Richard Neitzel Holzapfel and Kent P. Jackson (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2010), 34790. Although their marriage was often troubled following the introduction of polygamy, Emma continued to care for Joseph. Emma Smith was born in 1804 in Pennsylvania and had unusual opportunities for a girl in her time. Finally, in some respects, the exodus from Missouri was a training exercise for the Saints exodus from Nauvoo seven years later. Caroline went ahead and brought back some elders from a camp ahead to give Martha and Keziah blessings. Why did Emma Smith opt to stay in Nauvoo? Emma was a significant part of the church while her husband was alive. By age 40, Emma had lost her husband, her mother and father, her father-in-law, three brothers-in-law and five children. While living at the Morley farm near Kirtland, Emma Smith gives birth to twins, who die shortly after birth. Some participants in the Missouri exodus vented powerful feelings of anger, horror, outrage, and persecution. appoint the oldest of those of the Twelve, who were first appointed, to be the president of your quorum., Brigham Young was the senior Apostle, hence the presiding Church officer on the ground. Alpheus Cutler placed it in position. [3], By October 1838, Newel and Lydia Knight and their three children were among the Saints living in and near Far West, the Churchs headquarters city. Hope this helps! Because of his position in the Illinois militia, he was often referred to as "Major" Bidamon. [107] Johnson, ed., Mormon Redress Petitions, xixxxvii. Some sneaked southward to the Missouri River and took boat passage to St. . These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. [15] Hartley, Stand by My Servant Joseph, 291; Reed Peck, Reed Peck Manuscript (Salt Lake City: Modern Microfilms reprint, n.d.), 29. About sixty individuals in that network restructured their everyday lives in or near Nauvoo and continued to follow Joseph Smith. I fitted up a small wagon, procured a span of ponies, and sent my Wife and three children, in company with Bro. A Quincy Heritage Celebration was held July 24, 1999. . a much-debated stair-pushing catfight with Eliza R. Snow. She frequently found herself living in the homes of others and just as frequently took complete strangers into her own home. Emma Smith's personality and background, her almost nomadic search for a home, the loss of so many she loved and the stresses of plural marriage all played a part in her decision to remain in Nauvoo. [56], The Hammer family. She carried two children while two others hung on to her skirt. Add an RSC shortcut to this device's Homescreen, In the menu, scroll past any icons and tap. In September 1843, Emma was the first woman to receive the endowment. Joseph was susceptible to vomiting anyway. So she made a deal with Abraham O. Smoot and Martha, his bride of three months. "Joseph did not marry a wilting violet," Delewski said. [117] Weakened by the rigorous trek in midwinter after the severe ordeal of persecution in Missouri, the exiles who were camped along the Mississippi River began to feel the effects of the hardships such that almost every family succumbed to the ague and bilious fever (Ivan J. Barrett, Joseph Smith and the Restoration [Provo, UT: BYU Press, 1973], 439). An old man who was sympathetic to the needy Saints hired John to teach his children and grandchildren and neighbors children. Great questions! [12] John Butlers escape route apparently was across northern Missouri. Either Brigham Young was not aware of Babbitt's propensity for alienating those around him or, like Joseph before him, he overlooked his faults because he needed his legal knowledge. You might notice something a bit surprisingtheres no musical notation! She then became a temple worker, helping others with their first temple experiences. [4], November 1 brought heartbreak for all Saints in Far West. Then he had to be very careful for days to avoid capture. She was finally confirmed in August 1830. Joseph Smith presided. Mobbers shot cows while girls were milking them. [36] Brigham H. Roberts, A Comprehensive History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Century I (reprint, Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 1965), 1:510511, and Smith, History of the Church, 3:26163. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Church Service When Joseph returned to Harmony, he received a revelation for Emma, now known as Doctrine and Covenants 25, calling her an elect lady and encouraging her to comfort and support Joseph in his afflictions. The mormon church is excellent with marketing, so many assume it's just a slightly strange but happy family filled religion. [72] It is about 130 miles upriver from St. Louis and 45 miles directly south of where Nauvoo now is. So without further ado, here is my list of 21 reasons leaving the Mormon Church might be a great idea, even if it is true. [47] Dated entries in An Abridged Record of the Life of John Murdock, Taken from His Journal by Himself, typescript, n.p., n.d., Perry Special Collections. [13], During November 1838, Latter-day Saint settlements in Caldwell and Daviess counties endured a military occupation. Heres what they have planned, Why the Christian flag can fly on this government flagpole, Breaking the fast: Eid ul-Fitr is an occasion of peace, The unique stories and struggles of Latino Muslims, The Black church, religious freedom and gay rights. However, the LDS church cites Fanny as Smith's first plural wife, noting that the pair married in Kirtland, Ohio in the mid-1830s, when Smith would have been about 30 himself. When morning came, he and Abraham Smoot crossed to Quincy, leaving their families with the wagon. Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet. My family . She joined in his efforts to protect them from thieves and acted on occasion as his scribe. Print. She said, The teams were puffing and the wagons dragging so heavily that we were all on foot, tugging along as best we could.[63], During Zera Pulsiphers exodus that March, he and his son-in-law lost horses. Brigham Youngs family was also stranded at Huntsville, having too many goods for their wagon to haul. This tendency toward privacy continued even after Joseph Smith's death. He raised his hand and stopped me saying Hush, Hush. Huntington said that Joseph had come by ferryboat about 8:00 a.m. and was drest in an old pair of boots full of holes, pants torn, tucked inside of boots, blue cloak with collar turned up, wide brim black hat, rim sloped down, not been shaved for some time, looked pale & haggard. Dimick asked if he wished to see his father and mother, but Joseph wanted to see Emma and the children first. Winter exposure and food shortages in Caldwell County and during exodus caused health problems for many and a host of deaths during 1839. John Lowe Butler, thirty, and wife Caroline, twenty-six, converts in Kentucky three years earlier, lived in Mirabile just south of Far West with their four children. A test passed by the faithful. [36] With Joseph Smiths approval, leaders in Far West decided to sell Church properties in Jackson County to help raise money for the exodus. Caroline Butler, whose husband had fled Missouri in November, couldnt care for her four young children, ages seven years to two months, and drive her wagon at the same time. [87] Hartley, My Best for the Kingdom, 9192. We reserve the right to not approve any comments that do not meet our community standards. [106] Fortunately, 678 petitions survive. We are sensible, brethren, that you have done all that you could do in removing the poor Saints, they said, adding that nor have we, brethren, been backward in exerting our energies for that purpose. A woman living in a nearby house ran to find out what was wrong. In order to do so, she crossed the frozen Mississippi river with two children clinging to her skirts and two in her arms. View our community standards here. [98] Alex Baugh, We Took a Change of Venue for the State of Illinois: The Gallatin Hearing and the Escape of Joseph Smith and the Mormon Prisoners from Missouri, April 1839, in A City of Refuge, 3166. Initially, when Joseph admitted to her that he had received a revelation about polygamy and was told he absolutely must carry it out, she accepted it. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience. [107] In todays currency, that equals $52,325,000 total, or $77,000 per petitioner. How others feel about her decision, Delewski said, depends upon their own knowledge and understanding. The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". A painting by C. C. A. Christensen, Exodus of the Saints from Missouri, is the only depiction the author has seen of winter exodus experience. And the last words out of Brighams mouth, and he died before Emma, were Joseph,' Elggren said. One day while Martha was sitting in the front of the wagon with three-year-old Keziah Butler on her lap, one of the horses began to kick. [34] Saints used existing roads as much as possible, although some took detours to avoid problems with local residents or to avoid being recognized. [75] Wandle Mace Autobiography, typescript, 3132, Perry Special Collections. We loaded up our little efects into a wagon and with one small pair of stears we started out with five children [ages twelve, nine, seven, four, and two] in our family and only one pair of shoes amongst them, Daniel wrote. "My belief is that the Book of Mormon is of divine authenticityI have not the slightest doubt of it," she testified in an interview she gave late in life. They reached the bank of the Mississippi in eight days and found the river frozen over. That same day Latter-day Saint men assembled at the town square at bayonet point and, one by one, signed deeds that gave their land to the state of Missouri to pay the costs of the Mormon War. On November 6, soldiers took more prisoners and then ordered all Saints out of Missouri by spring. When eternal marriage was first introduced, many families carried out sealings with friends and those they wanted to be eternally associated with, not entirely understanding what the revelation meant. He crossed the river and found some hundred of the brethren waiting for the new ferry boat to be completed, which was done the next day. Conflicts between church members and neighbors also continued to escalate, and eventually Young made the decision to relocate the church to the Salt Lake Valley. [35] A Missouri map published in 1840 by L. Augustus Mitchell, on file in the National Archives Branch in College Park, Maryland, shows roads that provided two possible routes, an upper and a lower one. Josephs death occurred on 27 June 1844. When the two authors began piecing together Emmas life, there was only one small manila folder about her in the entire LDS Archives. In 1888 a Lyman Wight cabin was the only building standing in Ahman, and by 1970 it was totally gone.[124]. Nov. 10, 2014. Sarah later became Emmas first counselor in the Nauvoo Relief Society. On October 27, 1838, three days after Missouri and Mormon militias engaged in the Battle of Crooked River, Governor Boggs issued his infamous extermination order. The way that current materials deal with the conflict with Brigham Young is . Mary Audentia Smith Anderson. It is significant to note that the revelation instructed the entire presidency of the Church to leave Kirtland. Don Carlos [her son], with his family and the remainder of his baggage, was crowded into a buggy, and went in the same company with us. They encountered continuous rains and had to travel through mud. Her family was fairly well-off financially, and so Emma was well-educated for a woman of her time. It was difficult, dramatic, sometimes harrowing, and only partly organized. She wore it in a locket the rest of her life, even after she remarried. She moved away from Nauvoo for a while to avoid danger, but eventually returned to her former home. Imagine, then, her familys concern when she developed a fondness for Joseph Smith, who was from a poor farm family and had almost no formal educationjust that which his father had given him at home with a small amount of traditional schooling. Accordingly, our goods were taken out. They waited until another team came for them. Following Joseph's murder, Emma refused to go west with the Saints. Bushman reports that Emma and Joseph had many intense discussions about his polygamy and their relationship was periodically strained. But the way Emmas story is carefully sculpted reveals as much about gender expectations and religious norms in our own era as it did when Brigham Young declared her mormona non grata. As they moved on they found camp fires and tent poles already struck nearly all the way after this, apparently provided by the Committee of Removal. A Collection of Sacred Hymns for the Church of the Latter Day Saints was published in 1835. Emmas disappearance from LDS history was so total that Linda says when she and Valeen co-authored an article about her for the Ensign in 1979, it was the first writing about her to appear in any official church publication in 113 years. Events unfolded rapidly, with men from the neighboring towns staging raids on Nauvoo, trying to once again, drive out the Saints and claim their. He also owned and rented out ten or twelve small houses he had built. . First in Ohio and then three times in Missouri, they had practiced starting over. On November 6, 1832, Emma gave birth to Joseph Smith III in the upper room of Whitney's store in Kirtland. Events of the 1838 Mormon War soon escalated, resulting in Joseph's surrender and imprisonment by Missouri officials. [25] William F. Cahoon Petition in Johnson, Mormon Redress Petitions, 15253. Emma Hale Smith Bidamon (July 10, 1804 - April 30, 1879) was an American homesteader, the first wife of Joseph Smith, and a prominent leader in the early days of the Latter Day Saint movement, both during Smith's lifetime and afterward as a member of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS Church). Donate to us by shopping at Amazon at no extra cost to you. The first night, our wagon tipped over into the creek. At other times, she found she could not handle the choices she had made, much as Sarah in the Old Testament first encouraged her husband to marry her handmaiden and then discovered it was more than she was prepared to handle. He could find no way to bring the Butlers wagon across the river, so he spent the night with his family. Emma Smith The essentialeven phenomenalrole Emma played in bringing forth the Book of Mormon has been re-examined on many fronts. I now saw my little daughter, Nancy Jane, for the first time about two months old. He attended school as they courted, trying to live up to her. Brigham Young and his family, with several others, Kimball said. Her judgment lies in God's hands, not in ours or Brigham Young's. Joseph Smith did not have a Will but like today when the husband dies the surviving spouse is still entitled to a certain part of her husband's assets as defined by law, even without a will; but Emma would still have to go through court probate to obtain these assets. Ever since the Prophet Joseph died as a martyr in Carthage, Illinois, some Latter-day Saints have felt disappointment that Joseph's wife Emma did not go with the Church in the westward exodus of the Saints in 1846-47. in getting one single wagon to convey beds, clothing, and provisions for our family, and luggage. [51] Ronald K. Esplin, The Emergence of Brigham Young and the Twelve in Mormon Leadership, 18301841 (PhD diss., Brigham Young University, 1981), 370; Times and Seasons, September 1840, 165. [91] On April 18, when a group of anti-Mormons found him at the public square, they threatened to blow his brains out and tried to ride over him with their horses. Why did Emma Smith leave the LDS Church? A day or two later, a ferry finally dodged through the ice and brought the women and children across.[59]. The CES Director apparently never got around to responding. [37] David Rogers Report, 1839, in William Rogers and Elizabeth Bessie Ritchie with Their Ancestors and Descendants (Salt Lake City: Leo R. Rogers, 1981), 230. Richard Bushman writes of the poisoning accusation: Through the late fall and winter of 1843 and 1844, Joseph and Emma's relationship broke down only once. [100] Stanley B. Kimball, The Saints and St. Louis, 18311857: An Oasis of Tolerance and Security, BYU Studies 13 (Summer 1973): 489519. Saints gathered for a general conference on May 46 held in a Presbyterian campground two miles north of Quincy. If Brigham Young had one constant character trait, it was his absolute faithfulness to Joseph Smith. At Far West on February 22, Eliza R. Snow reported that a man had just arrived from Illinois who had counted 220 wagons between Far West and the Mississippi.[60] If that figure is accurate, and if wagons helped transport an average of four people each, then the man had passed about a thousand Saints on the road. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics". Unlike the majority of Latter Day Saints, Emma Smith did not follow Brigham Youngs suggestion that the Latter Day Saints leave Nauvoo and settle in the Salt Lake Valley in present-day Utah. Learning that Missouri militia were looking for them, they set out for Iowa thrugh the wilderness, enduring snow and cold with little to eat. Among the twenty-eight men in this group were Samuel Smith and Phineas and Lorenzo Young. Emma Smith was the wife of the first Mormon prophet, Joseph Smith. She had no example to follow and no real support group, as later women would have. Your email address will not be published. Adams County, organized in 1825, was named after John Quincy Adams, who that year became Americas sixth president, and the town of Quincy received his middle name. All Rights Reserved. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". [22] William Huntington Diary, 7; Lyndon W. Cook, Joseph C. Kingsbury: A Biography (Provo, UT: Grandin Book, 1985), 61. John marked time until his family and his mother and brothers could join him in Quincy. These hymns had a great influence on the Saints during the early days of the Church. That is a great question! Both routes merged southwest of the town of Palymra, twenty miles south of Quincy. The John Murdock family left on February 4 without any team or animal or carriage of any kind. They put Mrs. Murdock and the household furniture in a Brother Humphreys wagon. She wrote to him that only God knew how hard it was for her to flee her home with her children, abandoning all her possessions and leaving her husband to endure whatever was to come. Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet. [70], Saints chose to go to Quincy for several reasons. They held a short conference in one of the homes and excommunicated thirty-one unworthies. In addition to the Apostles, six members of the Committee and about a dozen other members were present. June 1831 The exodus from Missouri generated a rich store of documents and records. [57] Quoted in Lyman O. Littlefield, Reminiscences of Latter-day Saints (Logan, UT: Journal Company Printers, 1888), 7273. A Comfort unto My Servant, Joseph. Women of faith in the latter days. [115] Joseph Smith and Others to Edward Partridge and the Church, March 25, 1839, in Times and Seasons, May 1840, 102, and July 1840, 13132. When the Twelve returned from Far West in early May, they rejoiced to see him a free man in Illinois. She was a schoolteacher and even owned items of value, including cows. You might also enjoy Emma Smith: My Storyor Emma and Lucy. He was not sufficiently educated to write the translation of the plates, so while he translated through the Holy Ghost, she wrote his words. At other times, she found she could not handle the choices she had made, much as Sarah in the Old Testament first encouraged her husband to marry her handmaiden and then discovered it was more than she was prepared to handle. 7 Are Joseph and Emma Smiths descendants Latter-day Saints? She was left alone with her five children, including her adopted daughter and four sons. Emma: Because it was the price of faith. Mormon women have the specific responsibility to be righteous daughters of God; good, faithful wives; and loving mothers. For example, did Charles Wesley have any songs in her hymnal? She became the first woman to receive the temple endowment involving the making of sacred covenants with the Savior. Many nights the floors, upstairs and down, were covered with beds so closely it was impossible to set a foot anywhere without stepping on someone elses bed.[75], Emma Smith and the children arrived on February 15. All but the youngest two had to walk every step of the entire distance. They were almost barefooted and some had to wrap their feet in clothes in order to keep them from freezing and protect them from the sharp points of the frozen ground. Son John, nine, later said that often the blood from our feet marked the frozen earth.[57]. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. About Terrie Lynn Bittner The late Terrie Lynn Bittnerbeloved wife, mother, grandmother, and friendwas the author of two homeschooling books and numerous articles, including several that appeared in Latter-day Saint magazines. That did not stop Emma, a visionary woman in her own sense of the word. Emma contributed "in creating a distinct identity for the church" because this hymnbook's lyrics "emphasize key tenets of the religion." Understanding how early Saints worked earnestly to build up the Church helps us better appreciate the value of their work. I asked my mother one day, why don't Grandma laugh with her eyes like you do, and my mother said because she has a deep sorrow in her heart. . When pressed, Lindas bishop admitted he had received a similar call. Required fields are marked *. Emma Smith played an important part in the Restoration of the gospel, and today, more than two centuries after her birth on July 10, 1804, Church members can still learn from Emma's example. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics". They moved into a Brother Wiswangers crowded home. Emma Smith, first Relief Society President and wife of the Prophet Joseph Smith, had many incredible and difficult experiences in her life. Her heartaches were very real and would have been a challenge to any woman, particularly without the lens of understanding time brings.
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