Joseph Smith, Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith Family Organization

On August 7-10, 2003, in Nauvoo, the family will once again gather to bond relationships, learn our family stories, and bask in the spirit of location that resides in the places they walked. This reunion will again be under the direction of Buddy Youngren.

As the original Nauvoo Temple was abandoned in 1846, the Smith family was split. With the completion of the new Nauvoo Temple the family came together to tour the rebuilt temple and meet at the new headstones of Father and Mother Smith in the family cemetery. The family met at 7:00 a.m. on Saturday, June 22 to enjoy the beauty and peace of the temple. Entry brought us into the basement site of the baptismal font sitting on the back of twelve oxen. After spending so many years looking at the hole in the ground that was the site of the original font the presence of the new font brought deep emotion to many of us. Though we couldn’t all be together to share the beauty of spiral staircases, circular windows, muraled walls, ornate rooms all built as closely to the details revealed to our first Smiths, the breakfast gathering following the tours allowed us to meet and eat. Our own Robert Smith family (Samuel) and friends prepared waffles and fresh fruit. After sharing with many Smiths that we had never met before, we gathered at the family cemetery for pictures and conversation at the new headstones of Father and Mother Smith. Emma had requested that posterity care for and preserve the graves. Their location was, however, lost to living memory. Several individuals consequently, spent years of historical research and finally ground x-ray to determine the location of this new family gathering place. The foundation is now working to replace outdated signs and prepare the tour guides in Nauvoo to represent this sacred family location.

The cemetery has been very well cared for, and those involved deserve special thanks for all their hard work. With the new head stones it really seems to be developing into a beautiful and special place. After this experience we plan to go back each year and spend some more time.”

Sincerely,
Peter and Mary Larsen

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

HYRUM- LIVING
-Lovina: Bill Woodland. 208-233-4099 4,484
-John Sam Isolm 801-771-6911 2,000
-Joseph F. Mary Donoho 801-546-4707 5,000
-Jerusha Ben Donoho 801-546-4707
-Martha Ann Carole King 435 673-4303 2,768
-Sarah LaRene Gaunt 801-572-0169 1,000
JOSEPH Jr- Michael Kennedy801-756-1091 800
SAMUEL Robert Smith 801-489-7589 450
WILLIAM Gracia Jones 435-673-2165 ukwn
CATHERINE Marge Porter-Pieper801-876-3265 ukwn
LUCY Wilburta Moore 801-595-8131 ukwn

This is just a last note to invite all to please send an annual contribution. Our newsletter outreach in search of all our family members depends on you. If you aren’t certain when you last paid the suggested $15.00, please note your mailing label for the date.

Please help us save cost by using your own envelope and cut-out form section.

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 soon you may go to the web page and enter information in yourself: www.josephsmithsr.org.

Thank you.

Though the video is sold out the talks and program are available to those that have web access. You may download this valuable history and some of the music at www.hyrumsmith.org.

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…