We need your help to maintain Emma’s request
By Lachlan MacKay
“Joseph I should like if you are willing to extend that fence so as to enclose the graves of your two little brothers.
“I have got twenty five dollars that no one has any right to but myself, . . . I feel anxious to apply that money on that graveyard, after I have done that I think I can ask our Smith relatives to help mark Fathers and Mothers graves if no more.â€
–Emma to Joseph III, 1867
Smith descendants joined together in the early 1990s to beautify the family cemetery in Nauvoo, Illinois. We were inspired by the above passage in an 1867 letter from Emma Smith Bidamon to her son, Joseph Smith III. The family raised funds to place a new stone monument for Joseph, Hyrum, and Emma Smith and to install brick walks, lights, benches, a new fence, and new interpretive information. Trees, grass, and flowers were planted. The newly beautified cemetery was dedicated on August 4, 1991. Cousins continued to work together in 2002 to locate and mark the graves of Joseph Smith Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith, just as Emma had hoped 135 years earlier.
Life in 1840s Nauvoo was sometimes made miserable by hot, humid, bug filled summers and winters cold enough to paralyze the mighty Mississippi. Much has changed in Nauvoo since our ancestors left, but the extremely harsh conditions have stayed the same, and they have taken a toll on the work we did almost fifteen years ago.
We need to make major repairs and improvements to the cemetery. Damaged brick walkways are becoming a hazard and need to be dug up and replaced. The original lighting fixtures and lamps that illuminate the path must also be replaced. A combination of tens of thousands of visitors and the driest summer in recorded history have damaged the lawn and left large areas in need of reseeding. We need to rebuild and replant the two existing flower berms and install a concrete footer and brick borders around them. The flowerbeds surrounding the monument require landscaping and replanting as well. The irrigation system needs to be upgraded and rotten fencing must be replaced.
It is time, once again, to call on the “Smith relatives†for help. These major improvements are expected to cost over ten thousand dollars. Your donations are needed to continue to maintain the family cemetery in an appropriate fashion and in so doing, to better preserve the legacy of those who have gone before.
We could use the expertise of a professional bricklayer. If anyone is available they should contact Lachlan at lachlanmackay@gmail.com or by phone at (440) 256-2719.
Please send your tax deductible gifts for refurbishing the cemetery to:
The Joseph Smith, Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith Foundation
c/o Craig Frogley
10763 S 2000 E
Sandy UT 84092