In examining the research regarding the Smith family, there emerged a correlation between the family’s religious behavior and their ability to cope with trials. For this reason, the family process concepts of resiliency and religiosity will be examined together. Modern social science research provides insights on how tragedies can turn people towards religion.
Death, Illness, and Religiosity
For Joseph Sr. and Lucy, death and serious illness were recurrent themes throughout their first thirty years of marriage. Current social science research indicates that losing a child is one of the most serious traumas of adult life, regardless of the age of the child.1 The Smith parents experienced death at both ends of the spectrum, losing two children in infancy and another in the prime of his life. A widow by 1840, Lucy Mack Smith was also preceded in death by over half of her adult children.
Even among early-nineteenth-century families, who no doubt expected to experience the loss of children, grieving followed a normal process.2 Parents typically feel a loss of control and a sense of helplessness due to their inability to protect their child. Often, there is an overwhelming sense of shock that tests parents’ adaptive capacity. Death creates major stressors and can even generate changes in the parents’ lives. With the death of a child, parents face an event that is difficult to understand. However, there is also a strong desire to make sense of the experience by attributing meaning to it. Successful reconstruction of [111] healthy family functioning after the loss of a child depends largely on the family’s ability to accept the trauma and find a “regenerative use for the pain.” Very often, grieving parents find that spiritual or religious activity provides an important source of comfort and meaning. Beliefs regarding immortality are especially strengthened, for they allow for reunification with the deceased child.3 For many parents, including the Smiths, religiosity provides the necessary compensation to an otherwise incomprehensible event.
Similarly, the possibility of death of a loved one due to severe illness creates comparable feelings in parents. Four members of the Smith family—Mother Smith, Alvin, Sophronia, and Joseph Jr.—experienced severe illness where their lives hung in the balance. Those who experience extreme stress due to such a crisis also show an increase in religious activity. Beliefs regarding religion and immortality are likewise strengthened as a way to manage thoughts of death and associated anxiety. This is dramatically illustrated in persons who endure a near-death experience.4 The Smiths’ experiences with death and illness coincide with this research. With each trauma they experienced, Joseph Sr. and Lucy sought understanding by deepening their relationship with God and increasing their involvement in religious activities.
Financial Stress and Religiosity
The idea that those who are economically deprived adhere more strongly to religion is common among sociological research and theory. There is substantial research today that indicates that those with lower socioeconomic status show a greater desire for religious devotion. [112] Those who are in lower socioeconomic classes are more likely to both read the Bible and pray privately. In addition, they are more likely to desire a religious experience and be more focused on the next life than those in higher socioeconomic groups.5
In social science research this can be best understood by using an exchange perspective. That is, any form of deprivation, whether it is socioeconomic status or the loss of a loved one, reduces one’s overall level of satisfaction. With a decrease in satisfaction, the compensatory behaviors that one is capable of performing become more valued. Thus, one will perform such actions more frequently and more intensely.6
Adhering more firmly to religion is one type of action that a grieving parent can perform that at the same time provides rewards. Although families may not be able to do anything regarding their socioeconomic status and most assuredly can do nothing to bring back the life of the deceased child, the family can pray, attend church, and hold more firmly to their religious beliefs. Channeling energy towards circumstances over which they have control restores a sense of order to parents whose lives have been disrupted by trauma.7
However, it should be noted that an increase in religious commitment following trauma is not typical of all families. In fact, research indicates that an increase in dedication is most likely to occur among those who have had prior religious commitment. Thus, it is more common for adults who have a religious heritage to increase commitment to religion when going through a crisis such as death, illness, or financial [113] difficulty.8 Such was the case for Joseph Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith, whose parents provided that kind of religious background.
Generational Religiosity
Joseph Sr.’s parents, Asael and Mary Duty Smith, provided a religious environment for their children. The couple had their first three children baptized in 1772 and then declared their own profession of faith by “owning the covenant,” which entailed accepting the scriptures, recognizing Christ’s atonement, and living a Christian lifestyle.9 While Asael believed in the providence of God and in the Savior Jesus Christ, he kept himself aloof from the organized religions of the day, stating that “outward forms, rites, and ordinances” would not substitute for the place of Christ’s love.10
However, Asael was not so firmly set against organized religion that he opposed his son Joseph Sr. when he introduced the restored gospel to his father in 1830. Instead, Asael readily accepted, as it confirmed his expectation that “something would appear to make known the true gospel.”11 Furthermore, Asael reported “that he always knew that God was going to raise up a branch of his family to be a great benefit to mankind.”12 Asael accepted the restoration and read the Book of Mormon nearly through, but died in October 1830, shortly after the Church was organized. Asael’s wife, Mary Duty Smith, eventually joined the Saints in Kirtland, accepted the restoration, and desired baptism at the hands of her grandson Joseph Jr.13 [114]
Lucy Mack Smith also came from a religious background, although her father, Solomon Mack, had never read the Bible until he went through a conversion “to the Christian faith” in the winter of 1810 to 1811. He began to study the Bible and had several miraculous manifestations in which he saw a light “as bright as fire” and heard his name called out.14
By 1811 the conversion experience had completely changed the focus of Solomon’s life. Solomon summarized that he had “worried and toiled until an old age to lay up treasures in this world, but the Lord would not suffer me to have it. But I now trust I have treasures laid up that no man can take away.” He concluded his conversion experience by stating, “Everything appeared new and beautiful. Oh how I loved my neighbors. How I loved my enemies—I could pray for them. Everything appeared delightful. The love of Christ is beautiful.”15 The concluding years of Solomon’s life were spent peddling an autobiography of his conversion experience, which he considered a missionary activity.16
It was Lucy Mack Smith’s mother, Lydia Gates Mack, who provided a religious backdrop for Lucy’s formative years. Solomon referred to his wife as his “instructor” in religious matters. He reported that his wife had given him many warnings concerning religious matters, but he had failed to give heed to them until the winter of 1810 to 1811.17 In adulthood, Lydia enrolled in the Congregational Church and taught her children that families would be reunited after this mortal life was ended. She also led out in making sure the family participated in [115] morning and evening prayers, a tradition that would be carried on in the next generation. Her dying words were a testament to her religious convictions: “I must soon exchange the things of earth for another state of existence, where I hope to enjoy the society of the blessed. . . . I beseech you to continue faithful in the exercise of every religious duty to the end of your days.”18
Joseph and Lucy were raised in families that were religiously devout. Certainly their family of origin experiences provided the religious background that each partner brought to the marriage. The transformation that took place in the life of Solomon Mack is especially noteworthy, as it would foreshadow the conversion experiences of Lucy Mack Smith and Joseph Smith Sr. They too came to a point in their lives where they turned from laying up the treasures of the world, to what they described as “set[ting] out in the service of God.”19 Their religious heritage would play a significant role in the coming years as each partner turned to religion in times of crisis.
Death and Illness in the Smith Family—Early Years
Joseph Smith Sr. and Lucy Mack were married on January 24, 1796, in Tunbridge, Vermont.20 The couple began life in quite prosperous circumstances. Asael, Joseph’s father, gave Joseph and Lucy part ownership of a farm in Tunbridge, Vermont. In addition, Lucy’s brother, Stephen Mack, and his [116] business partner, John Mudget, each gave five hundred dollars to Lucy as a wedding present. The one-thousand-dollar gift was a significant sum of money for the time period.21 It was in these favorable conditions that Joseph and Lucy began farming their Vermont property.
However, tragedy soon hit the Smith household. Sometime between the middle of 1796 and the spring of 1797 the Smiths lost their firstborn son. Although it was common to lose children in childbirth during this period of history, it was especially trying for the newly married couple to lose their first child. It would be the first of two infants that they would lose; in 1810, Lucy gave birth to a son, Ephraim, who lived just eleven days.22 This was another trying time for the Smiths. Many years later, Joseph Sr. reflected on the loss of his infant children, indicating, “The Lord in his just providence has taken from me, at an untimely birth, a son; this has been a matter of affliction. . . . Another has been taken also in his infancy.”23
Following the death of his firstborn son, Joseph Sr. sought comfort through increased involvement with religious societies. In December 1797, Joseph signed a declaration of membership in the Universalist Society, whose central tenant was universal salvation.24 There is also evidence that indicates Joseph Sr. may have joined the Anabaptist Society in 1799. One of the fundamental beliefs of the Anabaptist Society was the rejection of the doctrine of infant baptism, as well as a denunciation of other [117] Calvinistic tenants common in that day.25
Joseph Sr. likely had leanings towards these societies because they provided the hope that he would once again see his children in the afterlife. Acceptance of these beliefs would also explain why the Smith parents did not have any of their children baptized.26 If the Smiths accepted the doctrine of infant baptism and subsequently had their future children baptized, where would that leave their infants lost in childbirth? The Calvinist theology of the day taught that unbaptized infants would go to hell, thus eliminating hope of reunification in the next world.27 The trauma of death was likely eased through an increased involvement in these societies, whose doctrine provided understanding and comfort for the Smiths during this difficult time.
Lucy’s quest for religion may have begun following the deaths of her infants, but it was more apparent following her near-death experience that took place in 1802. Lucy indicated that a “hectic fever” had set in, and doctors diagnosed it as consumption. Both attending physicians and family members feared for her life. As the gravity of the situation became apparent, Joseph Sr. became increasingly concerned. He came to her bedside, tenderly took his wife by the hand, and mourned aloud, “Oh Lucy! my wife! my wife! you must die! The doctors have given you up; and all say you cannot live.”28
During her sickness, a Methodist minister visited and asked her if she was [118] prepared to die. Knowing that she was ill prepared to answer such a poignant question, Lucy explained that she “knew not the ways of Christ . . . there appeared to be a dark and lonesome chasm, between myself and the Saviour, which I dared not attempt to pass.” As a result of the minister’s visit, and fearing her impending death, Lucy made a covenant with the Lord that if she survived the illness she would serve God as best she knew how. This included a promise to not only be more diligent in seeking salvation, but also to be a greater comfort to her mother, husband, and children. A heavenly voice then confirmed her covenant, and her health returned immediately.29
Lucy took her covenant seriously. In an attempt to fulfill her promise, she commenced her quest to find God. Lucy searched among the current religions, only to meet with disappointment. What most troubled her about the religions of the day was the ministers’ disbelief in miracles. After all, she had just been miraculously healed from a terminal illness. Not finding an organization on earth that coincided with her religious convictions, she resorted to reading the Bible and taking the Apostles as her example. However, her belief that ordinances were necessary for salvation led her to seek out a minister who baptized her, yet left her free from formally joining with that particular church.30
Financial Devastation—The Early Years
While Lucy’s near-death experience was distressing enough to compel her to seek God more earnestly, Joseph Sr., upon his wife’s recovery, turned his full attention to providing for the family. Father Smith sought to increase the family resources through [119] several business ventures. The couple rented their home and land while they tried their hand at storekeeping in nearby Randolph, Vermont. Father Smith purchased a line of goods from Boston that sold out quickly. However, payment was to be attained in commodities at harvesttime rather than in cash income, and Joseph Sr. was content waiting for his investment to come to fruition.31
Father Smith next directed his efforts in an entrepreneurial venture—the marketing of crystallized ginseng root. Although the investment looked very promising and Joseph stood to make as much as forty-five hundred dollars, a Mr. Stevens managed to swindle Joseph Sr. out of his rightful profits. By the time Mr. Stevens’s wrongdoing was discovered, he had fled to Canada, and the Smith family was left with heavy debts.32
In addition to the losses incurred through the ginseng investment, the debt Joseph had assumed for his store goods came due. As Richard Bushman has noted, “Forced to the wall, he [Joseph Sr.] took the step that blighted the Smith family fortunes for thirty years,” and sold his equity in the farm for eight hundred dollars. Because that amount was not enough to pay off the entire eighteen-hundred-dollar debt, Lucy contributed her one-thousand-dollar wedding gift. The Smiths were now free of debt but were without property, a home, or any financial resources. Continues Bushman, “Lucy said they made the sacrifice to avoid the the ‘embarrassment of debt’ but they soon knew the ‘embarrassment of poverty.’ They crossed the boundary dividing independent ownership from tenancy and day labor. It was a line that, for all their industry and ingenuity, the Smiths were not to recross until after the organization of the church in 1830.”33
In these most humble of circumstances, both Lucy and Joseph turned their attention to religion. Before leaving the farm at Tunbridge, but certainly knowing the [120] farm was to be sold—if it hadn’t been already—Lucy noted that her “mind became deeply impressed with the subject of religion.”34 At the same time, Joseph Sr. similarly reflected “seriously upon the subject of religion.”35 Although Lucy mentioned her illness in Randolph as the cause of her seeking religion more intently, the loss of all their possessions probably contributed to her search. Lucy later described the loss of the Vermont farm as a “considerable trial,” as they were “deprived . . . of the comforts and conveniences of life.”36
Financial struggles began to play a crucial role in the Smiths’ involvement with religious behavior. For both parents, economic setbacks appear to correlate with increased religiosity. The manner in which the Smiths sought involvement with religion accords with social science research in that they sought a personal relationship with Deity (see previous section entitled “Financial Stress and Religiosity”). The Smith children described the manner in which their parents sought this personal relationship with God. They remembered that family prayers were held both “night and morning” and that their “Father and Mother pour[e]d out their Souls to God the doner of all Blessings.”37 In addition, their religious involvement included the singing of hymns, personal and family study of the Bible, and the reading of religious tracts and materials that were available to them.38 Their behavior accords with modern social science research that indicates personal religious activities are more common among individuals in financial distress.39
The Smiths were not alone in their experience, as evidenced by the growth of [121] different denominations among the lower socioeconomic communities of farmers during the early 1800s. Milton Backman documented that during this time period, “countless unchurched Americans engaged in a quest for religious truth, religious enthusiasm increased, piety seemed more evident, and church membership increased at a steady, rapid pace.” Backman further reported that there was substantial growth among the Baptist, Methodist, Congregational, and Presbyterian denominations in farming communities of western New York.40 Much of this growth likely had to do with the constant struggle for survival that was nearly universal among frontier families in western New York.
Gradually the Smiths were able to acquire enough goods that they were comfortable once again. How comfortable the Smiths were is difficult to determine, but we do know that they made frequent moves over the next nine years. Thus, we can assume that they were not comfortable to the point of owning property or a home. Father Smith farmed during the summer seasons and then taught school during the winter months. Thus, circumstances appear to have improved incrementally for the family.41
In the spring of 1810, a son, Ephraim, died just two weeks after he was born.42 Following his death, Joseph Sr. sought understanding through religion. During his religious quest, Father Smith began to have a series of dreams. [122] According to Lucy, sometime during April 1811, the month after William was born, Joseph Sr. had his first dream. Lucy felt that at least some of these dreams were significant enough for her to record them “just as he told it to me.”43
Over the next eight years, Joseph Sr. received a total of seven dreams, the last of which occurred just prior to his son’s First Vision.44 There appears to be an overriding pattern to the dreams. In each of these dreams, there was a promise of healing or salvation that was just beyond a gate, under a tree, or through a door. In several of the dreams, eternal life was just beyond the reach of and unattainable by Joseph Sr.45 The theme of the dreams implied that Joseph would need something more in order to secure his salvation. At the same time, the dreams’ portrayal of “barrenness” and “desolation” were interpreted by Joseph to represent organized religion and solidified his determination to remain distant from the established religions of the day.46
Joseph’s visionary experiences, along with his accompanying interpretation, likely had the effect of strengthening the couple’s hopefulness in enduring life’s challenges. The dreams were significant in that they assisted in cultivating a hope for the future. [123] Joseph was thoroughly convinced that organized religion as it then stood could not provide the necessary rites to ensure salvation. Hence, he looked forward to the future, when these items would be made known in full. The anticipation of future revelation assisted the couple in enduring present difficulties.
Illness among Children
The next chapter in the Smiths’ lives was a move to Lebanon, New Hampshire. During the next year or so, their focus turned to providing for their present needs, if only temporarily. The family’s destitute circumstances improved, and they collectively celebrated their prosperity. Lucy reflected, “What do we now lack there is nothing which we have not a sufficiency of to make us and our children perfectly comfortable both for food and raiment as well as that which is necessary to a respectable appearance in society.”47 The Smiths redoubled their efforts to provide for their future wants and looked forward to living comfortably as they moved into old age.
As was the pattern, the Smiths’ prosperous circumstances did not last long. In 1812, typhoid fever swept through the Connecticut River Valley, killing nearly six thousand people.48 The Smith family was not exempt from the dreaded disease. All of the Smith children experienced bouts with the illness, with Sophronia, the eldest daughter, being most severely afflicted. After nearly three months of suffering, the attending physician relinquished any hope of recovery for Sophronia. [124] Lucy described her daughter as lying “altogether motionless, with her eyes wide open, and with that peculiar aspect which bespeaks the near approach of death.” Mother Smith would certainly know what the “near approach of death” looked like, as she had, during her youth, been by the bedside of her own sisters, Lovisa and Lovina, prior to their respective deaths.49
Once again, brought to the pinnacle of death, Joseph and Lucy turned to God for comfort and support. The couple clasped hands, knelt in prayer, and petitioned God to spare their child. Lucy joyously recounted, “Did the Lord hear our petition? Yes, he most assuredly did . . . [and] gave us a testimony that she should recover.” After receiving this testimony that their daughter would recover, Lucy arose from the prayer to find that Sophronia had stopped breathing. Others who were present expressed their belief that Sophronia had expired and encouraged Lucy to let her go. However, Lucy trusted in her answered prayer and “would not, for a moment, relinquish the hope of again seeing her breathe and live.” Pressing the child to her bosom, Lucy paced the floor until her daughter began to breathe again. Miraculously, Sophronia completely recovered.50 During a difficult time, the Smith parents found much-needed comfort through the medium of prayer. This experience left a lasting impression on the couple, as Joseph Sr. recounted the event some twenty-eight years later. In his final blessing to Sophronia in 1840, Joseph Sr. began, “Sophronia . . . thou hadst sickness when thou wast young, and thy parents did cry over thee, to have the Lord spare thy life.”51 Supplication to Deity brought them through this trying ordeal and strengthened their [125] belief in a compassionate and all-powerful God.
The family’s trials with sickness were not dispelled with Sophronia’s recovery. Not long after their daughter’s recuperation, the Smith parents turned their attention to their son. Seven-year-old Joseph was attacked with the typhoid fever as well. Again, this developed into a life-threatening illness and an agonizing experience for Joseph Sr. and Lucy. Joseph Jr. recorded that at one point during the illness, “my father d[e]spaired of my life.”52 Although the doctors were able to alleviate the fever, Joseph was left with a sore under his arm, which was subsequently lanced, discharging a quart of fluid. Following the drainage, the pain “shot like lightning” down his side into his left leg. The leg then became infected, and surgeons were called in.53
A team of doctors decided that it would be best to amputate the leg, as that was the standard form of treatment at the time for Joseph’s condition. Both Mother Smith and young Joseph refused to consider amputation and petitioned the doctors to reconsider.54 Eventually the surgeons agreed to an unconventional procedure where the infected bone would be drained and the dead bone fragments removed.55
The youthful Joseph thought he could endure the surgery if “my father [will] sit on the bed and hold me in his arms.” Joseph Jr., sensitive to his mother’s disposition, requested his mother to “leave the room, for I know you cannot bear [126] to see me suffer so; father can stand it, but you have carried me so much, and watched over me so long, you are almost worn out.”56
Lucy reluctantly complied with her son’s request and went several hundred yards from the home site in order to keep herself from interfering. However, upon hearing the screams of her son during the surgery, she rushed back to the house two different times to make sure he was all right. She vividly described bursting into the room and seeing “the wound torn open, the blood still gushing from it, and the bed literally covered with blood.” Additionally, she stated that her son “was as pale as a corpse, and large drops of sweat were rolling down his face, whilst upon every feature was depicted the utmost agony!” She subsequently had to be detained from the room until the operation was completed. In all, Joseph Jr. went through a series of three painful operations. It was only after this third and final surgery, where the infected bone was successfully removed, that Joseph Jr. began to recover from the painful ordeal.57
Although the outcome of the operation eventually proved successful, the family’s experience with typhoid fever proved to be a considerable trial for Lucy and Joseph Sr. Joseph Jr.’s illness and ensuing operations came on the heels of Sophronia’s nearly fatal experience. After her daughter’s episode, Lucy recalled that her “strength was gone” and that she “sunk down by her [Sophronia’s] side, completely overpowered.” In the midst of Joseph Jr.’s illness, Lucy reportedly carried her son from place to place in order to alleviate his suffering. As a result of this added strain, Lucy notes that she “was taken very ill” herself due to “anxiety of mind . . . together with physical over- [127] exertion.”58 Joseph Sr. no doubt suffered through this time period as well. Just before his son’s last operation, Father Smith reflected on the sufferings of his son and his wife and then “burst into a flood of tears, and sobbed like a child.”59
After nearly a year of illness, the Smiths were drained physically and emotionally. With the added burden of medical expenses, they were also financially devastated. This was likely the most severe trial the couple had experienced thus far in their married life. Lucy reported that they were reduced to such a point that they “were now compelled to brake arrangements for going into some kind of buisness” in order to “provide for present wants rather than [seek] future prospects as we had previously contemplated.”60
Although they were at their breaking point following these episodes of illness, the Smith parents exhibited several forms of coping behavior. First, Lucy relied on others for support. No longer could she do it alone. When Lucy’s physical constitution no longer allowed her to nurse her ill children, she called on her older children for support. Once she had physically overexerted herself, she allowed Hyrum to take her place. Hyrum faithfully supplanted his mother for the next three weeks, giving her much needed rest so that she might prepare for the pending surgeries which still lay ahead.61 Additionally, Joseph Sr. and Lucy shared the responsibilities in jointly supporting one another throughout this season of prolonged illness.
Participating in religious activities was another coping behavior manifest by the couple. As Mother Smith had made a habit of praying during times of crisis, she once [128] again cried out to God in the midst of Joseph’s surgery. In her history, Lucy poignantly summarized this period of family illness with the following: “Having passed through about a year of sickness and distress, health again returned to our family, and we most assuredly realized the blessing; and indeed, we felt to acknowledge the hand of God, more in preserving our lives through such a tremendous scene of affliction, than if we had, during this time, seen nothing but health and prosperity.”62 The family acknowledged the hand of God, who they felt helped them through a most difficult hour. Their hope and faith provided the necessary strength to an otherwise insurmountable course of events.
Difficulties Migrating to New York
After their trials with illness, the Smith family moved to Norwich, Vermont. For the next three years, the Smiths struggled against severe obstacles in trying to simply survive. For two consecutive years, their crops failed due to the extremely cold Vermont weather. Joseph Sr. was determined to stay on the farm one more season; he proposed that if the family met with the same outcome, they move to New York. The next year proved disastrously cold, and the crops were a complete failure. The family resolved to leave the state. However, they did not do so before enduring additional hardships.63
In addition to farm losses, Joseph and Lucy would have to pay their debts before they could leave the state. For generations, the Smiths had been strictly honest, [129] and “it was a point of honor” for Joseph Sr. “not to run out on their creditors as others did.”64 Joseph Sr. got debtors and creditors together to settle his finances and then went ahead of the family to prepare the way for their coming to New York. However, at the very time Lucy was preparing to remove from Vermont, several men that the Smiths had previously settled their accounts with brought forth their books, which showed additional debts. These same men had earlier agreed to erase these debts in the presence of witnesses, but Lucy concluded that it would be better to pay the “unjust claims” rather than fight it in court. So Lucy made “considerable exertion” in order to raise one hundred and fifty dollars and “liquidated the demand.”65
Although destitute of any means, Lucy refused the offer of raising a subscription on her behalf. A sense of self-reliant obstinacy was exhibited when Lucy remarked, “The idea of receiving assistance in such a way as this was indeed very repulsive to my feelings, and I rejected their offer.” Certainly Lucy could have benefited from some type of assistance, as she arrived in Palmyra with “barely two cents in cash.”66
With finances settled, the family began the journey without their father but with the aid of a teamster named Caleb Howard. Circumstances were difficult simply because of family dynamics. Not only did Lucy have to care for eight children under the age of eighteen, she had the additional burden of caring for an infant, Don Carlos. If this wasn’t enough of an encumberment for the sole parent, she was also taking care of her eighty-four-year-old mother, Lydia.67 [130]
Lydia would not travel with the group long, however. Two days into the journey, the sleigh in which Lydia was riding overturned, and she was injured.68 Due to the injury, Lucy and her mother would have to part, as Lydia desired to stay in the Tunbridge–Royalton area with relatives. The separation was extremely difficult for both mother and daughter, as they recognized they would most likely never see each other again. Lydia died less than two years later, and Lucy assumed that it was because of the injury she had experienced while traveling with the Smith family. Lucy appears to have experienced some guilt in leaving her mother in such precarious circumstances. She reflected on the parting scene as a “severe” trial to “pass through,” and it still brought about intense feelings nearly thirty years after its occurrence.69
The only comfort for Lucy at the time of separation was her mother’s parting counsel. Lydia instilled hope in her daughter by encouraging her to remain “faithful in the service of God,” so that they might “have the pleasure of embracing . . . in another and fairer world above.” Lucy would never forget this comforting counsel, as well as the location where it took place.70 In fact, this very charge—to remain faithful to God so that she might be reunited with her mother—provided the hope Lucy needed to endure her life challenges.
After traveling some distance, Lucy’s impressions of teamster Caleb Howard turned sour. Lucy described Howard as an “unprincipled and unfeeling” man who handled goods, money, and people poorly. He was particularly hard on Joseph Jr., who had not been off crutches long and was forced to walk on foot for miles at a time.71 Near [131] Utica, New York, Howard attempted to take the family’s wagon and belongings and leave them to fend for themselves. Lucy’s assertiveness proved fortunate, as she seized the reigns of the horse and summoned witnesses, which prevented him from accomplishing his designs. Shortly after ridding themselves of Howard’s services, the family arrived in Palmyra.
Coping with Poverty in Palmyra
After arriving in Palmyra, the Smiths once more began to counsel together on what course they should pursue. It was concluded that family members—everyone who was able—should pitch in so that they might procure land and eventually settle comfortably. Lucy was particularly determined to overcome the “embarrassments with which we were surrounded.” She did her part by painting “oil cloth coverings for tables and stands,” in which she prospered to the point of not only supplying family provisions, but replenishing furniture left behind in the move.72
Joseph Sr. and his two oldest sons began to work diligently as well. Within a few years after arriving in Palmyra, the family had contracted for one hundred acres of land, cleared thirty acres for cultivation, and erected a log house. The Smiths worked hard, and gradually their circumstances improved. After a mere two years in the Palmyra area, Lucy reflected on their circumstances and reported that the family had a “comfortable though humble habitation built and neatly furnished,” and that they began to “rejoice in their prosperity.”73 [132]
Around this period of moderate prosperity, Lucy recorded a conversation that took place between her and some of the “wealthy” wives in the area. Lucy recalled one of the ladies stating that Lucy “ought not to live in that log house of her’s any longer she deserves a better fate and I say she must have a new house.” Another woman agreed with the previous comment and then remarked that Lucy “ought to have the best of every thing.” Lucy rebuked the upper-class women. Mother Smith retorted that there was nothing that her family lacked and that she did not envy those who had more than she did, as her family was rich in the intangibles of life. Said Lucy,
I am the wealthiest woman who sits at this table. . . . I have never prayed for riches of the world as perhaps you have but I have always desired that God would enable me to use enough wisdom and forbearance in my family to set good precepts & examples before my children . . . that we might in our old age reap the reward of circumspection . . . [and have] the Pleasure of seeing our children dignify their Fathers name by an upright and honorable course of conduct in [the] after life.74
Lucy’s religious paradigm assisted her in coping with constant poverty, as the Smiths were almost always in the lowest socioeconomic class.
Alvin’s Death
Family exertions then turned towards building a frame house on the rented farm, with Alvin leading out in construction. Alvin’s goal in constructing the frame house [133] reflected Lucy’s; he stated that he intended to have “everything arranged for their [Joseph Sr. and Lucy’s] comfort, and they shall not work any more as they have done.”75 Alvin’s unselfish desire reflected his parent’s aspirations to move comfortably into old age. However, this ambitious undertaking by their oldest son was circumvented by illness. The Smith family would have their dream of settling comfortably into their final years eradicated.
In November 1823, Alvin became ill with bilious colic. The regular physician being absent, the Smiths called upon a Dr. Greenwood, who gave Alvin a large dose of calomel. The medicine lodged in his stomach, and other doctors were called in to help remove it, with no success. Alvin, sensing his death was imminent, called his siblings together and gave them his parting sentiments individually.76 With that accomplished, Alvin died at the young age of twenty-five.
This was a painful episode for the Smith family. Lucy recounted that “lamentation and mourning filled the whole neighborhood” and “more than usual grief filled the hearts of those from whose immediate circle he was taken.”77 It was even difficult for the family to hear Joseph Jr. speak of the plates and his experiences with Moroni during this time period, as it brought painful reminders of Alvin, who had exhibited the greatest interest in the record. Lucy revealed the family sentiment at the time of his death when she recounted that the family “realized that he was gone . . . to return no more in this life [and] we all with one accord wept over our irretrievable loss, and we could not be comforted.”78 Over ten years after Alvin’s death, Joseph Sr. mentioned that his “heart [still] often mourns [134] his loss.”79
Once again, because of the illness and death of Alvin, the Smiths sought solace through an increased involvement with religion. Lucy indicated that the family “flocked to the meeting house to see if their was a word of comfort for us that might releive our overcharged feelings.”80 The shock and mourning that resulted from Alvin’s death prompted the Smith family to deepen their commitment to church. Mother Smith reported that she felt a longing to “join in with them [fellow church members]” as did “most of the family.”81 Mother Smith, Sophronia, Hyrum, and Samuel had previously joined the Western Presbyterian Church of Palmyra, but they appear to have increased their involvement following Alvin’s death.82 The rest of the family appears to have attended their meetings as well.83
Joseph Sr. attended several meetings with the rest, as was the case when the family was left destitute during their early years of marriage. However, his attendance was short-lived. William recalled the reason his father peremptorily stopped his church attendance. Said he, [135] “My father would not join. He did not like it because a Rev. [Benjamin] Stockton had preached my brother’s funeral sermon and intimated very strongly that he had gone to hell, for Alvin was not a church member, but he was a good boy and my father did not like it.”84
Once again, Joseph’s beliefs regarding organized religion were confirmed. How his oldest son, who was described as “one of the noblest of the sons of men,” who lived without “guile” or “spot,” could be damned to hell was beyond Joseph Sr.’s comprehension.85 Although Father Smith ceased his formal church attendance, he continued to practice his private forms of religiosity, while the rest of the family “attended their several meetings as often as occasion would permit.”86
Loss of Frame Home and Property
Not only was the grief difficult to bear, but Alvin’s death also brought about financial difficulty as well. The family’s resources were spent on finishing the house that Alvin had begun rather than paying the yearly installment that had come due. The services of Russell Stoddard had to be procured in order to finish the house. This same Stoddard proposed buying the frame home after it was completed, an offer that was flatly rejected by the Smiths. However, Stoddard was not to be denied. He went to an agent and portrayed the Smith family as destroying the property and getting ready to run from their debts. The agent panicked and sold the property from underneath the Smiths. After considerable exertion, the Smiths eventually got an acquaintance, Lemuel Durfee, to [136] purchase the farm and allow them to continue to live on the property. Now the family would have to pay rent as opposed to making payment on the contract, and the property was out of their hands.87 This was a devastating blow to the family, who had worked diligently to provide for future wants.
It was especially overwhelming for Lucy, who had set her heart upon settling on the farm and aging comfortably in the frame house. She reported that this loss of the farm in 1825 hurt much more than the loss of their property back in 1803, as they had passed the prime of their lives. She examined the property and the industry which the family had exhibited and recognized for the first time just how much the farm had meant to her. Lucy gazed upon the property with “yearning attachment.”88 The family lived in the frame house for four more years, but in 1829 they were forced to move back into their former log home.89
Coping through Conversion
At the same time the family lost their contracted property, events of the restoration were beginning to unfold. During the mid-1820s, the family gradually began to shift their focus to immaterial things. Between the years 1823 and 1829, as the events of the restoration unfolded, Joseph and Lucy understood the mission of their son more completely. They began to understand that not only was their son blessed with certain gifts, he was called to be the Lord’s prophet, the one who would restore Christ’s true church to the earth. As Joseph Sr. and Lucy began to realize the significance of the record to come forth, all of the trials and difficulties “with which [their] lives had been [137] rather singularly marked” began to be seen as purposeful. In fact, the family understood that the reason their lives had been “singularly marked” with trials was to prepare them for their significant mission. Now, more than ever before, they perceived their suffering in light of their role in the reemergence of Christ’s church on the earth.90
As events of the restoration continued to unfold, the Smiths’ suffering took on increased meaning for the family, as they saw its purpose as bringing them to Christ and His Church. The “persecutions and afflictions” that the family had constantly “suffered” were now understood in a new light. As the chosen family of the restoration, they, like the faithful prophets of old, were to suffer for the “cause of Christ.” By 1829, the entire family began to take on language that reflected this manner of thinking and mode of dealing with difficulties. When Father Smith was imprisoned in a jail in Canandaigua, New York, he explained how his religious beliefs assisted him in coping. Said Joseph Sr., “They hurried me into this dismal dungeon. I shuddered when I first heard these heavy doors creaking upon their hinges; but then, I thought to myself, I was not the first man who had been imprisoned for the truth’s sake; and when I should meet Paul in the Paradise of God, I could tell him that I, too, had been in bonds for the Gospel which he preached. And this has been my only consolation.”91 [138]
Father Smith found solace in his belief that his suffering was temporary and that, ultimately, he would dwell with the faithful prophets of the past in the “Paradise of God.” This, said he, was what gave him the strength to endure the many hardships that were a constant part of his life.
This same sentiment ran through the entire family. Joseph Jr.’s account of dealing with persecution after he made known his First Vision is remarkably similar to that of his father. Joseph said that he was surprised that his recounting of his vision should “attract the attention of the great ones of the most popular sects of the day, and in a manner to create in them a spirit of the most bitter persecution and reviling. But strange or not, so it was, and it was often the cause of great sorrow to myself.” Joseph Jr. then indicated what helped him endure such persecution, stating that he “felt much like Paul, when he made his defense before King Agrippa, and related the account of the vision he had when he had seen a light, and heard a voice; but still there were but few who believed him; some said he was dishonest, others said he was mad; and he was ridiculed and reviled. But all this did not destroy the reality of the vision . . . and though they should persecute him unto death, yet he knew. . . . So it was with me.” [139] 92
Like his father, young Joseph found comfort in coping with persecution through comparing his circumstances to the religious leaders of old. Thus, the persecution he experienced would, in the end, lead to life with God and the faithful Saints of ages past. In his later teachings to the Saints, Joseph indicated that it was only through suffering that mankind would be made perfect.93 Thus, the Prophet emphasized his belief that the ultimate purpose of afflictions was to literally bring one to God and his kingdom.
Lucy Mack Smith also interpreted her suffering as being a requisite to earning favor with God. After being forced to move from the comfortable frame home and the property that the family had labored so hard to develop, Lucy stated that the “cause of all our present privation as well as the misfortu-ne[s]” were due to the fact that the family had turned their “back upon the world and set out in the service of God.” Then, so as to give meaning to the otherwise unexplainable event of losing all they had hoped for, Lucy stated that she gave “all this up for the sake of Christ and salvation, and I pray God to help me to do so, without one murmur or a tear and in the strength of God I give them up from this time and I will not cast one longing look upon anything which I now leave behind me.”94 Rather than viewing her property as stolen, Lucy interpreted losing her home and land as [140] a sacrifice for the cause of Christ. Hence, the suffering they endured was not in vain.
Mother Smith continued to view her trials through a religious lens in coping with numerous hardships. When her sons were taken as prisoners in Missouri, instead of being angry or vengeful towards their captors, she put faith in her belief that someday those men would answer “before the bar of God.”95 When the family was told that both Hyrum and Joseph were to be shot by the Missouri militia, Lucy described her house as being filled “with mourning, lamentation, and woe.” Nevertheless, Lucy immediately found comfort through communicating with the Divine. She stated, “In the midst of my grief I found consolation that surpassed all earthly comfort[,] I was filled with the spirit of God.”96 Although grief stricken when she lost her husband in 1840, she took comfort in her belief that she would eventually be reunited with him, “where parting shall be no more.”97 When three of her sons died in 1844, her method of coping was similar. At the funeral of Hyrum and Joseph Jr., she cried out, “My God, my God, why has thou forsaken this family!” She then reported that a voice answered, “I have taken them to myself, that they might have rest,” which answer once again brought needed comfort. When Lucy later reflected upon the murder of her sons, she recorded, “My blood curdles in my veins,” but found solace in her [141] belief in an afterlife where the innocent would finally triumph over all their former enemies.98
For Lucy, her longing for everlasting life with the faithful of ages past took on additional meaning. Her greatest desire was to live the kind of life that would reunite her with her pious sisters and faithful mother, who had all preceded her in death. Said Lucy, “My heart was burdened with anxiety distress and fear least [lest] I shoul[d] by any means fail [in] . . . that preparation which was needful in order [to] meet my sisters in that world which they had taken their departure.”99 The hope of familial reunification once again assisted Lucy in enduring her mortal hardships.
The other children in the family also picked up on the family belief system—trials served an eternal purpose. When William remembered losing the frame home and property, he indicated that the family “thanked the Lord in all our affliction that we were counted worthy to suffer in his cause, and realize that our light affliction here would work for us ‘a much more exceeding and eternal weight of glory’ in the eternal world.”100
Similarly, Katharine took comfort in the fact that she had endured great persecutions. She counseled fellow Saints to “be faithful, for there is a crown laid up for them that come up through great tribulation and faint not by the way.”101 In the midst of Hyrum and Joseph’s extremity in Liberty Jail, the two brothers prayed to the Lord for comfort. They took solace in the Lord’s response that their trials would “be but a small moment” in God’s time and that if they endured their “adversity” and “afflictions” well, they would triumph over all their enemies.102 [142]
Summary
During the early nineteenth century, it was common for people to lose children, experience bouts with severe illnesses, and, for many, endure heavy financial losses.103 The Smiths experienced all three on more than one occasion. Even so, the Smiths’ experience with hardships may not be considered abnormal. However, when the religious persecution the family jointly experienced is factored in, the Smiths’ difficulties were above and beyond what was typical for families of that time period.
Enduring the many misfortunes and trials was at least a part of the impetus that led the family to accept wholeheartedly their son and brother’s message of the Restoration, for the cause they espoused gave purpose and meaning to all the hardships they had experienced. Joseph Sr. now understood that his dreams were prophetic, and that their fulfillment came in the form of the Book of Mormon and the events surrounding the Restoration of the gospel.104 Additionally, he would be able to end his quest for a church that coincided more precisely with that of the New Testament. Finally, Father Smith would find needed comfort in the revealed doctrines regarding the salvation of little children and the confirmation that infant baptism was not of God.105 These were beliefs he likely held before the Restoration, but which were not adhered to by the majority of religions in his day.
Joseph Sr. put his whole energies into the newly formed church, expressing “that [143] he had nothing to consecrate to the Lord of the things of the Earth, yet he felt to consecrate himself and [his] family.”106 Lucy went through a similar process. She assisted dutifully in securing the plates in 1827, forsook Presbyterianism, and felt to surrender all temporalities for the gospel cause.107
The whole Smith family ultimately accepted Joseph Jr.’s message, not only because they believed him, but because the trials in their lives turned them towards God. Through hardships, the family showed that struggles in life—death, illness, and financial devastation—could best be understood and overcome by attributing religious meaning. Although this mode of coping was not unique in early nineteenth-century America, nor is it among contemporary families, it reveals how the Smith family dealt with their challenges. They looked for answers through increased religious involvement and a greater desire for religious experience. Their united commitment to the cause was complete, and their religious beliefs in times of trial provided the necessary strength to endure the inordinate affliction they experienced throughout their lives. [144]
