Joseph was arrested for charges relating to these Daviess County disturbances. He was taken to Independence, leaving his five month old son, Alexander, his two year old son, Frederick, his nearly six year old son, Joseph, his seven year old daughter, Julia, and his beloved wife who did not know where, or whether, she would ever see him again.

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Following an effort by the militia leaders to have the Prophet shot, an effort which was thwarted by the courageous actions of Alexander Doniphan, Joseph was allowed to see his family and say goodbye:

JOSEPH: I found my wife and children in tears, who feared that [I] had been shot by those who had sworn to take [my life], and that they would see me no more. When I entered my house, they clung to my garments, their eyes streaming with tears, while mingled emotions of joy and sorrow were manifested in their countenances. I requested to have a private interview with them for a few minutes, but this privilege was denied me by the guard. I was then obliged to take my departure. Who can realize the feelings which I experienced at that time, to be thus torn from my companion, and leave her surrounded with monsters in the shape of men, and my children, too, not knowing how their wants would be supplied; while I was to be taken far from them in order that my enemies might destroy me when they thought proper to do so. My partner wept, my children clung to me, until they were thrust from me by the swords of the guards. I felt overwhelmed while I witnessed the scene, and could only recommend them to the care of that God whose kindness had followed me to the present time, and who alone could protect them, and deliver me from the hands of my enemies, and restore me to my family (HC 3:193).

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NARRATOR: In letters to his wife, during the next five and a half months of incarceration in various Missouri jails, the Prophet Joseph reveals his deep concern for his family:

JOSEPH: Independence, Missouri, November 4th, 1838, My dear and beloved companion . . . I have great anxiety about you and my lovely children. . . . I can’t write much in my situation. . . . Those little children are subjects of my meditation continually. Tell them that father is yet alive. . . . Oh Emma . . . If I do not meet you again in this life . . . may God grant that . . . we meet in heaven.12

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Richmond, Missouri, November 12th, 1838, . . . My dear Emma. . . . We are prisoners in chains and under strong guard for Christ’s sake. . . . Oh God, grant that I may have the privilege of seeing once more my lovely family . . . to press them to my bosom and kiss their lovely cheeks would fill my heart with unspeakable gratitude. Tell the children that I am alive . . . comfort their hearts and try to be comforted yourself all you can. . . . Tell little Joseph he must be a good boy. Father loves him with a perfect love; he . . . must not hurt those that are smaller than he, but care for them. Tell little Frederick father loves him with all his heart; he is a lovely boy. Julia is a lovely girl; I love her also. She is a promising child, tell her father wants her to remember him and be a good girl . . . little Alexander is on my mind continually. Oh, my affectionate Emma, I want you to remember that I am a true and faithful friend to you and the children forever.13

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Liberty, Missouri, April 4th, 1839, [Dear and Affectionate Emma] . . . I want to see little Frederick, Joseph, Julia, and Alexander. . . . There is a great responsibility resting upon you in preserving yourself in honor and sobriety before them, and teaching them right things, to form their young and tender minds. . . .14

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[Graphics omitted. Refer to source document.]

NARRATOR: It was winter when the followers of Joseph Smith left Missouri and crossed the frozen Mississippi River into Quincy, Illinois. Emma Smith was among them. She didn’t know where her husband was, nor whether he was dead or alive. Under her dress, in cotton bags of sufficient size to contain them, Emma carried some of the Prophet’s papers which included the manuscript for the Inspired Version of the Bible. In her arms were her two smallest children, Alexander and Frederick. The older two children, Julia and little Joseph, clung to her skirts as she crossed the frozen river on the ice that bitter cold 15th day of February, 1839.15

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In the late spring, the opportunity of escape from his unjust confinement presented itself to Joseph and his brother, Hyrum, who was being held with him. They escaped as they were being transferred from Daviess into Boone County, arriving in Quincy, Illinois, on April 22nd, 1839, much to the joy and thanksgiving of his family and the Saints.

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Within three weeks, the Prophet moved his family into a small log cabin, upriver from Quincy, at a new gathering place for the Church, known as Commerce, formerly Venus and next named Nauvoo, a Hebrew word meaning “beautiful place” and connoting a “place of rest” for the Latter-day Saints, who by 1844 (in this city alone) would number more than eleven thousand.16

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A ninth child was born to Joseph and Emma in Nauvoo, a little over a year later, on June 13, 1840. He was named Don Carlos after Joseph’s six-foot-four younger brother.17 The following year, during the month of August, double tragedy descended on the family as the baby’s namesake died of consumption, followed shortly thereafter by the babe itself, who by this time was a little over a year old.

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There is evidence that yet another baby, a son, was stillborn to Joseph and Emma in 1842. Death, even at this date, was no stranger to either the Prophet or the “Elect Lady.” They had lost six of their ten children. Emma’s father died in 1839; Joseph’s father died in 1840; Emma’s mother died in 1842. Their sisters-in-law, Jerusha Barden and Mary Bailey, the wives of Joseph’s brothers Hyrum and Samuel, had also died. Brother, nephews, nieces, uncles, aunts, grandparents, and cousins had all crossed beyond the veil. . . . In the midst of such tribulations, during August of 1842, Joseph took time to record his thoughts of Emma:

JOSEPH: . . . my beloved Emma . . . my wife, even the wife of my youth, and the choice of my heart. Many were the reverberations of my mind when I contemplated for a moment the many scenes we had been called to pass through, the fatigues and the toils, the sorrows and the sufferings, and the joys and consolations, from time to time, which had strewed our path and crowned our board. Oh what a commingling of thought filled my mind for the moment, again she is here, even in the seventh trouble—undaunted, firm, and unwavering—unchangeable, affectionate Emma! (HC 5 :107).

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NARRATOR: On January the 18th, 1843, while living in Nauvoo, the Prophet and his wife celebrated their sixteenth wedding anniversary with a party. Here, they finally had a home of their own, and in this home there was the business of raising a growing family, in addition to the first-family’s responsibilities to church, civil, military, political, and social obligations. As Joseph was often away from home, the major responsibility of rearing their family was Emma’s. She never allowed her children to strike each other. Once, Alexander and young Joseph had a quarrel and Alexander bit Joseph’s arm. . . . When Emma was told of the incident, she calmly looked at the teeth marks on Joseph’s arm and then rolled up Alexander’s sleeve and bit him in the same place. . . .18

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The Saints could not exist within frontier conditions without creating their own “code of ethics” and tempering it with a sense of humor; the Smith family was no exception.

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On August 31st, 1843, the Prophet’s Mansion House was completed and his six-member family moved from “the Old Homestead’’ into their new residence. Joseph III always referred to this Nauvoo period as “happy days,”19 but the “happy days” were to be short-lived.

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Problems within and without the Church built to culmination while Joseph, once again, was plagued with arrests and harassments from enemies of the Church. The charges were different, but the reasons were the same. This time, however, the Governor of Illinois, Thomas Ford, requested Joseph to meet him in the neighboring town of Carthage and answer these charges before a legal tribunal there, this in exchange for his promised protection.

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In June of 1844, it was revealed to Joseph Smith that his enemies wanted his blood; not justice. The Prophet understood that if his life was to be preserved, he must flee to the West. He wrote on June 18th, 1844:

JOSEPH: My heart yearns for my little ones, but I know that God will be a father to them. . . .20

NARRATOR: On June 22nd, upstairs in the Mansion House, Joseph and Hyrum met with some of their associates and made plans for their escape. It was decided that they would cross the Mississippi River that night and go away to the great basin in the Rocky Mountains.

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As Joseph Smith left his family, he wept and held a handkerchief to his face, following his brother Hyrum without uttering a word. Together, with Willard Richards and Orrin Porter Rockwell, they rowed to the Iowa side of the river. The next day, Sunday, June 23rd, Porter Rockwell went back to Nauvoo for horses, returning in the afternoon with Reynolds Cahoon, who had been guarding the Mansion House, Hiram Kimball and Lorenzo Wasson, Emma Smith’s nephew (HC 6:547–48). Reynolds Cahoon gave Joseph a letter from Emma and at the same time he reminded the Prophet that he had always said if the Church would stick with him, he would stick with the Church.21 These three men chastised Joseph for running away. After accusations of cowardice, and much persuasion, Joseph decided to go back. He remarked:

JOSEPH: If my life is of no value to my friends, it is of none to myself . . . (HC 6:549).

NARRATOR: When Emma was asked of Joseph’s decision to return to Nauvoo, and go from there to Carthage, she replied:

EMMA: . . . his persecutors were stirring up trouble at that time, and his absence provoked some of the brethren to say he had run away, and they called him a coward. . . . Joseph heard of it and [when] he . . . returned [he] . . . said, “I will die before I will be called a coward.” He was going to find a place and then send for the family, but when he came back, I felt the worst I ever felt in my life, and from that time I looked for him to be killed.22

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NARRATOR: Prior to his leaving for Carthage, Emma desired a blessing from her husband. Joseph told her to write out the best blessing she could think of and he would sign it on his return. Thus, Emma committed to writing the desires of her heart:

EMMA: First of all that I would crave as the richest of heaven’s blessings would be wisdom from my Heavenly Father bestowed daily, so that whatever I might do or say, I could not look back at the close of the day with regret, nor neglect the performance of any act that would bring a blessing. I desire the Spirit of God to know and understand myself, that I desire a fruitful, active mind, that I may be able to comprehend the designs of God, when revealed through his servants without doubting. I desire the spirit of discernment, which is one of the promised blessings of the Holy Ghost. I particularly desire wisdom to bring up all the children that are, or may be committed to my charge, in such a manner that they will be useful ornaments in the Kingdom of God, and in a coming day arise up and call me blessed. I desire prudence that I may not through ambition abuse my body and cause it to become old and care-worn, but that I may wear a cheerful countenance, live to perform all the work that I covenanted to perform in the spirit-world and be a blessing to all who may in any wise need aught at my hands. I desire with all my heart to honor and respect my husband as my head, ever to live in his confidence and by acting in unison with him retain the place which God has given me by his side, and I ask my Heavenly Father, that through humility, I may be enabled to overcome that curse which was pronounced on the daughters of Eve. I desire to see that I may rejoice with them in the blessings which God has in store for all who are willing to be obedient to his requirements. Finally, I desire that whatever may be my lot through life I may be enabled to acknowledge the hand of God in all things.

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These desires of my heart were called forth by Joseph, sending me word . . . that . . . I could write out the best blessing I could think of and he would sign the same on his return.23

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[Graphic omitted. Refer to source document.]

NARRATOR: The last words Emma heard from her husband, before he rode off to Carthage, she heard him speak three times:

JOSEPH: Emma, can you train my sons to walk in their father’s footsteps?

EMMA: Oh, Joseph . . . You’re coming back! . . .

JOSEPH: Emma, can you train my sons to walk in their father’s footsteps?

EMMA: Oh Joseph . . .

(She sobs)

JOSEPH: Emma, can you train my sons to walk in their father’s footsteps?24

NARRATOR: Slowly, after a parting kiss with her husband of seventeen years, Emma gathered her children around her: Julia, age thirteen, Joseph, age eleven, Frederick, age eight, and Alexander, age six. They waved goodbye to Joseph and Hyrum as they rode out of their lives and journeyed towards martyrdom at Carthage.

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NARRATOR: There were those along the Carthage Road that day who heard the Prophet Joseph say:

JOSEPH: I am going like a lamb to the slaughter, but I am calm as a summer’s morning. I have a conscience void of offense toward God and all men. . . . If they take my life I shall die . . . innocent . . . and it shall be said of me “He was murdered in cold blood!” (HC 6:555).

NARRATOR: Three days later, June 27th, 1844, sometime before midnight, word reached the Prophet’s family he was dead. . . . He had been “. . . murdered in cold blood.”

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No one knew the full depth of the sorrow Emma felt on that occasion. She cried out:

EMMA: Why, Oh God, am I thus afflicted? Why am I a widow and my children widows? Thou knowest I have always trusted in thy law. . . . My husband was my crown: for him and my children I have suffered the loss of all things; and why, Oh God, am I thus deserted, and my bosom torn with this ten-fold anguish?25

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NARRATOR: Emma’s last baby was born the following November 17th, 1844. Joseph had desired to name this son after his brother, Hyrum, in addition to the name “David” which Emma had selected to honor her brother. Thus it was that the eleventh child of Joseph and Emma was named by his mother, David Hyrum Smith. . . . Eliza Snow, the poet-laureate of Mormondom, composed a poem on the occasion of David’s birth:

ELIZA R. SNOW:

Sinless as celestial spirits—
Lovely as a morning flow’r,
Comes the smiling infant stranger
In an evil-omen’d hour.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Not to know a father’s fondness—
Not to know its father’s worth—
By the arm of persecution
’Tis an orphan at its birth!
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Thou mayest draw from love and kindness
All a mother can bestow;
But alas! on earth, a father
Thou art destin’d not to know!26

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NARRATOR: When her son Joseph was born, Emma’s husband was absent on a missionary journey, but he returned shortly after the birth to stand beside her bed and gaze upon little Joseph. “Now when David Hyrum was born, no stagecoach or riverboat could bring him back. There was no familiar voice to comfort [Emma], no warm hand to caress her, no familiar lips to kiss her cheeks in gratitude when her last child was born. The master of the house had gone away, and the cries of his widow and children could not bring him back.”27

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Three and a half years later, December 23rd, 1847, Emma Hale Smith remarried.28 She married a widower, with two children. This “New Citizen” to Nauvoo came from Canton, Illinois.29 The man, Lewis C. Bidamon, or “Major” Bidamon as he was more often referred to, had been Abraham Lincoln’s commanding officer in the Black Hawk Indian War.30 When he married Emma, the “Major” became the step-father of the Prophet’s four sons; sons who grew to maturity and had families of their own.

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Emma remained married to the “Major” until her death, April 30th, 1879,31 in the seventy-fifth year of her life. Of the five children to survive their father, four would survive their mother; one would not:

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Frederick Granger Williams Smith, the Prophet and Emma’s second living son, died in his twenty-sixth year, April 13th, 1862, preceding his mother by seventeen years. Frederick married Annie Marie Jones September 13th, 1857, and they had one daughter.

(Julia’s photo)

Julia Murdock Smith died in 1880, soon after Emma’s death. She married twice but had no children. Julia’s first husband was Elisha Dixon and after he was killed in a steamboat explosion, she married John J. Middleton.

(David’s photo)

David Hyrum Smith, the lastborn child of Joseph and Emma, died August 29th, 1904, in Elgin, Illinois.32 He was sixty years old. David had married Clara Charlotte Hartshorn on May 10th, 1870, and they had one son.

(Alexander’s photo)

Alexander Hale Smith, the Prophet and Emma’s third living son, died August 12th, 1909, when he was seventy-one. He married Elizabeth Agnes Kendall on June 23rd, 1861. They had nine children.

(Joseph III’s photo)

Joseph Smith III, the first living son of Joseph and Emma, lived to be eighty-two years old. He died December 10th, 1914, after outliving his parents, his brothers, and his sister. Joseph married three times and had seventeen children. He had five children by his first wife, Emmeline Griswold. When she died, Joseph married Bertha Madison by whom he had nine children. After her death he married Ada Clark by whom he had three children.

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The posterity of Joseph Smith and his wife, Emma Hale, is numerous, beginning with eleven children and twenty-eight grandchildren.

(Music)

The final episode in the story of Joseph and Emma was recorded by Alexander Hale Smith, their son. He was at his mother’s bedside when she died:

ALEXANDER HALE SMITH: Just before she passed away she called, “Joseph, Joseph.” I thought she meant my brother. He was in the room, and I spoke to him and said, “Joseph, mother wants you.” I was at the head of the bed. My mother raised right up, lifted her left hand as high as she could raise it, and called, “Joseph.” I put my left arm under her shoulders, took her hand in mine, saying, “Mother, what is it?” laid her hand on her bosom, and she was dead; she had passed away. And when I had talked of her calling, [Sister] Revel, who was with us during our sickness, said, “Don’t you understand that?” “No,” I replied, “I do not.” “Well, a short time before she died she had a vision which she related to me. She said that your father came to her and said to her ‘Emma, come with me, it is time for you to come with me.’ And as she related it she said, ‘I put on my bonnet and my shawl and went with him; I did not think that it was anything unusual. I went with him into a mansion, a beautiful mansion, and he showed me through the different apartments of that beautiful mansion. And one room was the nursery. In that nursery was a babe in the cradle.’ She said, ‘I knew my babe, my Don Carlos that was taken from me.’ She sprang forward, caught the child up in her arms and wept with joy over the child. When she recovered sufficiently she turned to Joseph, and said, ‘Where are the rest of my children?’ He said to her, ‘Emma, be patient, and you shall have all of your children.”33

[Graphics omitted. See source document.]

NARRATOR: Perhaps Emma received additional comfort from her Prophet-husband as she passed from mortality into that “Mansion of Light”:

EMMA: Joseph, Joseph!

JOSEPH:

Emma, from my Carthage twilight
I beheld our children, adrift
On the sea of your uncertainty.
And the light I saw, in the mountain-west, departed,
Leaving Julia, Joseph, Frederick, Alexander, and David
Gazing darkly into the night of my departure.

Wife of my youth,
The seventh trouble is past,
And I am here;
In the light that casts shadows of the temple
Across our Mansion House,
While Alvin, Thadeus, Louisa, little Joseph,
Don Carlos, and our silent babe,
Wait with me, for you,
Near the Bright and Morning Star.34

Photograph Identifications

1: “This oil painting appears to have been painted about 1840 by an artist trained in the Pennsylvania school.” A statement by Frederick B. Anthon, Restorer for the Huntington Library Art Museum, after he cleaned and relined this painting to new canvas in 1968. This painting is owned by the author.

2: Julia Murdock Smith

3: Frederick Granger Williams Smith (as a young man)

4: Emma (Hale) Smith (a retouched photo from her later years)

5: Alexander Hale Smith (as a young man)

6: Joseph Smith III (as a young man)

7: David Hyrum Smith (as a young man)

8: Alexander Hale Smith (as an older man)

9: Joseph Smith III (as an older man)

10: David Hyrum Smith (as an older man)

Pictures on page 211

11: (Seated L–R) Lewis Crum Bidamon, Frederick Granger Williams Smith, Joseph Smith III (Standing L–R) David Hyrum Smith, Alexander Hale Smith (about 1860. Frederick Granger Williams Smith died in 1862)

12: Emma (Smith) Bidamon (age 70, about 1874)

Picture on page 217

13: Alexander Hale Smith and Joseph Smith III, in Los Angeles, California, in 1901.

Pictures on pages 222–23

14: Smith Family/Late 1915 (L–R)

1st Row (Seated L–R) Louis Brainerd Smith, Smith DeWalt Lysinger, Philip Eugene Lysinger, Lynn Elbert Smith, Elizabeth Grace Horner, Marion Don Smith, Maxwell Alexis Smith.

2nd Row: Robert George Badham (Baby), Walter George Badham, Heman Conoman Smith, Vida Elizabeth (Smith) Smith, Clara Charlotte (Hartshorn) Smith, Elizabeth Agnes (Kendall) Smith, Ina Lorena Horner (Baby), Ina Inez (Smith) Wright, Lois Audentia Smith, Coral Cecile Rebecca (Smith) Horner, James Brandon Horner (Child), Doris Rae Lysinger, Susan Zenetta (Pearsall) Smith, LaJune Harriett Smith

3rd row: Joy May Smith, Winsome Lavinia Smith, Freda Saloam Smith, Harold LeGrande Smith, Lucy Yeteve (Smith) Lysinger, Clara Abigail (Cochran) Smith, Ronald Gibson Smith, Mary Angelina (Walker) Smith, Frederick Alexander Smith, Frederick Madison Smith, Ruth Lyman (Cobb) Smith, Alice Myrmida Smith, Emma Rebecca Weld, Beatrice Adelle Smith.

4th Row: Velora Belle Smith, Carrie Lucinda (Smith) Weld, Zadie Aileen Salyards, Richard Savery Salyards, Elbert Aoriul Smith, Jesse Melvin Lysinger, Avis (Hopkins) Smith, Glaud Leslie Smith, Francis Marion Weld, Frederick Augenstein Smith.

15: Two sons of Joseph and Emma (L–R) Alexander Hale Smith and David Hyrum Smith (about 1869)

16. Three daughters of Joseph Smith III and Emmeline Griswold: (L–R) Zadie Viola (Smith) Salyards, Carrie Lucinda (Smith) Weld, Emma Josepha (Smith) McCallum

17: Joseph Smith III and five of his children by Bertha Madison:

(Seated) Joseph Smith III

(Standing L–R) Lucy Yeteve Smith, Hale Washington Smith, Israel Alexander Smith, Frederick Madison Smith, Mary Audentia (Smith) Anderson.

18: Smith Family/6 November 1912

(Sitting, children L–R) Joseph Arthur McCallum, Homer Alexander McCallum, Carol Rogene Smith, Lois Audentia Smith, Lucy Rogene Anderson, Smith DeWalt Lysinger, Philip Eugene Lysinger.

(Sitting on steps) Glenna Marie Kennedy, Corlie Corrine McCallum, Robert Montfort McCallum.

(Sitting adults) Carrie Lucinda (Smith) Weld, Emma Josepha (Smith) McCallum, Joseph Smith III, Ada Rachel (Clark) Smith.

(Standing on ground) Reginald Archer Smith, Israel Alexander Smith, Mary Audentia (Smith) Anderson, Hale Washington Smith, Lucy Yeteve (Smith) Lysinger, Frederick Madison Smith, Richard Clark Smith, Duane Smith Anderson.

( Standing on steps) Richard Savery Salyards, Alice Myrmida Smith, Benjamin M. Anderson.

(Standing on porch) Corlie (Montfort) McCallum, Bertha Aldine Smith (Baby), Rogene (Munsell) Smith, Emma Rebecca Weld, Doris Zuleika Anderson, Bertha Audentia Anderson, Ruth (Cobb) Smith, Roger Alexander Kennedy, Emma Belle (Smith) Kennedy.

19. Two of Alexander Hale Smith’s daughters: (L–R) Emma Belle (Smith) Kennedy and Eva Grace (Smith) Madison.

20. The three sons of Joseph Smith III by Ada Rachel Clark:

(L–R) Reginald Archer Smith, William Wallace Smith (current President of the RLDS Church ), Richard Clark Smith.

21. Alexander Hale Smith, wife and children, about 1903:

(Sitting, L–R) Vida Elizabeth (Smith) Smith, Alexander Hale Smith, Elizabeth Agnes (Kendall) Smith, Frederick Alexander Smith

(Standing) Don Alvin Smith, Coral Cecile Rebecca Smith, Joseph George Smith, Emma Belle (Smith) Kennedy, Arthur Marion Smith