Joseph Smith, Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith Family Organization

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.

By Ben Donoho

Are you a descendant of Jerusha Smith Peirce and is your name shown as her descendant on the www.hyrumsmith.org web site? If so, you are one of about 650 others found there. How about checking to see if the descendant information is correct?

And if you could add to the information, all the better. We can thank cousins Earl Peirce, Arvid Webster, and others for their cumulative effort and for sharing what we know about the 650.

We realize the 650 is the tip of the iceberg. How about submitting to us any information you might have about your relatives who we have not yet been identified? And don’t forget: please include any corrections. No doubt some are needed.

We are also interested in becoming aware of reunions or other organized family activities that may have occurred among Jerusha’s descendants. The details of who, where, what, and when would be useful to know about. For example, you may be interested to know that Earl Peirce published a limited edition of an interesting volume called Biography and History, Jerusha Barden Smith, Patriarch John Smith. It is based on earlier work done by Jerry C. Roundy and Ralph Gibbs Smith.

By LaRene Gaunt

Our big news is the registration of www.SarahSmithGriffin.com as a web site. We are in the beginning stages of gathering information to put up on the site. We hope that the site will become a focal point for Sarah’s descendants. LaRene Gaunt welcomes contact from all Sarah descendants at gauntlr@ldschurch.org.

LaRene’s home address is 10122 Buttercup Dr, Sandy UT 84092.

We have a partial list of Sarah descendants on the www.JosephSmithSr.org web site. We are continuing to add families who are descended from Sarah Smith and Charles Emerson Griffin. We are also building an address list for these families so that they can receive the newletter. For those who don’t know, Jerry Roundy of Escalante, Utah, has written a book on Escalante. As you know, all of Sarah’s descendants were raised in Escalante and many of her descendants still live there or have family ties there. You can get a copy of Jerry’s book for $28 (includes shipping). Write to Jerry Roundy, 1605 North Pine Creek Rd, Escalante Utah 84726. If you have photographs or stories or family history, let’s get them up on the Web site.

by Carole Call King

What a marvelous challenge it has been for me to search for the descendants of Martha Ann Smith Harris! Forty or more Harris cousins I have contacted have been of great help in gathering names of their families. With their help my data base is increasing every day. Today–27 February 2001-in my Martha Ann Smith and William Jasper Harris file I have entered names and data regarding birth dates/places, marriage dates/places, and death dates/places, if necessary, of 3,420 people. This includes 2,561 families, of which 2,376 people are the direct descendants of Martha Ann and William Jasper. These are not all living descendants, of course. So far I have 537 family names and current addresses on my mailing list. I hope to add telephone numbers and email addresses to each of these. There are many I do not yet have and I need your help in this huge project.

In the process of finding these names it has been wonderful to get acquainted with many Harris cousins I didn’t know before. I have corresponded by telephone, mail, and email with cousins in Utah, Nevada, Arizona, California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Colorado, Wyoming, Texas, Missouri, and Virginia.

E-mail is a fantastic tool in this work! Many of our cousins have become closer to their extended families as they search out information to fill in family group sheets. Some have their own websites. Some have held reunions and tried to organize on a grandfather level. Such family reunions are highly encouraged.

Carol Nixon and Fred Willoughby are planning a reunion for all the descendants of Martha Ann Smith and William Jasper Harris in connection with the August 2001 Joseph Smith Sr. Family Reunion in Salt Lake! Our grandmother, Martha Ann, loved reunions and so did my grandmother, Sarah Harris Passey. They worked so hard to keep the family close to each other. Please make your plans to come together in Salt Lake City in August. You’ll hear more about it from Carol and Fred.

WILLIAM JASPER – MARTHA ANN SMITH HARRIS FAMILY REUNION
2 AUGUST 2001 FROM 10:00 A.M. TO 5:00 P.M.
THIS IS THE PLACE HERITAGE PARK, SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH

More good news! One of our great Harris cousins–Douglas Paulson of San Antonio, Texas–has agreed to be webmaster for our Marthaann.org website! Doug just began working on this site the end of November with help from Jared Glade, who is the webmaster for the Joseph F. Smith website, and a member of our Father/Mother Smith group. I am so grateful to Doug for taking on this huge task. It is exciting to think of the possibilities a Martha Ann website offers. We will be able to share pictures, letters, and family stories, as well as family information to add to and keep current the Harris database. There are several old photographs I have from the collection of my Grandmother Sarah Harris Passey which are not labeled and I don’t know who they are. These photos can be scanned and put on the website to see if any of you recognize the people in the pictures. Perhaps others have the same problem with old photographs. Really, the possibilities are endless. I especially hope the website will help us find other cousins to be counted. I know there are thousands of cousins I don’t have listed in my computer.

Click on to: www.marthaann.org, keep watching and help it grow! Carole King, 608 Davis St, Morgan UT 84050; ccking@xmission.com.

By Mary Donoho

Have you had a chance to visit the Joseph F. Smith website yet? Just go to www.josephfsmith.org and browse around, you’ll be pleasantly surprised by all the great information that you can access there. Jared Glade is the website coordinator and has done a fantastic job of making information available.

We have also added downloadable files for all the descendants of Joseph F. Smith. After you have downloaded the information check to make sure you are included. Then check to see if there are any inaccuracies in our data. If you have any additions or corrections to make write to me and we will get it entered properly. We know we are missing some of you and want to make it complete. My email address is thomasj@quwest.net and my home address is Mary Donoho, 1090 Raymond Road, Fruit Heights, Utah 84037-2250. I would love to hear from you!

At the Joseph F. Smith reunion this year we had a most informative and delightful presentation by Richard Holzapfel, who showed us many slides of Joseph F. Smith that have never been published before. His book: Joseph F. Smith: Portrait of a Prophet by Richard Neitzel Holzapfel co-written with R. Q. Shup is available at Deseret Book.

We mourn the passing of Elaine Nichols in July of this past year. She has, without a doubt, done more for gaining genealogical information and keeping records of the Smith Family then any other person. She is greatly missed. We are grateful for the heritage she has left us.

The Mary Fielding and John Smith home and Joseph F. Memorial Grove at the “This is The Place” State Park were finished and stand beautifully overlooking the Salt Lake valley. Several family members completed these wonderful historic monuments with donations from the family and much work: Thank you!!!