Joseph Smith, Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith Family Organization

Some Conclusions:

1. The Foundation has assets thanks to the donations of many who love the Smith Family. We guard these as sacred
funds that provide interest income over the years with which we can manage our family stewardship.

2. Those who manage the investments have done well, providing $3,565.00 of interest income this past year.

3. Bonds mature and must be sold and replaced. The cost of doing so through brokerage fees and increased face value
account for the difference in the $10,221 liquidated and the $12,471 purchased and the $175 fee.

4. Maintaining the cemetery for visitors to learn about and enjoy our family’s heritage is both a sacred family
stewardship and expensive. During most years the interest from the investments pays for the cemetery maintenance.

5. Family newsletter addresses total to around 5,000. If dues were paid only by those addresses the total cash fund
available could be $75,000.00 annually. We could either lower dues or use the fund to do more good for our own
family as indicated in the first article. Many projects stand only as dreams due to insufficient resources since less
than ten percent of the family contribute to through dues. This report only shows $110.00 for the last quarter of
2003. If annualized it would only come to $440.00 for all of 2003.

6. All of us on the Board and on the correlation committee spend our own additional moneys to purchase software, send
correspondence, and make phone calls, etc in the search for family members. Some have spent thousands to publish
books with no hope for return on investment. Theirs is a labor tied to the vision that the Smith Family Values can
serve as a powerful solution to the growing problems that vex our world and especially our families.

Jerusha Barden Smith, first wife of Patriarch Hyrum Smith was born on February 15, 1805. She passed into almost total anonymity when she died in Kirtland, Ohio on Oct. 13 1837, following the birth of her sixth child, Sarah. Many of the grandchildren of Jerusha have expressed an intense desire to put in place a fitting memorial for.

The famous sculptor, Dee Jay Bawden has been commissioned by her grandchildren to sculpt a likeness of this devoted and valiant woman who was the first love of Hyrum Smith to be placed alongside his bust that is already in Kirtland. Though small donations of any amount will be helpful in this effort, a smaller version of Jerusha can be purchased, as well as a companion likeness of Hyrum for $100 each. A purchase of one of the small busts will be counted toward the donation to the fund for the large bust memorial. Mail your contribution or request for a small likeness to: Eldred G. Smith, Hyrum Smith Family Association at 2942 Devonshire Circle, Salt Lake City, Utah, 84108.

More than a half a million people have visited the family cemetery. The Foundation spends much of its resources on maintaining and upgrading this important memorial to all for which the family stands. Recently, new lighting, new headstones for Father and Mother Smith, a new path to their newly marked graves, and new signs were added. We are grateful to Community of Christ, who owns the cemetery, for the care they take in servicing and instructing visitors. Lachlan Mackay, the Community’s Historic Sites Coordinator, and a board member, worked with the board to ensure that the “Frequently Asked Questions” answers were family-friendly and historical. Since many volunteers serve at the cemetery this will ensure our story is as accurate as we can make it.

Would you like to have ready access to a Smith family genealogical line including ancestral pictures? Would you like to access a past newsletter? Would you like to know and contact your family representative to the Foundation? Would you like to register yourself or a family member with the Foundation so as to receive this newsletter or send it to other family members?

www.josephsmithsr.org is the web site that will serve as a portal to the Foundation resources if you will register online. If you have questions you want answered, the “contact” button allows you to send an email which then is directed to the appropriate family representative or Board of Trustees. If you have information to share: pictures, names of ancestors or interesting information about them, just email them with the proper source information using the contact button. If sources are included and verifiable then we will be able to share them and credibility will grow. We welcome and encourage your submissions as we share ideas and information.

During the year 2004, please check to see if your family names and other data are included correctly in the www.josephsmithsr.com web site. Send me any updates for your family regarding births, deaths, marriages, and addresses etc. so the Martha Ann descendants will receive the Smith Newsletter: ccking@xmission.com.

By Craig R. Frogley
The family gathered in Nauvoo, IL this last summer for its regular reunion. Once again under the direction of The Family Reunion Organization rather than the Foundation, we met to enjoy each other as well as the reconstructed city. As I contemplated going back to Nauvoo (The Foundation had sponsored the Family gathering surrounding the dedication of the New Nauvoo temple just a year earlier.), it was without the usual excitement. Perhaps it was because I try to
avoid redundancy, or perhaps it was the twenty-eight hours in the car with the children that killed my enthusiasm in returning to the same place. Then, Gracia Jones remarked to me a most profound thought I have tried to reconstruct since:

“We do reunions, not to see the places, though they are deeply significant because of the ancestral prices paid, but because we are with family. Things will happen if you are there that would not otherwise happen that will affect both lives and relationships eternally.” I went with that in mind and found it deeply true. I noted that there was much that was better than it had ever been before: The speakers were profound, the gatherings were bonding, the food was great, etc. Then the most profound thing happened to me that emblazoned the reunion forever onto my memory and reconfirmed the purpose for which we do what we have been striving to do over the last nine years as a Family Foundation.

The Samuel organization decided to once again feed the family. We met in the grove just north and across the street from the Homestead and west of the Mansion House. As we feasted under the trees with the family sites surrounding us, I happened to shift my gaze from the smiling faces of those sitting and eating, or serving, to look upward; and there it was!!!

The spreading canopy of my dream arched over us. It had been a restless night preceding the public organization of the Joseph Smith, Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith
Foundation to which I had been newly appointed, particularly to find all the living descendants. The early morning hours finally found me drifting in to a deep
and much needed sleep. It was during this time that the following dream portended all that we would do during the ensuing years.

I saw in the morning dreams a large and beautiful tree with a very stout and long trunk. The canopy of branches was high overhead and extended in all directions but most especially to my left towards other trees of like configuration. The wind began to blow and the great tree moved majestically in the wind. The branches seemed to extend and began to mingle with those of the other trees. Then to my surprise the extending branches seemed to form a horse head sculpted in the leaves and branches. Then the head, moving also in the wind, visible intermittently with the waving, mingling more with the other tree branches, began to graze on the branches of the other trees with which it mingled but the branches were not consumed. I looked closer and marveled at what I was seeing-I looked intensely to verify. The grazing continued but instead of consuming the other trees they merged to form a larger canopy, an umbrella covering, until they were virtually one tree with many trunks.

The canopy of The Foundation has been spreading, joining and sometimes spawning other family organizations that carry the load of the work that binds us as a family. We continue to help, counsel, finance, and research, many projects and family organizations as you will note in the following paragraphs. We feel it a privilege to work with and help correlate with the following organizations: Joseph F. Smith Family Association; Hyrum Smith Organization; Joseph Smith,
Sr. Family Reunion Organization; Joseph Smith, Jr. Organization; Samuel Smith Family Organization; John Smith Family Organization; Martha Ann Smith Family Organization; Sarah Smith Family Organization; and The John Walker Family Organization; A Family Media Group and of course Internet Specialists.

Terri Ballstaedt (from Aunt Julina), President of the Joseph F. Smith Family Association, turned over the reins to Bonnie Sorenson (from Aunt Edna) for the year 2004, after a very successful Joseph F. Smith Reunion in November of 2003. Several wonderful items are available on the website at www.josephfsmith.org.

May we as a board express our deep appreciation to the family members for the support you have given to the Joseph Smith, Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith Foundation.

In order to further the work of the foundation, we need your generous on-going support. Your donations provide funding to maintain the family cemetery in Nauvoo; do essential family history work; prepare and mail family newsletters; purchase basic supplies; and explore projects that teach and enhance our appreciation for our faithful forefathers.

We encourage all individual family members to do their part by sending a contribution to the address indicated on the last page of this newsletter. Let us join together in honoring our forefathers, especially Joseph Smith, Jr. whose 200th birthday will be December 23, 2005.

Board of Trustees

Some of you are reading this for the first time and so don’t know who we are. We are descendants of Joseph and Lucy Smith like most of you. We are organized to assist grandfather organizations and other noted ancestor organizations between Father and Mother Smith and all of us. We have a board of trustees consisting of descendants from many parts of the country, officers, and an advisory committee of past trustees. We meet once to twice a year and publish this Newsletter at about the same frequency. We invite you to donate annually to make all that we do as a family possible. This newsletter will give you some idea of what we have been up to over the last year. We were originally organized to upgrade and maintain the Nauvoo Family Cemetery which is owned by the Community of Christ. Our mission and functionality has increased over the years as we have seen need and responded, as you can see by visiting our web site at www.josephsmithsr.org.

In the environment of the failing family we feel it our stewardship to help. Meeting this many dimensioned need requires many hands, minds, inspiration and finances. As you will read, we want to provide you with tools with which to reach your children and grandchildren across the generational gulf to impart the values of our successful ancestors. We have many such tools now and many more that are on hold requiring family financial participation. Currently only ten percent of the family pays the annual $15.00 dues. Some with greater personal resource and a desire to “do good” have added many dollars to projects that have blessed family members. We have an on-going need for such family loyalty. We now have a media group that have both talent and facilities to produce media tools from books for children to videos that impart history and values. Please visit and read on the websites the list of resources and the excerpt from Dr. Kyle Walker’s PhD thesis on the Smith family values. One of those essential values is highlighted.

We need your participation. Please read the following letter penned by Elder M. Russell Ballard in behalf of the Board of Trustees, which includes, M. Russell Ballard, Wallace Smith, Eldred Smith, Dan Larsen, Lachlan MacKay, and Craig Frogley.

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