Author: gator

The Samuel Family announced a project to fund a statue of Samuel. If family members wish to help, contact Robert Smith at “Bob_Smith@byu.edu” or call (801) 489-7589. Further fund raising efforts by the Foundation to assist the Samuel Family will come after the Father and Mother Smith headstone project is completed: June 2002.

Blue skies and warm desert days of the Salt Lake Valley greeted family members as they gathered for three days of renewing and forming family bonds. Some grandchild organizations met on Thursday prior to the registration evening. We hope more will follow this example, as did the Martha Ann Smith Harris Family.

The first-evening-registration-gathering allowed us to chat with friends we hadn’t seen for two years or more. We also had the opportunity to browse and or buy the newly created artwork from sculptors, artists and authors who have focused on the Smith family history. Richard Dutcher, the film-maker of God’s Army, Brigham City, and the new Life of Joseph Smith, was seen in the crowd. He was getting to know the family whose ancestors will be featured in the movie.

In the Joseph Smith Memorial Building we were entertained and instructed about our great heritage. We saw newly discovered pictures; delighted at a powerful portrayal of Joseph and Emma; were awed at seeing some of the original Book of Mormon manuscripts and books that belonged to the Smiths; viewed our growing suite of family web-pages.

The little children were taken to “Father Smith’s Pioneer School and Store” where they played and learned in true pioneer fashion. The teens laughed and cried through stories from the lives of their ancestral heroes the first day. They then saw the Joseph and Hyrum personal property and martyrdom clothes up close and personal by our own Patriarch, Eldred G. Smith.

A special showing of the new big screen film delighted the family, “Testaments, of one fold and one Shepherd.” An afternoon of touring the pioneer sites of Salt Lake and a wonderful mountain barbecue and cowboy songfest in the canyon completed Friday.

Saturday concluded with a sumptuous, formal banquet and entertainment on the twenty-fifth floor of the high-rise building. Sunday morning, we concluded with a devotional, listening first to the Tabernacle Choir broadcast in person, then a powerfully moving oratorio written to memorialize Joseph. Elder Ballard concluded our reunion with a charge to the family to remember the values and live the legacy of these inspired ancestors.

Your financial help is needed to place headstones on Father and Mother Smith’s graves. Their graves have never been marked. Your contributions will also place a memorial stone in the cemetery by the Kirtland Temple for Father Smith’s mother,
Mary Duty, Jerusha Smith, Joseph and Emma’s twins and Mary, a daughter of Hyrum and Jerusha.

We estimate the cost will be $25,000. Some large contributions will be needed to meet this goal. However, the board feels that each family member needs the opportunity to participate, no matter what the amount. We owe it to our ancestors to mark their graves or memorialize them near where they are buried.

When our ancestors left Kirtland, graves markers were destroyed. In Nauvoo, graves were not marked because of fear of what enemies might do. We now have an opportunity to appropriately honor our ancestors by marking their graves and memorializing them. Joseph Smith once said, “the place that a man is buried is sacred to me.” Late in life, Emma expressed her desire to reach out to all of the Smith descendants to mark these graves.

It is now up to each of us. Will you please send a generous donation as soon as you can to make this happen before the temple dedication in Nauvoo in June? We would like to mark these graves by that time so that each visitor to Nauvoo this summer might be able to stand at this sacred site. We will also look forward to gathering as a family at the completion of the project in Nauvoo. Please attach the form at the end of the newsletter with your contribution.

Opportunities for Headstone Donation Begun

At last, after years of uncertainty, the resting places of both Joseph Smith, Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith have been located and verified. The story is a veritable, high-tech Scotland Yard clue chase. The Saints Herald in 1960 published an account of the location of the Joseph Smith Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith graves. It was the account by the family cemetery sextant, who was shown the sites by the original grave digger who had buried Emmeline, the wife of Joseph the 3rd, in 1869. He had inadvertently disturbed Mother Smith’s grave, and with the help of Emma, made identification.

We published this account in our newsletter with a request that anyone in the family with corroborating journal accounts to please inform us. Not long after, another sent us an account that contradicted the sextant’s account, made by Joseph and Lucy’s grandson. It was then decided to continue the sleuthing by using modern technology. It took some time for all the puzzle pieces to fit but now they do. After some search and proper timing, a ground penetrating radar scan was arranged. Here are some excerpts from the final scan report.

“The x-ray images arise from variations in the soils caused by pit excavation and refilling. The overall uniformity of the soils in this cemetery indicates considerable coffin decay… The considerable mixing of soils makes the identification of child burials particularly difficult, because of the smaller size…”

The diagram below shows four marked graves, including Emmeline’s that will serve as reference since the x-ray verified their currently marked positions. The investigative mystery was discovering whether there were graves either to the east or to the west of Emmeline’s as per the contradicting accounts. (Drum roll please) Now quoting again: “The area just west of Emmeline is vacant…Mother Smith could then be to the east of Emmeline. The scan indicates that we do have a grave image in this eastern area that is close to Emmeline and matches the Saint’s Herald account by the cemetery sextant. There is also a grave image just to side of the Lucy image that must be Father Smith’s.

Now that we know where they are, the Family invites each family member to participate in memorializing our namesakes with appropriate markers. See below…

The Joseph Smith Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith Foundation Newsletter
http://www.josephsmithsr.org

Volume 11, Fall 2001

This is just a last note to remind all to please send your annual dues. Our newsletter outreach in search of all the family members depends on you. For those who haven’t received them, Family Biographies have been finished and will be sent upon request as dues are paid. These are special personal sketches prepared by our Foundation historian, Mark McConkie. If you aren’t certain when you last paid the $15.00, please note your mailing label for the date. Please use the enclosed envelope and cut-out form section or send to:

c/o Spence Nilson
Joseph Smith, Sr. and Lucy Mack Foundation
180 E 2100 S 202
Salt Lake City UT 84115

(please do not send dues to the newsletter return address)

If you know of living Smith descendants that don’t receive the newsletter please send their addresses by copying the form from the section of the newsletter and sending them to the return address on the newsletter or emailing to crfrogley@josephsmithsr.org, or now you can go to the web page and enter information in yourself: www.josephsmithsr.org. Thank you.

Information and registration are included in the enclosed Reunion News. YOU MAY REGISTER ON LINE- www.josephsmithsr.com This year from 10:00-11:00 a.m. on both Friday and Saturday we will add, breakout sessions for children over 5, including youth (12 & up) and young adult (18 & up) with fun and powerful speakers who will focus on our family heritage and heroes. Sharing family values across the ever-dangerous generation gap is what family organizations are all about. We want to make certain that our children catch the fire that unites us in this great family!

[Editor’s Note: This letter, written by Joseph Smith III to his cousin, John Smith, reveals something of the affection which ought to exist between cousins. It is a simple recall of childhood memories, and a plea that the affections which made childhood so wonderful might continue throughout life. It also tells of family news, of a recent visit to Nauvoo, and of the changes that city had undergone since their youth. These two cousins had been separated by strong religious differences, by hundreds of miles, and by decades of association. Still, their affections for one another overcame the years. Joseph Smith III was born Nov. 6, 1832, in Kirtland, Ohio; he died Dec. 10, 1914. He was the son of the Prophet Joseph Smith and his wife, Emma. John Smith, his cousin, was born Sept. 22, 1832, also at Kirtland, Ohio, the son of Hyrum Smith and his wife, Jerusha Barden. John Smith died on his cousin’s birthday, Nov. 6, 1911.]

Excerpts from a letter…

Dear Cousin John: Dec. 20, 1909

…I know what a task it is for you to write, but I would be pleased indeed if you would sometime take the pains to write me, or have someone write for you, and tell me about Loren Walker, whether he is living or dead, and the members of his family, who they are and where they are. I seem to remember meeting her at Ogden once, and when she and her family were on the road to Star Valley. Since then I have heard nothing about them. I understood that Sarah died many years ago. I met your half-sister Martha, the last time I was at Provo, but I have heard nothing about them or their children and really do not know how many children they have or what they are doing. I met one of them at Provo, I think in 1889, and he was then clerking for the cooperative store at Provo under the management of Bishop Smoot, and I have heard noting of him since, except incidentally I heard that he had gone into business for himself.

I know that I am asking considerable of you, but when I remember that you are some six weeks ahead of me in the race of life, and that we are both rapidly passing to the great beyond, to join the hosts that have gone before, I am reminded of the far off past when you and I used to ride through the streets of Nauvoo, you on the white horse and I on the black, the two most noted boys in the city. Some of those days come back like a flood to my memory, and I wonder how much of the past you may recall. Not many are left, Cousin John, of the band that we knew then. The Snyder boys, Edgerton, and John, the Haws boys (Alpheus and Albert), the Marks boys (William and Louellen), Jared Carter’s boys, the Turney children, Sydney Rigdon’s children (Sydney and Wycliff), the last named being at Salt Lake City now as I understand, the Laws (Richard and William), Edward Partridge, the Billings boys, the Decker boys, the Hancock’s, Joseph Clapp, James and Henry Lawrence, the Lytles, the Phelps (James and Henry), Loren’s brothers, (James and Henry), Allreads and others, most of which have gone on before, leaving but few of the little circle whom we knew, all admonished us that the places we occupy will soon be vacated for others now younger and stronger, who will take up with vigor the things we leave undone.

Please, cousin John, write me as fully as you can, or have some one do it for you, as I am having my letters written to you.

…Cousin Don and his wife, and daughters, Mary Deam, Emma Peterson, Dr. of medicine at Ottuma, Iowa, and Grace, the unmarried daughter, made a visit to Nauvoo with wife and myself and our youngest boy, and had a picnic dinner on the banks of the river at the foot of Main St., which you will doubtless well remember. The stone to which I used to tie my boat still lies on the shore, the ring bolt is broken off, but its rusted end still remains in the hole drilled to receive it. The river still runs by the town, but the streets are grass grown, and nothing remains to mark where you folks used to live but the barn standing on the site where your barn stood, and the well in front of where the house used to stand. It would make your heart ache to see the desolation into which all the lower part of the flat is fallen.

But perhaps this will not interest you, cousin, but I have been trying to think up the things of those days for the purpose of writing a book of memories, and some of them come quite clear to my memory. You will probably remember, William and Leuellen Marks, who lived next door east [of] you folks. They went into business in Mendota, Ill., were for a time engaged in the manufacture of the western cottage organ. William died at Sandwich, Illinois, leaving a small family, and Louellyn died at Mendota, not many years after William’s death. What family he left and in what condition, I do not know. William gave me his father’s book, as he said he neither cared for them nor the religion. Neither of them never paid any attention whatever to me, and so far as I know never engaged in any religious work at all. You will also remember John Brackenbury, I presume. He died at Riverside, California, but he has quite a family, most of whom are living here at Independence. I would like it if you could visit me this next Summer, should I be living, and we will talk those old days over. I am, dear cousin,

Yours in the hope of life,

Joseph Smith

By Robert Smith

The Samuel H Smith Family has come along way in identifying the descendants of Samuel H Smith and Mary Bailey. Currently we have asked 5 individuals to help with research with the different branches of the Family. Samuel had four children that lived past infancy, of those children only Samuel Harrison Bailey Smith had children. Samuel H. B. Smith had four wives Mary Catherine Smith, Julia Winter, Clara Tuttle and Rachel Tuttle. Hyrum and Raymond Smith Great grandson of Samuel H. Smith have been asked to help identify descendants of Samuel H. B. Smith and Mary Catherine Smith.

The biggest areas to identify are the descendants of Samuel B. Smith and Cumorah Smith Burns. Julia Winter Family has been assigned to Nola Smith a great great grand daughter of Samuel H. The area where there is the least known is the descendants of Grace Levira Smith Kerr one of the daughters Samuel H.B. and Julia Winter. Rex Smith a great Grandson identified Clara Tuttle descendants, and since his passing Boyd Smith Rex’s brother has been asked to update their Family information. Rachel Tuttle and Samuel H. B. Smith had only one Son Heman Tuttle Smith, yet from that one son came a large Family that still meets together as a Family organization. Melvin Smith a great Grandson has provided the information for that branch of the Family.

We have purchased the license for www.SamuelHSmith.com and org. on the Internet and asked David Lee Smith to be the Web Master. The sight currently links directly to www.Josephsmithsr.com. If you have any pictures or information that you feel should be on our Family web site please contact me at Bob_Smith@byu.edu.

Buddy Youngreen has asked if the Samuel Family descendants would help with the dinner at Brighton during the Family Reunion in August This will be on Friday Aug 3 at 5:00 PM at the Brighton LDS chapel. If you would like to help Please email me at Bob_Smith@byu.edu or call me at (801) 489-7589.