Joseph Smith’s Family Articles
Emma Smith was the wife of the first Mormon prophet, Joseph Smith. Throughout the years, she has remained a complex topic for both Mormons and non-Mormons. Many people have focused almost entirely on the decisions she made in the last years of Joseph Smith’s life and after his death, and sometimes those events trouble Mormons and please non-Mormons. To understand her, we have to place her in her own setting and time, not in our own. We have to look at her entire life, not just one portion of it.
Emma Smith was born in 1804 in Pennsylvania and had unusual opportunities for a girl in her time. She was well-educated and taught school. She even owned cows and other items, possibly given as payment from students. Her family had a fair amount of money. Imagine, then, her family’s concern when she developed a fondness for Joseph Smith, who was from a poor farm family and had almost no formal education—just that which his father had given him at home with... Read the rest of this article »
Joseph Smith’s father, Joseph Smith Sr., was a man of deep honor and pride. More than once in his life he was taken advantage of, but he always managed to cover his debts, whatever the personal cost. Early in Joseph Smith Sr.’s marriage to Lucy Mack Smith, he learned that ginseng root was prized in China. This root grew wild in Vermont, so Joseph used the opportunity to invest in ginseng.
By this time, Joseph had already been the victim of a series of financial setbacks, and he looked at the opportunity of investing in ginseng as a sure way of ending that series of bad luck. After he worked hard to obtain a substantial amount of the root, he was offered $3,000 for his crop by a Mr. Stevens who resided in Royalton, which offer Joseph declined, expecting to get more elsewhere.
Joseph travelled to New York to arrange for the shipment of his product, but Mr. Stevens followed him to find out on which ship Joseph had placed his ginseng. Then Mr.... Read the rest of this article »
In 1811, the Smith family moved to West Lebanon, New Hampshire. At this time Lucy Mack Smith, Joseph Smith’s mother, remarked that they settled and “began to contemplate, with joy and satisfaction, the prosperity which had attended our recent exertions; and we doubled our diligence, in order to obtain more of this world’s goods, with the view of assisting our children when they should need it.” At this time none of their children had had much schooling, and so they set about making arrangements for all their children to do so. Soon thereafter, typhus fever struck Lebanon and killed 6,000 people. All of the Smith children were taken ill, and their daughter Sophronia nearly died.
Lucy and Joseph Smith, Sr., spent nearly all their savings on medical care for their affected children. Joseph was ill for two weeks, but after recovering from the fever developed a serious infection in his shoulder. It struck him forcefully one day, and... Read the rest of this article »
