Is Your Family Branch Represented?

The Family Organization Coordinating Committee meets each month to review status, progress, and research on each of the lines from the Children of Joseph Smith, Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith.

Representatives include:

HYRUM- LIVING
-Lovina: Roger Anderson 435-846-3301 …………..4,484
-John Wilburta Moore 801-595-8131 ………….. ukwn
-Joseph F. Mary Donoho 801-546-4707 …………15,000
-Jerusha Ben Donoho 801-546-4707 …………. ukwn
-Sarah LaRene Gaunt 801-572-0169 ………….. ukwn
-Martha Ann Carole King 435-876-3273 …………..2,530
JOSEPH Jr- Michael Kennedy801-756-1091 …………….800
SAMUEL Robert Smith 801-489-7589 ……………..450
WILLIAM Michael Nebeker 801-942-5053 ………….. ukwn
CATHERINE Marjorie Porter 801-876-3265 ………….. ukwn
LUCY ……………………………… ukwn

Since this is continual work in progress we will update this data frequently with the invitation to please help by registering all known family members with your own family organization or through one of the committee.

Gentle Reminder!

This is just a last note to remind all to please send your annual dues. Our newsletter and research to find all the living descendents depend on you. All family members that we know receive the newsletter because we are family. Please become a dues paying member so that we can continue the work to find and unite the family. The Board of Trustees has recommended and approved a modest increase in our dues. Family Biographies will be finished and sent to all dues payers as we all renew. These are special personal sketches prepared by our Foundation historian, Mark McConkie. If you aren’t certain when you last paid the $15.00, NOTE THE MAILING LABEL for the date of your last payment. Please use the enclosed envelope and card. If you know of living Smiths descendants that don’t receive the newsletter please send their addresses by copying the card and sending them to the return address on the newsletter or emailing to c.frogley@m.cc.utah.edu.

Thank you.

Role of the Foundation

There are many Joseph Smith, Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith family organizations with desires and wishes but without the resources to carry them out. As with this great celebration, the Foundation stands ready and anxious to serve by facilitating, consulting, and lending resources to find and unite the family as per our mission statement on the website at www.JosephSmithSr.org.

We invite you to join us!

Your $25 donation helps
• Maintain the Nauvoo family cemetery
• Maintain and update our family database (www.josephsmithsr.org)
• Encourage and publicize grandfather reunions and other news
• Explore projects that teach about our ancestors.

Click on the following link to make your donation online: http://www.josephsmithsr.org/node/34

July 7-10, 2011 Joseph Smith Junior Reunion: Independence, MO

Grandma Emma’s Birthday

The Joseph Smith Jr. family will be gathering for their fourth time this July 7th and ending on Emma Hale Smith’s birthday the 10th of July. Over 200 family members are expected to arrive in Independence, Missouri, many from as far away as Australia where almost 1/3 of Alexander’s posterity live. There are so many fun games and activities planned for the children that a van has to drive the contents for the games to Independence from Salt Lake.

Thursday night is registration, pizza, lots of visiting, and the film at the LDS visitor’s center “Prophet of the Restoration.” Friday morning we will hear from our Australian families and then everyone has the choice throughout the day of sitting back and visiting or choosing from several activities: LDS Visitor’s Center, Independence Walking Tour, Community of Christ Temple and Museum tour, The Temple Lot, Jessie James Museum, Harry S. Truman Museum and Library, or family fun activities. In the middle of the day we will be laying a special marker for Joseph and Emma’s granddaughter Alice Fredericka, the only child of Frederick G. Williams and Anna Marie Jones Smith. Friday ends with a Luau, a variety of family talent and a spotlight on David Hyrum’s family.

Saturday we go to Liberty where Joseph was imprisoned for 6 months, and will then visit the construction of the building of the temple in Kansas City. We have special guests Andy Ehat and Matthew Brown on the buses to share why Joseph had Temples built. We will return midday for everyone to build up an appetite with the Stick Pull championships, tug of war and other games. That evening we will have special presentations and a birthday cake celebrating Grandma Emma’s birthday along with special gifts to the children and to every family that is there.

We end with a Sunday morning devotional and lots of hugs and farewells.
For more information, please see www.josephsmithjr.com.

Mary Duty Smith: Mother of Joseph Smith Sr.

In Kirtland, Ohio 1836
Rejoined Family in Kirtland, Ohio in 1836

By Julie Maddox

This August we celebrate a significant milestone–the 175th Anniversary of the First Smith Family Reunion. In May of 1836, Mary Duty Smith, almost 93 years old, traveled 500 miles from Stockholm, New York to Kirtland, Ohio for “she had asked the Lord that she might live to see her children and grandchildren once more.”

The Prophet Joseph noted that his grandmother was overjoyed at meeting her children and grandchildren, “knew all of us she had ever seen [and] . . . was much pleased at being introduced to her great grand-children.” Joseph wrote, “It was a happy day.”

Mary was born on Oct. 11, 1743 in Rowley, Massachusetts, to Moses and Mary Palmer Duty. On Feb. 12, 1767, she married Asael Smith of Topsfield. Mary bore eleven children. Eight children survived to adulthood. In 1772 Mary and Asael moved to New Hampshire and began farming. After Asael’s father died in 1785, Asael and Mary moved back to Topsfield to settle his father’s estate. Mary’s son John remembered her as a “first rate dairy” woman, and Asael wrote of her tenderly and sought her comfort.

Mary and Asael sought earnestly to follow their personal convictions. They were Congregationalists and according to the church minutes of March 8, 1772 “owned the covenant.”

In 1830, Joseph Smith Sr. and his son Don Carlos traveled to Stockholm, New York to share the restored gospel with their relatives. Although Mary’s oldest son Jesse opposed the message, Mary, Asael and 5 of their children embraced the truth that they brought.

Joseph wrote “My grandfather, Asael Smith, long ago predicted that there would be a prophet raised up in his family, and my grandmother was fully satisfied that it was fulfilled in me. My grandfather Asael died in East Stockholm, St Lawrence County, NY, after having received the Book of Mormon, and read it nearly through; and he declared that I was the very prophet that he had long known would come in his family.”

When Mary arrived in Kirtland, she told Lucy “I am going to have your Joseph baptize me but I will have my blessing from My Joseph.”

Mary greatly enjoyed visiting with family in Kirtland, but her health began failing. Before she could be baptized, she became too ill. After a visit of just 10 days in Kirtland, Joseph wrote that on May 27, 1836, she “fell asleep without sick-ness, pain or regret. She breathed her last about sunset, and was buried in the burial ground near the temple, after a funeral address had been delivered by Sidney Rigdon.”

Of his grandmother Mary Duty Smith, the Prophet Joseph said, “she was the most honored woman on earth”.

Looking Toward Kirtland

by Joy Ercanbrack

Whenever I read Smith histories, I’m intrigued by the smallest conversations or bit of details. As I look for stories that show family connections, I think this one is rather sweet.

While crossing through the wetlands of the Mississippi River during the swift move to Commerce, Illinois (July 1839), many Saints including members of the Smith family became ill. Hyrum’s oldest daughter, Lovina, who was just eleven, had a most severe case. Uncle William volunteered to take his niece to Plymouth, hoping the ride would aid her recovery. When she became increasingly weak, William sent for Hyrum. However, Hyrum was too sick to go himself, so Grandma Lucy and sister Lucy went instead. By the time they arrived in Plymouth, Lovina, under Uncle William’s care, had improved and continued from that point to regain her health.

I wonder if he made her chicken soup or how many hours he sat by her bedside? What is evident is the continual concern given among Smith family members. We hold all of our Smith cousins dear in this same way.

As we look forward to our reunion in Kirtland, I feel certain our family is rejoicing in Heaven. I see the Kirtland Temple as a great symbol of the unity among the Smith family. Grandma Lucy said, “There was but one main spring to all our thoughts and actions, and that was, the building of the Lord’s house.” They finished the temple in 1836 and now a modern-day group of Smiths will gather at this beautiful building 175 years later. I can’t wait! I’m so thankful to call you family.

Joseph Sr & Lucy Mack Smith Family Reunion Kirtland, Ohio: Celebrating 175 years

Aug 4-7, 2011
(Bus Tour Aug 1-10)

Dear Cousins,

This August we have a once in a lifetime opportunity—a Smith family celebration of the 175th Anniversary of the Kirtland Tem-ple Dedication and the 175th Anniversary of the First Smith Family Reunion.

We will experience an abbreviated reenact-ment of the Temple Dedication within the Temple walls and hear from Karl Anderson, who “has gained fame as ‘Mr. Kirtland’ from his devotion and love for the Kirtland area and by his tireless efforts to restore it.” We will listen to a family choir singing historic music from the four corners of the temple.

We will feel the star bit drill pound in our hands as we carve stone in the temple quarry, the way our stone cutter fathers did and breathe in that dust–their dust; run our hands along their sweat-stained rubble stone walls; and see the monumental task of erecting that great edifice to the Lord, and learn what it meant to give your all.

We will recognize our ancestors’ sacrifices by providing service at a girl’s camp near the John Johnson Home that will bear the names of Lucy Mack Smith and Emma among the campsites. This August, our children can feel the fire of the spirit that gave our pioneer an-cestors the strength to do great things. This is one reunion not to be missed.

For more information or to register, go to: www.josephsmithsr.org/@f0q=node/75.

We can’t wait to see you!
Steve & Frances Orton
Co-Presidents
Joseph Smith Sr. & Lucy Mack Smith
Family Reunion
Phone: 801-226-6054
Mobile: 801-310-8686
Email: f.orton@digis.net