“Emma Smith: The Office of thy Calling” by Susan Easton Black from our 2020 conference
Susan Easton Black
Emma Smith: The Office of thy Calling
August 2020
Summary
Susan Easton Black highlights Emma Smith’s pivotal role as the wife of Joseph Smith. She discusses Emma’s profound contributions to early Church history despite enduring significant personal challenges. Her legacy is one of resilience, compassion, and unshakable testimony. This is exemplified in her lifelong affirmation of the divine authenticity of the Book of Mormon.
Introduction
Scott Gordon: Our next speaker is Susan Easton Black. She’s an emeritus professor from Brigham University and was born and raised in Long Beach, California. She was the first woman to teach religion at BYU and the first woman to receive the Carl G. Maeser Distinguished Faculty Lecturer Award for research and writing. She’s a prolific writer of church history and doctrine. With that short introduction, please welcome Susan Easton Black.
Presentation
Susan Easton Black: I am delighted to have a chance to speak at this conference. I’ve been asked if I would say a few words about Emma Smith, the wife of a prophet of God. My topic about Emma is going to be The Office of Thy Calling. I hope you’ll enjoy it.
When we talk about Emma Smith, what we don’t know is absolutely huge. Emma did not write her autobiography; she never wrote her memoirs, nor did she keep a journal. There’s a lot of blanks where we actually don’t know all of the answers. But we do know some things about Emma, and that’s what I’d like to speak about today.
Background on Emma Smith
We know that Emma was born on July 10, 1804, in a place called Harmony, Pennsylvania. Notice by her date and thinking of the prophet Joseph, you’ll note that Emma is older than Joseph Smith.
We know that she was the third daughter of Isaac and Elizabeth Hale and the seventh child. I don’t know if you’d call the Hales a frontier family or one that adapts to their situation. Her father is a hunter by trade. He’s an alderman in the little community of Harmony, and he’s also a farmer owning many acres. He’s actually considered more well-to-do in that community than most.
For Emma, the house that she’ll grow up in has been reconstructed. Did it look exactly like this? Probably not, but you get the idea that Emma, as opposed to the Prophet Joseph Smith, had some of the real benefits of wealth growing up in Harmony, Pennsylvania.
When Emma meets him, Joseph Smith and his father are hired to go to Harmony, Pennsylvania, with the idea that both of them will participate in some kind of treasure hunting activity. For Joseph Smith, he will then meet Emma in October of 1825 there in the vicinity of Harmony.
Elopement and Family Dynamics
Joseph and Emma don’t have a “church wedding.” We know that they will elope and will cross over state lines into New York. Isaac Hale was very unsatisfied with the elopement of his daughter to Joseph. He says on one occasion, “You have stolen my daughter and married her. I had much rather have followed her to her grave.” So for any of you that have difficulties with in-law problems, I’m sure that Joseph Smith would understand.
Tragic Losses
We know that to their family were born several children. As you look at them in order, Alvin, then first child, only lived a matter of hours. He died and was buried in Harmony, Pennsylvania. We know that in the Kirtland area, Emma will give birth to twins. Some claim they are not named, but the most common family tradition names were Thaddeus and Louisa. Both those children will die. So notice then that Emma is a mother of three children but has no babies to hold in her arms.
The next children that entered Emma and Joseph’s life were twins. John and Julia Clapp Murdoch have twins that became members of the Smith family. Joseph Murdoch Smith died while still a baby, about 11 months old. He died shortly after the tar and feathering of the Prophet Joseph Smith. Julia Murdoch Smith lived well into adulthood. She was 13 when Joseph Smith was martyred. Of Emma’s first five children, Julia is the only one to survive to adulthood.
The Next Children
The other children go as follows: you’ve got Joseph Smith III. Joseph Smith III for 54 years will be president of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Frederick will die in his 20s. For Alexander, he will live to be a member of the quorum of the Twelve, then of the Reorganized Church. Don Carlos died as a child. Then a male baby dies. Then David Hyrum Smith was born after the martyrdom of Joseph Smith. So what we now know about Emma is that if you were to look at her family and the children she was able to raise, you’d say, “Emma, your oldest child is Julia, right?” And then comes Joseph Smith III, Frederick, Alexander, and then last but certainly not least, David Hyrum Smith.
Later Life Events
Joseph and Emma move to the family home of Father and Mother Smith in Palmyra, New York, after their elopement.
On September 21st evening of 1827, Joseph and Emma went together from the Smith home to the hill close by. There Joseph will go up and will commune then with the angel Moroni. He will receive the plates. When he comes back to the wagon, we know where Emma had been staying. We know that she then becomes the first person in this dispensation to know that Joseph Smith has the plates.
We also know that Emma has many privileges in her lifetime. One of them is to be the scribe to the Book of Mormon. She said, “It is my belief that the Book of Mormon is of divine authenticity. I have not the slightest doubt of it.” She goes on to describe that there could be no man who could have dictated the writing of the manuscripts unless he was inspired of God.
For Emma, she will choose to be baptized once the Book of Mormon is published. I always find it interesting that the man that baptized her was Oliver Cowdery on June 28, 1830. I think it’s so interesting that here Emma’s the scribe, who in essence comes to take her place but Oliver, and she will be baptized by him.
Revelations
Soon after her baptism in July of 1830, Joseph Smith receives a revelation for Emma. In that revelation, she is told about the office of her calling. That revelation, which is now Section 25 of the Doctrine of Covenants, is the only revelation in the entire Doctrine of Covenants that was given to a woman. So, in many respects, Emma now becomes the first lady of the Church. As she goes on to Nauvoo, you see it becoming more and more pronounced. But in Section 25, Emma’s told about the office of her calling. She is to comfort her husband, talks about in essence her talents, eventually hymn books, and so forth.
Life in Kirtland, Ohio
For Emma and for Joseph, they will now move to Kirtland, Ohio, with the body of the saints. They will live for a time, as they do so, with Newel K. Whitney, a man that will become a bishop of the Church. And they will also live with Isaac Morley, who in later years becomes a patriarch of the Church.
They also live with Father John Johnson who chooses not to move on with the saints when the saints move on to Missouri. They will stay for a short time from September of 1831 to March of 1832 in his beautiful home there in Hiram, Ohio. It will be just outside that home that Joseph Smith will be tarred and feathered.
Challenges and Trials
Joseph flees from men that didn’t just want him scarified and defaced from the tar and feathering. As Joseph moves on to Missouri, he tells Emma to go back to Kirtland. She goes back to Kirtland and lives with various people. Eventually Joseph returned and they lived over the Newell K. Whitney store.
Patriarchal Blessing and Contributions
For Emma, she will receive her patriarchal blessing on December 9th of 1834. I’ve read many of the patriarchal blessings that were given to the early saints, including blessings given by Joseph Smith senior. What I find so amazingly stellar and outstanding about Emma’s blessing is that in her blessing, there are no “ifs.” So, you’d say, well, what does that mean? It ends with, “You will be saved in the kingdom of heaven. Even so, amen.” I think that’s amazing for those of us that have had an occasion to say something out of place about Emma. We may want to reflect once again about her patriarchal blessing. There are no “ifs” and the promise at the end, “You will be saved in the kingdom of heaven. Even so, amen.”
Now for Emma, she will assist W.W. Phelps in putting together our first hymnal of the Church. And in that hymnal, you’ll find many of the songs that we still sing today. When I sing these, I reflect upon Emma and choices that were made for that hymnal.
We also know that she moves on to Far West, Missouri. In Far West there are many revelations that come. This includes the name of the Church, official name Section 115, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We also know in Far West, there’s a lot about tithing and eventually temple stones placed in the ground. But for Far West, it was a difficult time for Emma.
The Exodus from Missouri
Part of the difficulty had much to do with this man Lilburn W. Boggs, who was the governor of the state of Missouri. On October 27, 1838, he issued the extermination order. This indicated that the Mormons must be treated as enemies and must be exterminated or driven from the state.
Now, obviously, it meant thousands of people would go along a trail that some dubbed the Trail of Tears. Heading out at that time will obviously be Emma and her children.
Before she does so, she stops in to visit Joseph Smith. He’s been in the Independence Jail in Richmond and Liberty Jail. As Emma comes to visit him, obviously, it’s a joy to Joseph. But it is difficult for her to leave him. She is now going to make her way with her children out of the state.
Emma’s Journey to Quincy
Emma and Joseph write letters back and forth. Joseph actually writes more. Joseph said in one letter, “I would gladly go from here to you barefoot and bare-headed and half-naked to see you and think it great pleasure.” So some wonder, did Joseph love Emma? I think no question about it.
They exodus Missouri and head toward a barge town called Quincy, Illinois. When they reached the Mississippi River, the barge that was to take them from across had stopped running. The river was also covered in a lot of ice. Eventually, when the ice froze over, Emma will now cross that Mississippi River on the ice. She will have four children at that time. She makes her escape from Missouri with Julia, Joseph Smith III, and two babies in arms. Emma also carried out sacred papers from the prophet.
Now, when she arrives in Quincy, she will be invited to stay in the home of Judge Cleveland. She becomes good friends with his wife, Sarah Cleveland. Sarah plays a leading role in the Relief Society when it’s finally organized.
In Nauvoo, Illinois
Eventually, when Joseph escapes, the decision was made that he would take his family up to Nauvoo. Joseph really hoped that his home would be a resting place for thousands. It would appear to some that truly it had been.
At one point, W. W. Phelps, noticing that Emma seemed to feed everyone coming to and from Nauvoo, said to Emma that he thought that she could do better with the kind of household domestic things if she acquired a table like Napoleon Bonaparte had. Napoleon Bonaparte had a table that would only seat one, and so he would say to his armies that he would like to have fed the men, but you can see there was no room at his table. For Emma, her comment back to Phelps was, “My husband is a bigger man than Napoleon Bonaparte, and he can never eat without his friends.“ And so she became a hostess, particularly in the Nauvoo era.
Formation of the Relief Society
Now we know that on March 17th, 1842, the Relief Society was organized in Joseph Smith’s red brick store. It was organized on the second floor. About 20 women had gathered, ranging in age from about 18 to 59. They were all in different marital situations. They needed to decide what to name the society. Some had put forth the idea like it would be a benevolent society, like you could find in the different 26 states of the United States. They had all of these women who were philanthropic, did wonderful things. But the decision was made that they would call it the Female Relief Society of Nauvoo.
Elected on that date, March 17, 1842, was Joseph’s wife, Emma Smith.
Now as president of the Relief Society, she will select counselors. I always think it’s interesting with the Relief Society being so much about compassionate service that the women that Emma selected to be her counselors were women she had lived with. There’s Elizabeth Ann Whitney that’s wearing some kind of looks like a hat, and then Sarah Cleveland as her counselors. And of course, if you’re going to organize a society, you want a woman who can be your secretary that obviously makes everyone look good and keeps a record. Obviously, they’re going to select then Eliza Snow. She was known as the poetess of Zion. A woman where you’d say she had a regular beat on the newspaper and was a prolific poet.
Teachers
Well, who were the teachers in that Relief Society? In Nauvoo, Emma never selected a woman to teach. Their teachers? Well, the Prophet Joseph Smith, and two apostles, John Taylor and Willard Richards.
What did Emma say about this society? She said that this Relief Society would do “something extraordinary.” And then in her 19th-century mind, she tried to figure out what was the most extraordinary thing. She said, “Well, for example, when a steamboat comes up to Nauvoo and gets stuck there in the river, that the women would go out and bring them to shore.“
And I’ve thought, “Oh, those women had to be buff.” But in her mind, she knew the Relief Society would do something extraordinary. And truly, as someone myself being in Relief Society for decades, I’ve seen extraordinary things in my ward and my stake.
Well, the Relief Society only lasted for two years. Emma was there at the first and Emma was there at the last. It was only a two years experience and started up again only when the saints had gone west.
Emma’s Life After Joseph Smith’s Martyrdom
Joseph Smith had made the decision to leave the Mansion House and to cross the river to head to hopefully safety in Iowa. When he came back, however, he made the decision to go to Carthage. He stopped by to say farewell to Emma.
Joseph wrote to Emma and shared he was satisfied with his lot. He wrote that he had done the best he could.
Joseph’s body was brought back to the Mansion House. Emma said as she came in to see his remains, “Oh Joseph, Joseph, my husband, my husband, have they taken you from me at last?“
She will then go on to give birth to her final child, David Hyrum Smith.
Emma’s Children and Their Lives
Well, what happened to her children? Julia Murdoch Smith has a pretty tumultuous life and ended up being buried in the Catholic cemetery in Nauvoo. Joseph Smith III, Alexander, and David become leaders of the Reorganized Church. Frederick died in his 20s.
The Mormon Exodus and Emma’s Decision
The Saints will experience an amazing Mormon exodus from Nauvoo beginning in February 1846 continuing through the summer months. As the exodus was going on, the question was, would Emma leave? In other words, would she join the Saints and move west?
Her hand was literally tipped when they had the Battle of Nauvoo in September, then of 1846. Emma one morning woke up and went outside and found that the side the Mansion House had been burned. She concluded that it hadn’t burned to the ground because she possessed Joseph Smith’s translation of the Bible. She then packed her things, her children, and caught a steamboat to Fulton, Illinois. Meantime, she puts up her house for sale.
Okay, here’s your battle, and this is what she had.
She had his Bible, and she now heads to Fulton, Illinois. In Fulton, she learns that the man that she had thought was going to buy the Mansion House hadn’t put forth money. More than that, he was taking her goods out of the house to sell in St. Louis and Texas. At this point, Emma said that she had nowhere else to go but Nauvoo and no friend but God.
Emma’s Marriage to Lewis Bidamon and Business Ventures
Emma will return back to Nauvoo, she will open the beautiful Mansion House as a hotel. Hotels back then were a little bit different than today. There were people that would move into the hotel and live there because they could get room and board. Typically this was bachelors who would stay for an extended period. It was also used like a rest home. One of the bachelors that moves into Emma’s hotel was named Louis Bidamon. He is the same age as Emma.
As they live there, Louis and Emma will marry, and I think it’s interesting the date that they marry. They marry on December 23rd, 1847. So notice Emma chose to get married on Joseph’s birthday.
You’d say for a while Emma and Lewis had just an amazing business. The reason was because Nauvoo was like an attraction, a place you wanted to go. They were advertising as far away as St. Louis that in Nauvoo they had the eighth wonder of the world. It was not the Nauvoo Temple. But it was the Nauvoo Temple font where you have this kind of bull on the backs of 12 oxen.
But Emma will live long enough in Nauvoo to see that Nauvoo becomes a blight. What happens as it relates to her faith?
Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Emma becomes a member of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on the very day that her son Joseph Smith III accepts a position as president of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Emma is accepted on her original baptism to be a member of that church.
Now she attends the Olive Branch. The Olive Branch of that church met in Nauvoo. Most often their meetings were held in Joseph Smith’s Red Brick Store. They were held on the second story, the very same place that Emma had been elected to be president of the Relief Society. It is presumed that Emma put together hymn books for the Reorganized Church. However, her name never appears on one of the hymn books.
Well, here shows her family minus then Julia and Frederick who’s passed on. Here, her sons with her husband Louis.
Emma’s Passing
For Emma, she will die on April 30th, 1879. She will die at age 74. The place that she dies is what we today call the Nauvoo House, spoken of in section 124. Back then they called it the Bidamon House. She dies; she’s on the second floor. Her family is gathered around her, her sons Alexander and Joseph. One of her last words that she calls out is “Joseph.”
Reflections on Emma’s Life
Now with that said, what have we learned about Emma? You’ve now got a pretty whirlwind biographical sketch. I’m sure you’ve had questions that have just kind of zoomed through. I know that as I first started learning about Emma Smith, I personally had a lot of questions about Emma. You didn’t go west, your children, did you not teach them religion? I found out that Emma, commented, “I never wanted them to suffer as I have.” Being a mother, suddenly I go okay, I relate to that.
I also found it pretty interesting how much she and Lucy Mack Smith bonded. It wasn’t just progressive over the years, but Lucy, as she wrote the history of Joseph Smith, she described how compassionate that Emma was, that she would part with almost anything to help someone else, that Emma had been among those when the missionaries to the Lamanites were starting to head out, she didn’t think they had proper clothing and would sew and make that for them.
Gratitude for Emma
I’m very grateful for Emma’s faithfulness through her trials. Truly, she was the first lady of Nauvoo and was called that. She liked to ride her horse. Often she would lead out the women in parades, like the April 6, 1841 parade. She was a good cook; she would make different salves that she thought could help people when they were ill.
Well, did she have it all? You know, I’m not sure. Did she make a mistake to marry Lewis Bidamon? He was in so many ways the opposite of the prophet Joseph. He prided himself at one point in being an atheist. Many different times he was asked by Joseph Smith III to be baptized, but he did not want that. But one thing it does appear, how much he loved and appreciated Emma despite some of his later actions.
Closing Thoughts on Emma’s Legacy
So in closing, what do I think about Emma? Well, she was sealed to the prophet Joseph. Do I think that Joseph would want to see Emma? And I go, oh, absolutely. Do I think that we might all have a chance to see Emma in the next life? I just hope that I can be worthy of that.
Recall that her patriarchal blessing said that she would be in the kingdom of heaven, even so, amen. We all pass through a lot of experiences in this life. Some literally try our souls, and some are filled with joy. Emma had enough trials in this life for almost any woman to endure. I am amazed that when she’s asked such things as,“could dad have hidden a manuscript?” she says, “no.” She had a testimony that the Book of Mormon was the word of God. For that alone, I will be forever grateful for a woman named Emma Hale Smith. I say this humbly in Jesus’ name, amen.
Q & A:
Scott:
Come on over to the hot seat here, there’s your microphone. Thank you for your enlightening presentation on Emma Smith. I think she’s probably one of the more misunderstood characters in church history.
Susan:
Yes, I think the misunderstandings have so much to do with the fact she didn’t go west and misunderstandings with Brigham Young and other Church leaders at her time.
Scott:
I was going to say she and Brigham didn’t really get along, did they?
Susan:
You know, tracing Brigham and Emma, you can’t find anything in Kirtland where you’d say there’s a conflict, and the same thing could go for Missouri. But when they get to Nauvoo, Brigham Young has left by this point, and he’s over in England. Brigham wants to get printed a hymnbook and doesn’t necessarily choose all the hymns that Emma had chosen, and it kind of starts there.
And you get minor things such as when Joseph dies, Brigham Young is going to be the new lieutenant general of the Nauvoo Legion, and he asks Emma if he could borrow Joseph’s horse and uniform and then returns the uniform and horse without caring for them, you know, just leaves them off. So it’s the little things, but then when Emma becomes a widow, I’m hard put to say anything bad about Joseph Smith, but he hadn’t sorted out what was his personal property, what was Church property. And as a widow, Emma thinks she’s got all this property, and as the leader of the Twelve, Brigham Young doesn’t think so, and it just kind of adds up.
Scott:
I could see where that would be a real, real issue because especially women in the 1800s, you have to have enough to live, they didn’t have the government assistance, and women didn’t have all the opportunities, and then Brigham, of course, probably wanted to use the resources to go west, so I could see where that would be just a built-in conflict. So here’s a question we received: What is one thing that you wish you knew about Emma Smith considering the dearth of documentary evidence? And what is something you wish more people knew about Emma?
Susan:
Okay. I wish I knew the reasons why Emma chose not to go west when she was so beloved in the community and would have had friends that would have taken her in as well as her children. And then what do I wish everyone knew about Emma? I wish that they knew how kind and compassionate she was.
Scott:
So here’s another question we received: It seems that she was dishonest with her sons about Joseph Smith’s polygamy. Why do you think that is? It certainly had lasting effects.
Susan:
Well, okay, I don’t know whether I take the fifth on that, but there’s no question about that Emma, as she’s interviewed and then as she writes letters to her sons David Hyrum, and Alexander, who have gone west to “reclaim the Brighamites,” there is no question that Emma takes a very hard stand that Joseph Smith never practiced polygamy, and I wish we had a journal to see why she would take such a stand.
Scott:
You illustrated how difficult our life was compared to what many of us have to suffer through, and it must’ve been very difficult because she not only was the matron for the entire church, taking care of the entire church in many ways, and then losing her husband and her children.
Susan:
But I think for Emma, everybody focuses on the fact that she’s adamant about Joseph doesn’t practice plural marriage, but I think the greater conflict with Brigham Young was that she is supportive of her son’s call to take Joseph’s place as president of the church, and Brigham comes down very, very hard on that.
Scott:
Right, that would make sense. So what are your thoughts on the 2018 film “Jane and Emma” and how they portrayed the prophet’s wife?
Susan:
Well, okay, that’s a film that’s come and gone, right? But, Jane Manning James, a wonderful convert to the Church, and I think they took a lot of literary license. Because Jane only wrote like five pages of her life, and Emma didn’t write, they had to take a lot of literary license to pull the two of them together in their conversations.
Scott:
This might be a little bit of a broad question, but let’s see what we can do with it. What is a common misconception people have about the Nauvoo era of Church history?
Susan:
Sometimes we’re so into the history of the church that we don’t put Nauvoo in context of the state and nation. It’s kind of like we tell the history of the Latter-day Saints as if they’re the only people struggling, going west, or being persecuted at the time, without greater context.
Scott:
The last question: Did any of her family join the main church, the Brighamite group. Did any go west?
Susan:
Emma goes into the Mississippi River and does baptisms for the dead for her parents, Isaac and Elizabeth Hale. And then we know that during Emma’s lifetime, her sister Elizabeth has a son named Lorenzo Wasson. He joined the Church and was very helpful to Emma, particularly the last year of the prophet’s life.
Scott:
Well, thank you so much.
TOPICS
Emma Smith
