“Remembering Joseph F. Smith: Loving Father, Devoted Prophet,” Ensign, June 1983, 21
Remembering Joseph F. Smith:
Loving Father, Devoted Prophet
On 27 June 1844 the Prophet Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum were martyred in Carthage, Illinois. Hyrum’s son, Joseph F. Smith, was left fatherless at the age of five. Difficult years followed for the boy—expulsion from Nauvoo, a pioneer trek west to Salt Lake City, and the early death of his mother, Mary Fielding Smith. In the summer of 1852, only a few months before his fourteenth birthday, Joseph F. Smith was left an orphan.
The years ahead would test the young man, but he would prove true to his faith and would carry on the good name of his mother and father. At fifteen, he was called on a mission to the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii), and in 1866, at the age of twenty-eight, he was ordained an Apostle and set apart as a Counselor to President Brigham Young. In 1901 he became sixth President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Photo courtesy of Church Historical Department
Of all the tributes given to Joseph F. Smith perhaps the most telling are those given to him by his children. What follows are reflections by four of them of their beloved father.
During the time President Smith was rearing his children, he was also helping to free the Church from the bonds of financial indebtedness. The property of the Church had been escheated following the enactment of laws against plural marriage. Almost all Church properties were confiscated, and the Church was forced to pay exorbitant rent for using its own property.
Rachel Smith, born 11 December 1890, recalls her father coming home from his office the day the Church finally recovered from its indebtedness. Rachel was about twelve years old at the time. “Father came home, but no one was there in the house. As I was coming in the side door of the Beehive House, I met him coming down the front stairs. He said to me, ‘Baby’ (he always called us babies), ‘where is Mother?’
“I said, ‘I don’t know.’
“Father asked me several questions for which my answer was ‘I don’t know.’ Finally, Father said, ‘Well, what do you know?’
“I replied, ‘Not much; I just got home from school.’
“Father said, ‘I wanted to tell your mother first, but since you don’t know much I’ll tell you first. Do you see this paper I have in my hand?’ I answered yes. ‘Well, I’m going to tell you, the Church is at last out of debt.’
“Father used to stay up late at night and work hard until finally the Church was out of debt.”
President Smith had learned early how to make do with meager resources, and his experience undoubtedly helped prepare him to serve the Church at this critical time of financial distress.
“Father was very thrifty,” remembers Edith Eleanor Smith, born 4 January 1894. “He was raised that way from the time he was a little pioneer boy. He never wasted anything that was usable. He learned this in part from President Brigham Young.
“One time Father was walking with President Young. They were going down the street and President Young leaned over and picked up a little piece of string, about eight inches long. President Young put it into his pocket, and Father asked, ‘Why did you do that?’ President Young looked at Father and said, ‘Joseph, never waste anything that is useful.’
“Another time, Father was walking along with President Young and the sun came out. They took their overcoats off because it was getting too warm. Father folded his overcoat with the lining on the outside and put it over his arm. President Young said, ‘Joseph, which side of the coat goes next to your body?’
“Father answered, ‘The lining.’
“President Young then said, ‘Isn’t that the part you want to keep clean?’ So Father took his coat off his arm and turned it the other way around to keep the lining clean.”
Samuel Schwartz Smith, born 26 October 1892, recalls one day when his father took him to their granary. “As I watched him, he took a handful of wheat and raised it up and let it run through his fingers. He did this several times. I knew he was thinking that it was food for his family in case of need. He had gone hungry many times when he was a boy, having to eat sego lily bulbs at times.”
This and similar early experiences developed in Joseph F. Smith a strong faith in Heavenly Father and a spirit of gratitude. Edith remembers that the family “would kneel down always in the morning or in the evening and have our family prayer. Many times I actually thought that the Lord was right in the house because of the way Father would talk to him and express his feelings. He was talking to his Heavenly Father, and we felt it keenly. Often as a little girl I wanted to open my eyes during the prayer to see which direction the Lord was in because Father was talking to him and we knew it.”
Edith remembers, too, his strength of character. “When I was in about the fifth grade, the news media was really persecuting my father. Some of the people at school had in their possession false reports and lies about Father. I went home from school furious one day. As soon as Father came in that evening I said to him, ‘Papa, why don’t you do something? You’re not doing one thing, and these mean men are taking advantage of you, printing all these lies, and you don’t do one thing about it!’
“Father looked at me with his sweet smile and said, ‘Baby, don’t get upset. They are not hurting me one bit; they are only hurting themselves. Don’t you know, Baby, that when someone tells a lie they are only hurting themselves more than anyone else?’
“That was a lesson I have never forgotten.
“I quite often went over with Father to his office where he would sign certificates and papers of all types. I would sit on one side of his desk and he would sit on the other side. I would have a blotter and I would blot his name, turn the page, blot and turn, blot and turn. Many times he would stop and rub his arm and say it was aching, but he would not completely stop until he was finished with all the work he had to do. I spent many days there helping Papa. Papa was asked to get a rubber stamp for his name, but he would not do it, saying, ‘No, that’s not me; I don’t do that. I want it original.’ He never did have a stamp.”
Joseph F. Smith’s two missions to Hawaii left their own marks on his character. He learned to love the people, and they him. Years later, he visited the San Diego World’s Fair, and among the displays was an attraction featuring the customs of Hawaii. His son Samuel was with him and remembers that “seated among some palm trees were some Hawaiian women weaving baskets. Father spoke to one of them in their native tongue; she looked up, startled, and said something in her native tongue to him. I asked him what she said. He answered that she told him, ‘A voice of a native, but a face of a white man.’ There were so many little things that he did for us that endeared him to my heart.”
It is these “little things” he did for his children that they remember best. “I was married to William T. Patrick 1 January 1918, New Year’s Day,” recalls Edith. “The temple was closed, so my father took us and our bridal party of about eight over to the temple. Father opened the large brass doors on the east side of the temple with his keys, and we went into the temple. There Father performed the ceremony. We had the temple all to ourselves, can you imagine?”
“As a small boy,” Samuel Smith recalls, “I used to look forward to Father coming home. He gave me a kiss and a hug and then found a stick of licorice in his pocket. He took out his pocket knife and cut about an inch off and gave it to me. It was pretty bitter, but I thought it was great.”
Another who remembers his kindness and loving attention is Marjorie Virginia Smith. Born 7 December 1906, Marjorie was the first of two children to be adopted by President and Sister Smith. “I’ll always remember,” she says, “when one of the children I was playing with one day told me I did not belong to my family because I was adopted. I felt like there was something horribly wrong with me and I ran home crying.
“My sister Emily caught me as I came in the door. She said, ‘What in the world is wrong?’ I asked what it meant to be adopted. I felt there must be some terrible curse on me. Father happened to be in his office, so Emily took me right in.
“Papa picked me up and put me on his lap and said that he and Mama could have no more babies and that I was sent to them. He explained it to me in such a way that I felt very much loved and wanted. Papa said that when a child is sealed, even though adopted, that child is as much a part of that family as if she had been born to them. That has always been a great comfort to me.”
How Marjorie came into the Smith family is an interesting story. After Marjorie’s birth, an aunt was sent to Salt Lake City by the baby’s grandparents from Denver, Colorado, to locate a home for the infant. The aunt came to Temple Square (then called Temple Block Mission) to ask information concerning a home for Marjorie. President Smith’s home was called and Emily answered the telephone. The situation was explained to her.
Emily, then eighteen years old, asked her mother if they could take the baby in, as the baby needed a home for six months. Emily told her mother that she would take care of the baby herself, and Sister Smith and her husband accepted the infant. The aunt did not have the baby with her and needed to return to Denver for the child. Coming back to Salt Lake City by train, they were snowed in for two days. Marjorie finally arrived in Salt Lake City the first part of January.
At the end of six months the aunt and grandparents came to take Marjorie back to Denver. As Marjorie relates, “Emily went to pieces and took me in the bedroom and locked the door. She was crying and Mother got Father and he came and sat down with the grandparents. Father said to them, ‘You have either got to take her this minute or give her to us permanently because we love her too much to part with her.’ The grandparents agreed to give her up.”
Marjorie remembers that as a little girl she was very frightened of thunder and lightning. “One day,” she says, “there was a very bad storm. I was crying and whimpering. Father got up, put his robe on, and came in. He had me put my robe and slippers on; then we walked out on the veranda, attached to the second floor of the Beehive House. He held my hand, and that gave me a feeling of security and strength. Still, when the sky would light up, I would tremble. Father explained to me what lightning meant and what made the noise. Then he said, ‘See, it will bring the rain that will make everything so beautiful. You must not be afraid.’ From that day to this I have never been frightened of a thunderstorm.”
President Smith’s great love for his children was an extension of the love he had for his mother. Samuel remembers hearing him say once, “I would not grieve my blessed mother, if I knew it, for anything in the world. There is nothing between me and the heavens that would compensate for doing something that would grieve or hurt my mother. Why? Because she loves me. She would have died for me over and over again if it were possible, only to have saved me.”
Of his own children, he said, “The richest of my earthly joys is my precious children. No one can advise my children with greater earnestness and solicitude for their happiness and salvation than I can myself. Nobody has more interest in the welfare of my children than I have. I cannot be satisfied without them, they are part of me. They are mine. God has given them to me and I want them to be humble and submissive to the requirements of the gospel. I want them to do right and to be right in every particular. I could never be happy again without the hope of having my children in eternity.”
Samuel remembers in particular one expression of his father’s love. Samuel served during World War I, and on one of his furloughs he arrived home to find his father sick. “I entered the Beehive House by way of the back door, then went through the kitchen and dining room to the large living room. On the far side of the living room I saw Father standing in his bathrobe, a cane in his hand. When he saw me, he forgot about the cane and hurried over to me. He took me in his arms, hugging and kissing me, saying, ‘My boy, my boy.’
“This great love he had for me and his children was expressed in many ways, many times. I once went to the Beehive House to get some consecrated oil for Mother. Father took me to a little storeroom just between his office and the Beehive House where he had some bottles of olive oil. He took a bottle and asked me to help him hold it. I will never forget the wonderful blessing he pronounced on that oil to be carried home to Mother. He blessed it with his whole heart for our good.
“I love and honor my father as a man of God. He gave his whole life in the service of God, putting every bit of energy he had into teaching the children of Heavenly Father the principles which will make it possible for them to return to their celestial home.”
The day President Smith died, 19 November 1918, Samuel was in the United States Army Air Service Aeronautics as a flying cadet. “That morning I was flying an airplane, practicing some stunts we had to learn,” he recalls. “There was some moisture in the air and I found myself in the center of a rainbow which followed me as I flew back and forth. It was like a halo around the plane. When I landed after finishing my practice, a sergeant was waiting to tell me that Father had passed to the other side. I was allowed to come home for his funeral, which was a short service held at the open graveside in a snowstorm.” (Due to the great influenza epidemic throughout the country at the time of President Smith’s death, no public funeral was held.)
At his home in Salt Lake City, Samuel Smith opens a book titled Life of Joseph F. Smith, by Samuel’s brother, Joseph Fielding Smith. From page 176, Brother Smith shares the testimony of his father, borne in a letter sent from Lahaina, Maui, in the Hawaiian Islands, while he served his first mission there. Dated 20 October 1854, the letter was written to Elder George A. Smith.
“I feel thankful to you for your counsel,” wrote the young elder, “for I know it is good, and I know that the work in which I am engaged is the work of the living and true God, and I am ready to bear my testimony of the same, at any time, or at any place, or in whatsoever circumstances I may be placed; and hope and pray that I ever may prove faithful in serving the Lord, my God. I am happy to say that I am ready to go through thick and thin for this cause in which I am engaged; and truly hope and pray that I may prove faithful to the end.”
Samuel wipes his eyes as deep, loving feelings rise to the surface. President Joseph F. Smith’s love of family—and their abiding love for him—are a lasting memory that years cannot diminish.
Samuel Smith enjoyed flying as a young man.
Samuel Smith today.
Marjorie Smith Brown. “You must not be afraid.”
Edith Smith Patrick. “They are not hurting me one bit,” Father said. “They are only hurting themselves.”
Rachel Smith Taylor. “Do you see this paper in my hand?” Father asked. “The Church is at last out of debt.”