Why Did Emma Smith Remain in Nauvoo after the Death of Joseph Smith?

Emma Smith was one of the most important leaders in the early Church. As a newlywed of less than a year, she was present at the Hill Cumorah when Joseph Smith received the gold plates from the angel Moroni on September 22, 1827. She was one of the earliest scribes of the Book of Mormon translation and left behind a significant historical record that broadens our understanding of how and when the translation of the Book of Mormon occurred.

Devoted to her husband and to her faith, Emma was driven from her childhood home in Pennsylvania to New York, Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois. During the Missouri persecutions of 1838–1839, Emma was forced to flee from that state with her children while Joseph Smith languished in Liberty Jail. Lucy Mack Smith, the mother of the Prophet, recorded this tribute to Emma:

I have never seen a woman in my life, who would endure every species of fatigue and hardship, from month to month, and from year to year, with that unflinching courage, zeal and patience, which she has always done. … She has breasted the storm of persecution, and buffeted the rage of men and devils, until she has been swallowed up in a sea of trouble which [would] have borne down almost any other woman.¹

After Joseph Smith’s death in 1844, Emma remained in Nauvoo for the rest of her life rather than traveling on with the Saints, and for several years she did not associate herself with any of the groups linked to the Restoration. Why did Emma stay in Nauvoo after Joseph’s death?

Emma was devastated at the death of Joseph Smith. According to one witness, when she saw Joseph’s body, she spoke softly to him, saying, “Oh, Joseph, Joseph! My husband, my husband! Have they taken you from me at last!”² At the time of Joseph’s death, Emma was pregnant with their last child and left to care for four young children alone. Going anywhere would have been extremely difficult. She was also left without much financial support, and she worried about how she could provide for her family (although in Nauvoo, she had a substantial home and considerable property). Legal claims regarding Joseph’s estate and Emma’s legal rights as Joseph’s widow remained to be sorted out—a process that would take over eight years to complete.³

Emma also kept aloof concerning the question of who should take Joseph’s place as leader of the Church.⁴ However, tensions soon began to rise between Emma and Church leadership over the ownership of Church properties, especially items like manuscripts of Joseph Smith’s new translation of the Bible and the Joseph Smith Egyptian papyri. Emma felt a special guardianship over the new translation materials, saying they “had been placed in her charge.”⁵

Emma initially refused to join any group vying for leadership of the Church. In the months following Joseph’s martyrdom, Brigham Young and the Quorum of the Twelve emerged as the most prominent leaders of the Church, especially because Joseph had rolled the authority of leadership onto the Twelve three months before his death.⁶ However, tensions between Emma and Brigham Young arose. Historian Jenny Reeder recounts, “Both Emma and Brigham Young were fiercely dedicated to Joseph for different reasons: he was committed to seeing the future success of the Church, while she was devoted to preserving her fatherless family.”⁷ Emma also had a complex relationship with plural marriage. Sources indicate that Emma participated in several plural marriages, but later in her life she appeared to deny her participation in or acquiescence to the practice.⁸

The rift between Emma and the Twelve widened when she married Lewis Bidamon on December 23, 1847—Joseph’s birthday. Bidamon was an alcoholic and a gambler in addition to being uninterested in organized religion, but he was also charming, affectionate, and protective of Emma.⁹ Most of the Saints had left Nauvoo by the time of the marriage, but Almon Babbitt, a Church leader left behind in Nauvoo to oversee Church interests, confronted Emma, accosting her about her decision to marry outside of the faith.¹⁰ Emma and Lewis never had children together, but he acted as a surrogate father to the Smith children. This and many other factors continued to widen the rift in the years following.

As the years continued, Emma and her oldest son, Joseph III, accepted leadership roles in the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (today called the Community of Christ), with Joseph Smith III serving as president of that organization from 1860 to 1914.¹¹ A few days before her death, Emma was interviewed by Joseph III, recalling many vital details about the early Church but also denying the practice of plural marriage.¹² She died in Nauvoo on April 30, 1879, at the age of seventy-six.