Hiram and Sarah Granger Kimball Home

While the Hiram and Sarah Granger Kimball Home is not a place where the Prophet Joseph Smith received revelations or gave inspired sermons, it reminds us of how prophets are sometimes prepared to receive the word of the Lord because they have first learned from the words and examples of others. Beginning in this home, the selfless service of a small group of Latter-day Saint women helped inspire Joseph Smith to receive God’s will to create an organization for the women of the Church.

Hiram and Sarah moved into this house about seven months after getting married. Hiram, who was not a member of the restored Church of Jesus Christ until 1843, lived in Commerce, Illinois, before the Latter-day Saints arrived and renamed the city Nauvoo. The Kimballs were one of the few wealthy families in Nauvoo, due to Hiram’s businesses and land ownership. Hiram and Sarah stayed in Nauvoo longer than most of the other Latter-day Saints, leaving this home and moving to the Salt Lake Valley in 1851.

The Kimball Home is notable because of an exchange that occurred within its walls. Margaret Cook, a seamstress who worked for Sarah, wanted to assist with the Nauvoo Temple’s construction by sewing shirts for the builders. One day in 1842, the two women discussed creating a sewing society to help with the effort, and days later about a dozen other women in the neighborhood met in this home’s parlor for the society’s first meeting. It was from this small sewing society that the Female Relief Society of Nauvoo was formed. Eventually this group would become a worldwide women’s organization known simply as the Relief Society.

Read about Sarah Granger Kimball and the organization of the Nauvoo Female Relief Society in Saints, Volume 1, Chapter 37.

360° Walkthrough