Scott Woodward: Welcome to Church History Matters Come, Follow Me Edition, where we are systematically diving into every section of the Doctrine and Covenants throughout the year 2025. We have a lot to talk about today, so let’s get into it. Hi, Casey Griffiths: .

Casey Griffiths: Hi, Scott Woodward. How are you?

Scott Woodward: I’m so good, man. This is a bonus episode, a Voices of the Restoration episode that we’re doing this week. So some of these weeks, we’re going to have two episodes, sometimes one. But anytime in your Come, Follow Me curriculum where it says there’s a Voices of the Restoration, we’re going to try to bring on a special guest who’s an expert in that topic. And today, we brought on our good friend Kyle Walker. Welcome, Kyle.

Kyle Walker: Hello. Good to be with you both.

Casey Griffiths: Good to have you with us. Like Scott mentioned, this is kind of an experiment for us because they changed the Come, Follow Me curriculum for 2025 to where there’s still four scripture blocks a month. But then there’s an additional lesson, most months, not every month, but most, called Voices of the Restoration. And the first one is titled The Smith Family. So they’ve given us a little space to explore the Smith family, and that is what we’re exclusively going to do in this episode, is just go through the members of the Prophet’s family and a little bit about each of them, and you are the expert on the Smith family.

Scott Woodward: You’ve been studying the Smith family for quite a long time. And Casey, do you want to give us the bio for Kyle and let everyone know why he’s the man to talk about this topic?

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. So let me read Kyle’s official bio, and then we’ll add to it a little bit. Kyle R. Walker is an administrator in the Counseling Center at Brigham Young University-Idaho, where he also teaches part-time in religious education. He received his PhD in marriage and family therapy from Brigham Young University. His doctoral dissertation focused on the family dynamics of Joseph Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith family, and he is the editor of United by Faith: The Joseph Smith Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith Family. He’s also the author of the award-winning biography, William B. Smith: In the Shadow of the Prophet. And he also has served as President of the John Whitmer Historical Association. And just recently, I’m going to hold this up so everybody can see, but Kyle published a brand new book called Sister of the Prophet: The Life of Katharine Smith Salisbury, one of Joseph Smith’s sisters. This is just brand new. Just barely came out.

Scott Woodward: Very cool. Well, Kyle, before we get into the particulars of the individual members of the Smith family, I’m just curious why you chose this as a topic of study or as something that you’ve really given a lot of time and thought and research. What first got you interested in studying the Joseph Smith and Lucy Mack Smith family?

Kyle Walker: I’ve always loved Church history, and my graduate program allowed me to do a history. I did a Church history minor graduate program at BYU. And so my dissertation allowed to blend my family studies research with Church history. So it seemed like a good fit to me at the time. And so once I got the bug, I guess, I continued to research on the Smith family. I was surprised how much there was about some of the lesser known members of the family as I got into that research, and that led to doing a couple of biographies about these lesser known members of the family. And so just have a great love for the Smith family, appreciate their sacrifices and contributions to the early Restoration.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah, and it seems like Joseph and Hyrum get plenty of attention, but the other members of the Smith family are sometimes a little left by the wayside. I have a teaching assistant who’s very knowledgeable, and I told him that Samuel Smith died a month after Joseph and Hyrum, and he was completely surprised, had no idea that that was his fate. And especially, it seems like the women of the Smith family, with the exception of maybe Lucy Mack, don’t get nearly as much focus. And you’ve done some great work on one of the brothers, William, and now one of the sisters, Katharine, and then the whole family in general. I highly recommend your United in Faith book, which goes through every single member of the Smith family, if you kind of want an introduction to each member.

Kyle Walker: Yeah, we need more voices from women’s history. I mean, there’s just not that many first-generation female Latter-day Saints that you could do a biography on, if you think about it, born before 1820. Katharine was one of those. She lived long enough, and there were enough sources that you could sort out her life and get a good feel for her personality and contributions. And so I felt like that story needed to be told.

Casey Griffiths: And people sometimes don’t realize that Joseph Smith gave some of his key doctrinal teachings when he was visiting family members. Katharine and, is it Sophronia, both live in Ramus, Illinois. And Joseph goes there, and that’s where he gives those profound sermons where he talks about, you know, the nature of the Godhead and how God has a physical body and sociality in the next life. And then he introduces eternal marriage to Benjamin and Melissa Johnson, who also live in Ramus as well. All that’s prompted by a visit to go see his sisters. So that’s a part of his life that does need a lot more exploration and maybe a little bit more scholarly attention.

Kyle Walker: Yeah, Sophronia is there in Ramus. Katharine is down in Plymouth, and Joseph does stop there on his way to his hearing in Springfield, the winter of 1842, early 1843, so he stays with Katharine. So they’re kind ofbehind the scenes, feeding his entourage and taking care of the Prophet. Oftentimes, that’s true for the Smith women in Kirtland and in other places of taking care of the comers and goers, housing the new converts that come into Kirtland. And in the Smith family home, Joseph Sr., Lucy Mack Smith, is kind of this waystation for a lot of those comers and goers in Kirtland as well. They continued that tradition in the Illinois period.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah, and the parents’ home in Kirtland is right next door to Joseph Smith’s home, correct?

Kyle Walker: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: There’s even this wonderful story where Joseph and William get into a fight. They into a row, and William punches Joseph, and then it’s actually a couple of weeks later in their father’s home that he mediates between the two. And so they’re more like a typical family than sometimes we give them credit for, too, that there could be fist fights and arguments and disagreements and parents trying to mediate between children as well.

Kyle Walker: Some of the sons-in-law. There were some conflicts with Calvin Stoddard, Sophronia’s husband, and Jenkins Salisbury’s outside of the faith. Katharine’s husband, Jenkins Salisbury, is outside of the faith for a decade. And so there’s some challenges there. But it’s pretty remarkable also the reconciliation that takes place. Like you mentioned, Joseph Smith Sr. mediating that conflict. Joseph’s prayers during that time in Kirtland that he longs for unity in the family. And they were a unified family. It’s rather remarkable to me that you’ve got the entire family. All 10 of them are following Joseph and their spouses to Ohio, on to Missouri, and then to Illinois, even though like Jenkins Salisbury is outside of the faith, he’s still following the family and feeling unified with the family. And that’s pretty remarkable when you think about all the spouses as well, making those migrations and supporting Joseph Smith in his mission.

Scott Woodward: That’s really what we want to talk about and highlight today. First of all, introducing these members of the family and then talking about that, talking about how each of them individually contribute to the Restoration or, you know, the mission of the Restoration, how they’re supporting Joseph in that. Maybe to set it up, we should go back to the Joseph Smith—History, chapter 1, verse 4. The verse says this, speaking of Joseph Smith Jr.: “His family consisting of eleven souls, namely my father, Joseph Smith; my mother, Lucy Smith (whose name, previous to her marriage, was Mack, daughter of Solomon Mack); my brothers, Alvin (who died November 19th, 1823, in the 26th year of his age), Hyrum, myself, Samuel Harrison, William, Don Carlos; and my sisters, Sophronia, Catherine, and Lucy.” That’s a big family. Eleven members of the Smith family there, this little nuclear family. And we just want you to kind of introduce us to these members. Like Casey said, we know Joseph and Hyrum, they tend to get a lot of love, and we can still talk about both of them today. But how do you want to start with this, Kyle? What’s the best way to kind of introduce each member of the Smith family?

Scott Woodward: And then we can, you know, just talk about their contributions, their support of Joseph and the mission, how they end up. Do they all stay in the faith? Is there ups and downs there? Like, we’d love to hear all of that today from you, Kyle, so. How do you want to begin a discussion about these eleven souls?

Kyle Walker: Yeah. It is a large family. If you think about it, you think about them living in the log cabin on the Smith property for a time before the frame home was finished. That would have been cramped quarters with the family of eleven. You might put a slide up that just shows the family itself so people can keep track of the family. You might lose track of the names that we talk about today. But three sisters, five brothers, Joseph Smith, and they were stout individuals. Maybe I’ll just describe their physical appearance. We sometimes hear about Joseph’s strength. But if you were to see the six Smith brothers coming down the street in Palmyra, that was a force to be reckoned with. So we hear stories about protecting the plates. You call the story of the family kind of coming out of the house and all hollering like they had a legion at hand. If you recall that story, all of the Smiths participating in that. There’s a lot of people in the home. You might have believed that there was more there than just the eleven, but they were also forced to be reckoned with. Joseph Smith Sr. was around 6’3.

Kyle Walker: Don Carlos was said to be around the same height. Joseph and Hyrum around 6 feet tall. That was much taller than the average person of that day. Samuel Smith, about 6 feet tall. Katharine was said to be 6 inches taller than the average woman of the day. And she was sometimes concerned about her safety in the Nauvoo period for fear of, during some of the times that were dangerous there in Nauvoo, for being mistaken for a man when she came out of the house because of her height. And so just physically, they were strong. I just finished that biography on Katharine, very robust, doing the work of most men. She milked a cow within hours of her passing in her 87th year of her age and kind of relished that role. She’s chopping wood, she’s bringing the sheep into an enclosure, letting them go in the morning, milking the cow morning and night, doing a lot of the barnyard chores around the home. Sophronia was a little less robust, I would say, than Katharine, and it seems like Lucy Mack Smith divided the chores based on hardiness at times. And so Katharine is doing a lot of the barnyard chores. Sophronia is doing some of those indoor chores.

Kyle Walker: If you recall, Sophronia gets sick, nearly dies on multiple occasions. And so there’s accounts in Lucy Mack Smith’s history of praying to spare her life. She contracts typhoid fever around the same time Joseph Smith Jr. does. And doctors had given her up and said, You need to let her go. You need to say your goodbyes to Sophronia. Through the efficacy of prayer, they feel like Sophronia’s life is spared. And that was a story that they recounted that Katharine in her history and that makes it into Lucy Mack Smith’s memoirs. Those are some of the accounts we see from some of the sisters that were involved as well. But let’s talk a little bit about the home, maybe the home environment. This was a home where when it came to organized religion, there was some division. Lucy Mack Smith felt like she needed to unite with the Church, wanted to be formally baptized into a church, where you recall that Joseph Smith Sr., much like his father, kept himself at a distance from organized religion. His father was a universalist, and I think Joseph Smith Sr. adopted some of those ideas that salvation would be universal and that outward ordinances were unnecessary.

Kyle Walker: And so you have some of this division with the parents. But the point I like to make is that although they were outwardly divided, and there’s some conflict over that at times in the marriage. Within the home, they were united in their religious practice. And so there’s accounts from several of the children that recall having prayers both morning and evening, and it looks like that Joseph Smith Sr. and Lucy are sharing the role of acting as voice. It doesn’t look like the children are offering prayers. Sometimes we think about that nowadays, that we all take turns and offer prayers, but it looks like the parents are the ones offering the prayers. Recall that Joseph says, For the first time in my life, when he goes for the First Vision, he was speaking audibly. And that might have been true, that the parents are the ones offering the prayers. There’s a couple of accounts that are kind of neat with this. One account is from William Smith. He said, “We had always had family prayer since I can remember. And I well remember father used to carry his spectacles in his vest pocket. And when us boys saw him feel for his specs, we knew that was a signal to get ready for prayer.

Kyle Walker: And if we did not notice it, mother would say, ‘William,’ or whoever was the negligent one, ‘get ready for prayer.’ And after prayer, we would sing.” At least in the evening, they would have these little devotionals where they would pray and then they would sing. Again from William, “My father’s religious customs included prayers both night and morning. Hymns were sung while upon bending knees. My parents, father and mother, poured out their souls to God, the donor of all blessings, to keep and guard their children, and to keep them from sin and from all evil works. Such was the strict piety of my parents.” And William even commented at one point that he said they sing the same hymns. There was only a couple of different hymns that they would sing, and he found that irksome, he said. He got tired of the monotony of singing the same hymns. The other siblings never mentioned that, and that may say something more about William than it does for the parents. But I thought that was kind of a neat anecdotal story there.

Casey Griffiths: Let’s add one thing really fast. I think Presbyterianism is pretty well known. That’s who Lucy affiliates with. But universalism is not as well known. And I wrote one of my first papers was on universalism. Do you want to tell us a little bit about what that means? Because I think sometimes get the perception that Joseph Smith’s father was not religious. And all these sources you’re sharing are making it sound like, yeah, he’s really religious, but people might not know what universalism is. Can you help us out a little bit there?

Kyle Walker: I probably can’t help as much as you can, if you’ve written about that, Casey. Maybe you and Scott could comment on that a little bit. I just know that everyone would be saved, that salvation was universal, and that’s how they got the name universalism, universal work.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah, universalism was the idea that God was going to save everybody, even if some people had to go through some form of punishment after this life. One of the main things I found was that it would have given Joseph and his siblings this feeling of God being approachable, as opposed to God being sort of severe or God being someone who wants to punish. Universalists have this beautiful story where they basically say, like, you know, If a father comes along and sees this kid in the mud, he’s going to pick him up and he’s going to clean him off. That’s their approach to God. And so it made me kind of realize that when Joseph walks into the Grove, based on his religious background, the God he’s expecting to speak to him there is going to be a loving father, somebody that is looking to help and not somebody that’s looking to condemn.

Scott Woodward: That’s the language of James, right? James 1:5 is that he will give liberally and he won’t upbraid you if you ask questions. It kind of leans into that same view of God. He’s approachable, he’ll be generous. You can ask him whatever you want.

Kyle Walker: And I think you picked that up some in Asael Smith writings, Joseph Smith’s grandfather, Joseph Smith’s Sr. Father, about the beauty of grace. That certainly would have been passed down in the family, I think.

Casey Griffiths: And you bring up Asael here. We should also add that they’re proud Americans, too. Like they reference several times that their grandfather in the Revolutionary War. And Joseph Smith talks about how he’s from the Green Mountain Boys of Vermont when he’s running for President, and that their background makes them proud to be Americans and conscious of the rights and liberties afforded in the Constitution and as American citizens. They’re Yankees through and through, I guess we could say.

Kyle Walker: Solomon Mack, right, as well. I think he fought in the French and Indian Wars. You know, the Smith family loving pageantry, right? We get into Nauvoo Legion, and even their love of guns and hunting. And you see Joseph Smith Sr., there’s one story about him going to a turkey shoot. I guess the way this worked is they’d tie a turkey maybe 100 yards down the field. Then some of the villagers would have their rifles and whoever shot the turkey would get to take it home. And so Joseph Smith Sr., you pick up on his sense of humor a little bit where he pretends to charm the other people’s guns so they will miss the turkey and he’ll have the shot at the turkey. Kind of a fun story about Joseph Sr. And then recall that Joseph in Kirtland sometimes is shooting at the mark, where they’re doing target shooting in Kirtland. I think, is it Wilford Woodruff? When he meets Wilford Woodruff, I believe that he was shooting at a mark, and it surprised him a little bit that the prophet was shooting when he first met him. You picked that up later with some of the Joseph Sr.’s grandchildren getting together and going hunting together. It seemed to be a generational activity. Another generational activity is wrestling.

Casey Griffiths: Okay, so that’s where this comes. This is a family thing that Joseph is introduced to because we’ve all done the leg wrestle thing to kind of get to know the physicality of Joseph Smith. But that’s something you got to imagine five brothers who were all pretty big, that Joseph probably took his fair share of hard knocks when he was rowdy guys.

Scott Woodward: It wasn’t wrestling in that day. Wouldn’t they draw a circle? And the idea was to throw them out of the circle rather than pin them down, right?

Kyle Walker: Catch as catch can. I think Alex Baugh did an article on that. On one occasion, a neighbor witnessed Joseph Smith Sr. wrestling with his son. Namesake son, Joseph Jr. in a hayfield. The neighbor said, Joe Jr. and his father wrestled and Joe threw the old man. The neighbor reported that Joseph Sr. was somewhat distraught after he was thrown, and when asked why, indicated it was because Joe Jr. was the best man. So you picked that up in the family. I’ve got an account I found where Samuel’s only son, Samuel H. B. Smith, is going on a mission in the 1850s. And he’s visiting some of his Smith relatives in Hancock County, Illinois. And the first thing his cousin, Katharine’s son, Alvin, wants to do with Samuel H. B. is to test their strength. Samuel is pretty worried about this. He says, Alvin was very strong, far superior to my strength. Then he records in his journal, Every time he tried it, it gave it up for a bad job and eventually stopped. But it’s interesting that their wrestling is the first thing they’re doing, testing their strength. They’re about the same age and they’re testing their strength.

Scott Woodward: Let’s just get this on the record. Was Joseph Smith Jr. the strongest of the brothers? I’ve heard he was never beaten in wrestling. I’ve heard he was like, stick-pull champion. I mean, how much of this can we verify right here?

Kyle Walker: Yeah, there’s a lot of accounts of that, of certainly his strength. William Smith was pretty tough, too. And Casey mentioned their scuffle in Kirtland.

Scott Woodward: Do you want to contextualize that at all, the scuffle with William?

Kyle Walker: Yeah, I think William Smith is one of the original Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and there were several instances of testimony being given in a case. You got to know William’s personality a little bit. He’s a a bit of a hothead and has a temper, and not just in the family, outside of the family. There’s a number of accounts of him getting into fisticuffs with others outside of the faith. And so keep that in mind. But he felt kind of undermined at a hearing. I think Joseph says, William starts to recount some testimony, and Joseph says, That testimony has already been heard. We don’t need to repeat it. And William kind of felt undermined. So this was kind of building. Then there’s a debate school in Kirtland, and Joseph is starting to sense that it’s getting pretty contentious at this debate school. And so he proposes that they do away with the debate school, and William was not happy with that. And that’s what leads to that confrontation that had kind of been building.

Kyle Walker: It’s interesting because they write letters to each other afterwards, so you get some details of the conflict. And Joseph, you know, there is a little bit of this pecking order, if you will. Joseph says in one of the letters, It may be that I can’t say that I can best you anymore physically. He also adds that I couldn’t get my coat off in time to be able to defend myself.

Scott Woodward: Wasn’t a fully fair fight.

Kyle Walker: Yeah, they put that in there in the letters. It’s kind of interesting, but.

Casey Griffiths: That’s the detail that I heard, too, that Joseph was putting on his coat, and that’s when William smacked him, like, punched him. Yeah, William’s the baby brother, right? He’s the youngest brother.

Kyle Walker: Don Carlos is the youngest.

Casey Griffiths: Don Carlos is the youngest brother. Okay.

Kyle Walker: So William’s born in 1811, so he’s about six years younger than Joseph. But very stout, very strong. And he hurts Joseph. Joseph will write in his journal the next day, At home, quite unwell. There’s one account that says he might have re-injured his side from the tar and feathering incident during that scuffle with William. Just to follow up on that a little bit gives you a feel for the family. William’s ready to turn in his preaching license and kind of resign from his position as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve. And Joseph will have none of that. He’s saying, you know, You need to overcome your passions. You need to pray for help. And he’s totally supportive of his brother. And the same will hold true in Nauvoo when William has some challenges coming out of Missouri and says some things that he’ll have to account for in Nauvoo. Against leaders of the Church. Hyrum and Joseph are standing by William. When other members of the Twelve are ready to have a Church trial, Joseph really intervenes and calms feelings and restores William to his office.

Scott Woodward: It seems like William gets into the Quorum of the Twelve of Apostles because of Joseph’s volition, right. I mean, the Three Witnesses call the original Twelve, and originally William was not on the list, right. And then Joseph Smith Jr. says, Can we put William in the Quorum as well? And the Three Witnesses of the Book of Mormon say, Sure.

Kyle Walker: I think Oliver says, We had proposed Phineas Young for the Quorum of the Twelve, Brigham Young’s brother. And Joseph says it’s necessary for William’s salvation that he be a member of the Quorum of the Twelve. And so that kind of ends the debate there. And he is talented. William is talented. I think sometimes he does some things that make you shake your head, but he’s also charismatic. He’s handsome. People are drawn to William. He’s a great preacher. He’s an effective missionary, brings numerous converts into the Church, and he does soften towards the end of his life and kind of settles down. You know, he’s a complex figure. It’s not just a black or white with William as sometimes he’s painted up to be.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah, we did a series on succession, and we talked about how William was made patriarch to the Church after his brother’s death, but then was excommunicated, and then he kind of bounces around with a bunch of different Restoration movements, but finally ends up with the RLDS Church, correct?

Kyle Walker: Yeah. If I could summarize, William, he is sent on a mission, 1843 through ’45. He does come back once during that time, but his wife is sick with dropsy or edema and thought maybe the physicians could help in the Eastern Seaboard. And so she goes with him on this mission. That’s pretty unusual that a wife accompanies her husband among the Quorum of the Twelve. So basically, he kind of becomes this unofficial president of the eastern branches. And he ruffles some feathers out there among established branch presidents out in Boston, New Jersey, and some of the branches out there, and sometimes will replace leaders. And eventually kind of steps beyond his bounds with the sealing power and bestowing the sealing power upon Sam Brannan and George J. Adams, two colorful characters in Church history, and then starts to authorize plural marriages without anyone knowing in Nauvoo. And s that eventually gets back to leadership in Nauvoo. By early 1845, both Parley P. Pratt and Wilford Woodruff write letters to Brigham Young, expressing their concerns. So eventually, William Smith is replaced by Parley P. Pratt as the president of the eastern branches, and he’s upset about it. So he’s gone during the martyrdom time and the aftermath there.

Kyle Walker: So think about what he’s missed being absent from Nauvoo for a year, returns, I believe, May 4th, 1845, and has to kind of reconcile what he’s done. And so there’s some intense meetings in 1845. His wife passes away in Nauvoo a few weeks later after their return. To make a long story short, he is made patriarch, but he wants to expand upon that authority because of feeling undermined with his leadership on the East Coast. And eventually, that comes to a head, several tense meetings with other members of the Quorum of the Twelve. And eventually, William will flee Nauvoo in September of ’45, and then he goes public with some of his disagreements, and he’s excommunicated the next month, October 1845. That’s important because he has a lot of influence on remaining Smith family members, including the sisters. Katharine will follow William’s lead. Katharine and her husband, Jenkins, especially, will follow William’s lead over the next year. But that’s a little history on William, give you a feel for William and what happened to him.

Casey Griffiths: You shared a poignant story once about, I think it was B.H. Roberts, who’s on a mission, and he meets with William Smith. Can you tell us a little bit about that, too? Because that kind of captures William as an older man, and it’s totally different. You actually open your book on William Smith with this, and it completely changed my perception of William, who I always thought of as kind of like the rebellious, you know, younger brother that was jealous of Joseph. This paints a different picture than that.

Kyle Walker: Yeah, he settles in Alkater, Iowa, northeastern Iowa, eventually, joins the RLDS Church. It’s, you know, a lot of people think the Smith family joined the RLDS Church right in 1860, that they were just waiting for Joseph Smith III to assume this role, and that’s really not the case. So 1878, 18 years after the reorganization has been established, William finally negotiates with Joseph Smith III and comes into the church. So he’s affiliating with the RLDS Church at the time, and these missionaries, B.H. Roberts and his companion, find him in this remote region, track him down. And William’s wife is, doesn’t treat the missionaries very well. She about closes the door in their face when she finds out they’re LDS missionaries. Initially, she thought they were our LDS missionaries, so she was really warm, and then she turned frigid, B.H. Roberts says. But William was a gracious host. He welcomes them in. They will sit and have dinner together. They then go over some of the documents that William has. They pull some of these, I don’t know if he had Times and Seasons or different issues there that he pulls out. They kind of look over these documents together. Roberts is impressed with how gracious he is to them and what a gracious host he is.

Kyle Walker: He even gives up his bed. He later finds out that William had given up his own bed and slept on the floor on some pallets and some clothes so that the missionaries could have a comfortable sleep that night. And then he walks him to the edge of town in the morning. He knows that his wife not as gracious a host. And so William actually writes a letter on their behalf to some neighbors who could house them and supports their work. Here’s some people you can talk to in this letter, in spreading the gospel. It’s almost like they’re one in the faith with William. Katharine’s kind of the same way. When visitors come to her, they’re supporting the missionaries. They’re part of the same history, if you will, which is part of the Smith family’s story, right? Coming forth of the Book of Mormon, their support of Joseph Smith. So it really shocked Roberts, that, how friendly he was with them during this exchange. And it’s one of the few detailed interactions that we have, how the Smith family was in later years towards the mountain Saints that came out on missions.

Scott Woodward: Very cool. Let’s back it up then, back to Palmyra.

Kyle Walker: Okay.

Scott Woodward: Let’s talk about this early season, this, the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. Alvin, even before his death, he’s a big supporter, correct, of Joseph, at least believes his story that an angel has visited and is encouraging him to do everything that lies in his power to obtain the record. Let’s talk about Alvin for just a minute. It seems like he has a pretty strong imprint on Joseph Smith Jr. And it seems to be the whole Smith family after his death, really continue to think about, talk about Alvin, and even some questions surrounding his death, religiously, seems to lead to some really important theological expansion in Kirtland and then in Nauvoo. Maybe paint the Alvin story for a second in Palmyra, and then walk us through maybe some threads connected with him.

Kyle Walker: Yeah. He’s the, so he’s the oldest surviving child, born in 1798. Yeah, the siblings really look up to Alvin. For instance, Katharine names a son after her admired older brother. Joseph writes some lines in his journal. Even one of the motivations for his getting married was the loneliness he felt after Alvin’s death, his unexpected death in 1823. But Alvin is really helping to pay for the $100 annual payment on the 100-acre farm. Richard Anderson speculates that he may have worked on the Erie Canal, that that’s where you could have got the money at that time. They could make as much as $14 a month working on the Erie Canal. And so he goes away. Lucy says he’s gone for, what, seven or eight months, I think, in her history, and basically pays for the major portion of the annual payment for the farm. And so he’s making that payment from 1820 to 23. And so the Smiths could just prepare their property, get it ready for farming, clear the farm, which was, according to Richard Bushman, a Herculean achievement. They’re clearing 3,000 trees on 30 acres. So lots of trees that they’re having to clear off. So that would be a major job.

Kyle Walker: Eventually got 60 acres cleared up on their farm of 100 acres. And so they’re able to do that. Why Alvin helps to make that payment. Alvin is also leading out and building the frame home on the property and had enough skill to be able to do that. And as we toured that, I think you were with us, Casey, on one of those conferences we went. Mark Staker gave us a tour of the home. He could identify in the home Alvin’s work versus the work that came after because the home wasn’t finished at Alvin’s death. Mark Staker also speculates a little bit if you’ve been to the Sacred Grove, the Smith Farm, there’s still a rock wall that has survived there. He speculates that some of the rocking was done by Alvin, which is done in a much more kind of a neat fashion where Alvin had done it versus the rest of the farm, which was more thrown together. And so maybe that says something about Alvin’s personality. But recall, once he dies, and again, Richard Anderson speculates it might have been appendicitis, which there was no cure for. At that time, doctors tried to attend to him, and Lucy’s kind of upset at the doctors, but there’s really probably nothing you could do for appendicitis in that day.

Kyle Walker: But they’ll end up losing the farm. A couple of years later because Alvin’s no longer earning that kind of money and bringing that income in to save the farm. So by 1825, the farm’s, and all their improvements that they’ve done on the farm, cooper shop and the apple orchard and clearing all those trees, you know, up to 6,000 trees, they cleared off the property. All of that’s lost by 1825, which must have been devastating at Lucy and Joseph Smith Sr.’s age. That was kind of their last hope to establish and maybe pass along some things to the children.

Scott Woodward: They had to leave the frame home and go back to the log home, correct?

Kyle Walker: Yeah, by 1829 or so, they’re having to go back to the log home. But think about that. You know, if the Lord wanted to teach Joseph about the concept of work for the dead, you couldn’t teach him in a more poignant way than this admired older brother. And recall that then he sees Alvin in vision in the celestial kingdom and wonders, how can Alvin be there when he never received baptism? And that’s what even made more poignant at his funeral, because the local Presbyterian preacher, maybe in an attempt to gain converts, preaches that Alvin had gone to hell because he had not been baptized. So you better all come to my church and get baptized. And Joseph Smith Sr. is upset about that funeral, and it solidifies his place of, this is how organized religion is, I’m keeping myself at a distance. And so I think his death, his life had a profound influence on the family, both spiritually, economically. They all admired Alvin. We do have one story about Alvin, where maybe it was during his work on the Erie Canal, Joseph records that two Irishmen were fighting, and one kind of breaks the rules in this fight and tries to gouge the other’s eyes out. And Alvin jumps in the ring and grabs the man by his breeches and throws him over the ring because he had broken the rules there. And so that’s a story that has survived about Alvin.

Scott Woodward: Didn’t Joseph Smith Sr. on his deathbed, doesn’t he say, right before he passes, I see Alvin?

Kyle Walker: I think what it was, was the doctrine of baptism of the dead is taught there. And I think that Joseph Smith Sr. is wanting Alvin’s work to be done once he learns of that concept, if I remember correctly.

Scott Woodward: I think it’s really precious that at the end of Joseph Smith Sr.’s life, as he lay dying in September of 1840, Lucy Mack Smith recorded that he said, quote, “I can see and hear as well as I ever could, and I see Alvin.” Lucy Mack Smith, yeah, that’s one of Joseph Smith Sr.’s dying words, too, is “I see Alvin.” So just to your point, Kyle, that Alvin plays a pretty big role in the Smith family, even after his death. Theologically, they’re thinking about him. This is leading to questions about the afterlife. One of the first people, I think, baptized for the dead in this dispensation was Alvin Smith.

Casey Griffiths: Alvin’s death seems to have left a void in the family that it seems like Hyrum stepped up to fill. And there’s a lot of conversation about Joseph and Hyrum’s closeness, especially later on in their life. But what are some things from their life that explains how they came to be so close?

Kyle Walker: Yeah, Alvin kind of gives Hyrum that charge on his deathbed. He’s calling in all the family members and kind of giving them their last charge. One of the things he says to Hyrum is to look out for the parents. They’re an older age. They need your support. That’s part of why he was building the frame home, and he asked Hyrum to now play that role. And Hyrum did, I think, lead out in that role. In younger years, Hyrum also played a role in looking out for Joseph. Recall his leg surgery, a series of leg surgeries. When the doctors come in, operate on Joseph’s leg, they had to leave the wound open to let fragments of the bone work their way out of the wound. That was the way Dr. Nathan Smith had instructed, and it worked, right. It saved Joseph’s leg miraculously, but that was a long period of recovery for Joseph and would lead to him walking with a limp even throughout his life. But Hyrum played a role when Lucy Mack Smith is exhausted with helping her son, as you can imagine, through these months. Hyrum would often play the role of coming in, taking Lucy’s place and holding Joseph’s leg on a certain angle or holding it up to help alleviate some of the pain. That might have helped solidify the bond between Hyrum and Joseph.

Kyle Walker: Certainly, Joseph appreciated that care that Hyrum had shown for him. He’s also kind of looking out for Joseph. Recall that when the Smith family moves from New Hampshire, Vermont to Palmyra, in that transition, Father Smith has gone ahead to Palmyra. So Lucy’s kind of leading out with a teamster named Caleb Howard, who didn’t treat the family very well and even knocks down Joseph with the butt of his whip. And the brothers at times, did not treat them well. And Hyrum and Alvin are kind of trying to intervene and protect Joseph because he’s had this operation, is walking with a limp. And later on, I think Hyrum even plays this role of looking out for Joseph in Nauvoo when Joseph is talking about his enemies. There’s one occasion where Hyrum comes in and warns him, Let’s not speak so freely about your enemies. I’m worried about your safety. At the time of the martyrdom, Hyrum refuses to leave Joseph’s side. Joseph’s saying that it doesn’t matter so much about me if my brother Hyrum could but be liberated, but he’s determined not to leave my side. So he’s with him.

Casey Griffiths: Let’s keep going because I want to go through everybody. Samuel is maybe the next one that we hear the most about. He’s the first missionary for the Church. That’s where a lot of his notoriety comes from. But what else do we know about Samuel Smith?

Kyle Walker: Yeah he gets the credit for that. I think Oliver and Joseph are preaching before Samuel, but he’s kind of credited with being this, the first missionary, I think is honored at the MTC. Isn’t he, doesn’t he even have a statue down the MTC in Provo?

Casey Griffiths: They have a statue and, you know, they talk about, he filled up his knapsack and didn’t convert anybody. But there’s a lot of good missiology.

Kyle Walker: Yeah, he felt discouraged, but it ends up leading to the conversion of Brigham Young, and Heber C. Kimball, two of the most faithful original members with the Quorum of the Twelve. So we never know, right, the influence we might have down the road. Samuel is three years younger than Joseph, so the next sibling born after Joseph that survives. He serves a number of missions, so it’s good that he’s credited with that. 1836, I believe, Joseph is listening to Samuel, his brother Don Carlos, and his brother-in-law, Jenkins Salisbury, preach in Kirtland. And he makes this comment that these young elders bid to make good preachers in the kingdom, basically. I find that comment interesting because Samuel, isn’t Samuel the third person baptized in this dispensation? He’s been a member since almost as long as Oliver and Joseph, and he’s making this comment about their youth. And Jenkins Salisbury is a member since 1830. Now, it would have fit better with Don Carlos, who’s younger. He’s only 19 years old or so in Kirtland at the time. But I think it’s more about ability. There’s several accounts of Samuel preaching with Orson Pratt and Orson Hyde, and Orson Hyde describes him as being slow of speech.

Kyle Walker: And so I think he’s a dedicated worker. I think he works hard. He serves a lot of missions, defers to Orson Hyde, defers to Orson Pratt to kind of lead out in preaching, but he’s there and working hard and kind of working behind the scenes. I don’t perceive him as being kind of the leader that Joseph or Hyrum or William or even Don Carlos was. He does serve as a bishop in Nauvoo for a time, but somebody that people loved and admired, even some of the antagonists where he lived in, near Plymouth, Illinois, respected Samuel, had nothing bad to say about Samuel. They had bad things to say about William, but they didn’t say anything about Samuel and his reputation. And so it gives you a little feel for Samuel and his personality. We don’t know a ton about Samuel. There’s a thesis written about Samuel, but his journal is, you know, We baptized two people. We traveled this far. You don’t learn too much about his personality. I think it’d be tough to do a biography of Samuel. He does come to Carthage. He hears about what’s going on June 27th, 1844, and gets a horse and tries to ride to Carthage to rescue his brothers. He ends up in a high-speed horse chase with some people who recognize who he is and try to prevent him from coming.

Kyle Walker: But he arrives too late and ends up with the morbid task of removing the bodies to the Hamilton house and stays with the bodies that night and will drive one of the wagons back to Nauvoo with the bodies. And then he complains about a distress in his side during the funeral of Joseph and Hyrum. And some of it apparently came from the high-speed chase. It’s hard to know details of what happened, but he’s sick from there on after the funeral. Grew worse. His daughter says that all of our normal activities began to grow quiet. We had to be quiet in the house during that month. He’s given some priesthood blessings. And like you mentioned, he will die a month after Joseph and Hyrum of what is described as “bilious fever.” Now, there’s some rumors about Samuel’s death that he was poisoned, and those come from William after he’s excommunicated. And William will spread this rumor that Brigham Young and others poison Samuel, and that’s what led to his demise. And will publish those accounts in newspapers. And so that’s where the rumors come. And he will say that Samuel is poisoned by order of Brigham Young. Well, I think William forgot his timeline because Brigham is on a mission in the east, and William isn’t there either, recall.

Kyle Walker: He is in the East as well. So at best, that would have been second-hand, third-hand information that William’s promoting to have first-hand knowledge of. And so that’s where that rumor starts. Samuel H. B. Smith, Samuel’s only son, reads that rumor. It was published in a New York newspaper, and he writes to the newspaper, correcting that, saying that’s incorrect. My father died of bilious fever. I was there. My family was there. There was no hint of foul play at the time.

Scott Woodward: And is this just William being erratic again and just trying to sling some mud in Brigham’s direction?

Kyle Walker: Right. William goes to St. Louis shortly after his excommunication and reveals polygamy, that leaders at Nauvoo are practicing polygamy and tries to gather followers behind his leadership. Well, William was a polygamist. And so the duplicity there is noteworthy with what William is doing, and that’s not always coming to light at that time. But he’s willing to say a lot of things about him. Anyway, that’s Samuel. Any other questions you have on Samuel?

Scott Woodward: Samuel is one of the Eight Witnesses of the Book of Mormon, right? He seems to wear that as a badge of honor as well. There’s some great testimonies that he bears and points to his name and opens up the Book of Mormon and points to his name and says, That’s me. And I bear testimony that my brother is a true prophet of God.

Casey Griffiths: I’ve never heard that “slow of speech” comment before, but I always wondered why Samuel wasn’t made one of the Apostles when it seems like William was such a troublemaker. But maybe that explains it, that Samuel’s gift wasn’t public speaking, and that’s definitely in the skill set of being an apostle, so. He wasn’t called for that reason, but.

Scott Woodward: Can we just talk about an enigma in the family names? You’re reading all these nice American-sounding names, and then suddenly you land on Don Carlos. And suddenly, I’m picturing a guy in a sombrero, and, like. Why Don Carlos? Do you know anything about the naming behind this boy?

Kyle Walker: That’s one of the questions I’ve been asked quite a few times. In fact, some of those working on the Joseph Smith biography commissioned by the Church right now have written me asking about that. And he answer is I don’t know. But it’s a name that persists in the family. Katharine has a son named Don Carlos. Lucy Millikin, daughter Lucy, has a son named Don Carlos, and so. I’ll just talk about Don Carlos for a minute, if we could. He’s born in 1816. He’s quite an amazing individual, I think he is put in as the president of the high priest quorum in Kirtland at age 19, probably the equivalent of a stake president there. And there’s some debate about it, and there’s an account about that. And Joseph, again, kind of comes to the defense and says, My family is given to be in leadership in the priesthood. That kind of silences the debate about that. And Don Carlos is unanimously sustained in this role in Kirtland. So age 19, pretty young. In Nauvoo, he is third in rank in the Nauvoo Legion. He’s the Brigadier General, I believe, there. And so there’s kind of some fun accounts. Katharine said that when outfitted in his Nauvoo Legion uniform and on horseback, he was magnificent.

Kyle Walker: And then there’s an account that says that he was the most handsome man she had ever seen when on horseback and in this Nauvoo Legion uniform. I find that interesting. Both of them said that about Don Carlos. He’s a printer. He will print the Times and Seasons in Nauvoo and works in a dark, dank basement there. He also is instrumental in publishing the 1840 edition of the Book of Mormon, he and Ebenezer Robinson, which is a great story in and of itself. You know, sometimes we get focused on the 1830 publication and all the miraculous things that took place with its publication. Well, there’s another story with the 1840 edition of the Book of Mormon, where he and Ebenezer Robinson know that the Saints need more copies of the Book of Mormon, but they have no money. 1840, think about it, where the Saints are at then. And so they proceed on faith. They have $147, and they’re needing about $1,500. Ebenezer Robinson goes to Cincinnati, proceeds on faith. Don Carlos stays home in Nauvoo and tries to raise money for these copies of the Book of Mormon. And just kind of a miraculous story of how the funds start to come in.

Kyle Walker: And he sends them on to Ebenezer Robinson, who eventually publishes 2,000 copies of the 1840 edition of the Book of Mormon, so the Saints could have the scriptures there. So Don Carlos plays a key role in that public location. Unfortunately, he gets sick with pneumonia, 1841, and dies at the same age as Alvin, age 25, far before his time. It’s a tragic funeral. And so if you think about it, you know, you’ve got this family of eleven, you got Calvin that dies, 1823. You got Joseph Smith Sr., who passes away 1840 in Nauvoo. Don Carlos, 1841. And then you got Joseph and Hyrum and Samuel all in the summer of 1844. So by the end of the summer of 1844, there’s five members of the family left. William’s the only surviving brother. Then you got Lucy Mack Smith and her three daughters that have survived. So that gives you kind of a feel for what the Smith family looked like after that fateful summer of 1844.

Casey Griffiths: That kind of leads us to the Smith sisters, which we don’t hear a lot about. But, Kyle, in some of your writings, I was really surprised to hear how involved they were in things like the plates when they were brought to their home and things like that. So can you walk us through the Smith sisters a little bit, Katharine, Sophronia, and Lucy? Some of whom, I should mention, survive into the 20th century. I think Katharine lives the longest. Is that right?

Kyle Walker: Yeah, she lives till 1900. She is there when Joseph comes after he’s had the scuffle with three individuals that try to take the plates from him, she’s at the house and leaves a description of those events. Says that he had the plates clasped to his, in his left arm and left side because his right-hand and thumb was dislocated. So he’s carrying that in the left side. That’s a detail that we only get from her. She brings him into the house, and Katharine’s the first person to heft the plates while they’re covered. And she also leaves a pretty detailed account of the plates that’s very similar to what Emma said. She recounted to her descendants, how she lifted and felt the plates on multiple occasions. In one instance, she discovered the plates wrapped up and sitting on the table while she was dusting a room where Joseph was in the habit of studying. She described how she hefted the plates and found them very heavy and estimated they weighed about 60 pounds. She then examined them more closely, rippling her fingers up the edge of the plates and felt they were separate metal plates and heard the tinkle of the sound that they made, noting that they were held together in the back by three rings.

Kyle Walker: So that’s a nice account from somebody who was within the family and left a detailed description of the plates. She also, there’s one instance where we don’t have a lot of details, but the family was obviously prepared for these kinds of instances because of the warnings from Moroni and what Joseph had cautioned them about. They’re all kind of unitedly trying to protect the plates. She recalled an occasion where Joseph had the plates outside of the home and came hearing a ruckus outside, Katharine opened the front door just as her brother Joseph came rushing up panning for breath, and in a gasping voice whispered harshly, ‘Take these quickly and hide them.’ Katharine, obviously prepared for such a circumstance by this juncture, took the bundle from Joseph to her room where she and Sophronia slept. Her exceptional strength assisted her, I think, in hefting the plates. Sophronia pulled back the covers, Katharine placed the bundle on the bed, and then they replaced the covers, pretending to be asleep. The mob, failing to find Joseph outside, returned to the house to search, as Katharine recounted to her descendants later, but they did not disturb the girls since they appeared to be sleeping.

Kyle Walker: They played a role there. I’ll also just mention one thing Katharine said, and this is an account most people don’t know about. It’s an account I found that I used in the Katharine book. She said that when the plates were in our home, you could feel the Spirit in every room that you went into. You know, it’s only a three-month period there where they have the plates in the frame home. September 1827, and by December, Joseph and Emma are off to harmony. But she recalled that that period of time, a lot of recollections in that three-month period as they anticipated getting the plates and were disappointed that Joseph couldn’t initially get them. In the different visits to the hill, Katharine expresses her personal disappointment that she couldn’t see the plates, but said we had to wait until the book got published so that we could see what was on the plates. The sisters making some contributions there to protecting the plates. It’s interesting. Lucy Mack Smith says at one point in her history, she says, When Joseph couldn’t obtain the plates initially in 1823, it wasn’t just Joseph, but that we redoubled our dedication and our efforts so that we could be worthy of the plates.

Kyle Walker: And you pick up accounts from Katharine later in life saying, We are the family that helped bring forth the sacred record. We were part of that. That was our commission. That was our mission to help bring forth those plates. And so they felt some responsibility. They felt some obligation. They felt that as well.

Scott Woodward: This was a team effort with the Smith family. If only hiding the plates from mobbers while Joseph tried to get away. That’s a cool story. So the girls were literally like, hugging the plates in bed when the mobbers came.

Kyle Walker: Katharine says that, this is interesting, from a teenage perspective, she says, There were mobbers around our house nearly every night. I don’t know that that’s accurate. I think there were a lot of instances of people trying to get the plates, but that she remembered it that way is telling, isn’t it? It was a time of hypervigilance, and it was a time of spiritual growth as well. I think these two competing feelings that they’re having here.

Casey Griffiths: Well, and I’m thinking points to the mob that they’re polite enough… Well, they’re not polite enough to not break into someone’s house, but when they see two young ladies sleeping, they’re like, Don’t wake them up.

Scott Woodward: The girls are sleeping. They were gentlemen mobbers.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. Yeah. As gentlemanly as mobbers can be, I guess we’d say.

Scott Woodward: Okay, so then the girls, they join the Church early on, 1830, I assume, or?

Kyle Walker: Yeah, June 9th, 1830, Don Carlos, Katharine, William baptized. First conference of the Church, they’re baptized.

Scott Woodward: Okay, so when the Church is organized, 1830, how old are the sisters? So Katharine, Sophronia, and then little sister Lucy.

Kyle Walker: Sophronia is the oldest, so she’s 27. Katharine would be 17. Daughter Lucy would be nine.

Scott Woodward: And they all get baptized relatively shortly after the Church is organized?

Kyle Walker: Yeah, we have an account of Katharine, Don Carlos, William. Some of them, we don’t have an account of their baptism. We assume that Calvin Stoddard, Sophronia, is married. Her husband’s Calvin Stoddard. We assume he got baptized in there because there’s some accounts of him defending, preaching the Restoration, preaching the Book of Mormon, Jenkins Salisbury, Katharine’s husband. We don’t have documentation on when he was baptized either.

Scott Woodward: So Sophronia marries Calvin Stoddard, and they both get baptized shortly after the Church is organized. And then Katharine’s 17. When does Katharine get married?

Kyle Walker: Katharine marries right after the Saints migrate to Ohio, and Jenkins Salisbury will travel with that same company as Lucy Mack Smith’s contingent of the Fayette Branch, I believe that he’s a part of that, too. They’re married by Sydney Rigdon just a few months after arriving.

Casey Griffiths: And you mentioned that Jenkins spends some time outside the Church, that Katharine is in a mixed-faith marriage for a period there.

Kyle Walker: Yeah, he has some challenges. Jenkins has some challenges. He does march with Zion’s Camp in 1834. George A. Smith is upset towards Jenkins because he thinks he pawned his, that he swiped his gun and pawned it for whiskey. And Jenkins will later be tried for… One of the things he’s tried for is drinking strong liquor. And so he has these bouts of using alcohol and deserting the family at times. And you pick that up in both Jenkins’ patriarchal blessing and Katharine’s patriarchal blessing, where Joseph Smith Sr. is giving the blessing, reprimanding Jenkins, calling him to repentance. That’s 1833, as early as 1833, ’34 in there. And in Katharine’s blessing, you pick it up there, too. It talks about her dedication to family, but talks about her husband and his instability in providing for the family. He comes around again. He does serve a mission in ’32, ’33 in there. He’s kind of reprimanded in this patriarchal blessing and does reform and is rebaptized, actually, by his missionary companion, Truman Waight, but it’s short-lived. And again, he will be called several times to, before a high council for abandoning the family. Around the time of the temple dedication, he’s abandoned his family again, left Katharine without wood to heat her house, without enough food.

Kyle Walker: And so the Smith family is having to come in and play a role of supporting Katharine and her two children that she has by that time as he’s absent for a time. So he’s pretty intermittent with his providing for Katharine, and that becomes a challenge. Poverty is a challenge for Katharine throughout their marriage. When they’re in Plymouth, Illinois, during the Nauvoo period, Joseph, if you remember Joseph and his group headed to Springfield, Illinois, will stop by Katharine’s home and stay there. And Willard Richards records how difficult it is to see a sister of the Prophet almost barefoot and without clothing. And so Joseph plays a special role with Katharine. He gives her all the money he has at times in his pocket. He will invite her and the children to come for Christmas each year in Nauvoo. Katharine will say that he showered us with presents, and the children really appreciated that, of having some of those things that they didn’t typically have. And so they had a real fondness for Joseph and Emma and their support that they gave to Katharine, especially during that time. Katharine even appears to live at Nauvoo for a time and works in Joseph Smith’s Red Brick Store during one summer.

Kyle Walker: So she may have spent extended periods of time, maybe to earn some money and be with the Saints. But most of the time she’s at a distance from Nauvoo, which must have been difficult compared to Kirtland when she’s right at the hub of things with the Saints and her family.

Scott Woodward: Why do they go out to the Ramus area? Do they have a farm out there, her husband?

Kyle Walker: Well, Sophronia is in Ramus, and Katharine is down Plymouth, which is kind of the southernmost part, southeastern part of Hancock County. But William is there after he comes out of Missouri, and he buys a hotel there. And he’s not really fulfilling his calling in the Quorum of the Twelve. He’s just taking care of his family, and he prospers. Buys this hotel, he’s able to pay it off. I think he invites the Salisburys to come down there near him. She may have worked in that hotel, and Joseph and others will stay at that hotel. It kind of stays in Smith family during the Nauvoo period. Even after William goes on a mission, ’43 or so, Don Carlos is going down there managing the hotel. Samuel is helping to manage that hotel at times. And so it was a business that they could run. Katharine’s husband, Jenkins, was a blacksmith. And that’s a noted business in town. Eventually, it kind of gets off the ground by about 1843, ’44. He’s prospering a little more, starting to do well. And then they’re ran out of town around the time of the martyrdom. Notes were tacked to their doors that, You better leave or we’re going to burn you out.

Kyle Walker: And so just as they’re finally prospering, they’re fleeing Hancock County. So she had it tough, tough marriage, tough with poverty. And then he dies 1853, and Katharine’s left a widow, raising her four sons in rural Hancock County, Illinois. So she continues to have hardships, and she will settle right near Ramus that you mentioned. Eventually, she goes to Ramus. It’s now called Webster, Illinois. So eventually, Katharine makes it out there.

Scott Woodward: I feel like she’s buried there, isn’t she? She’s buried in Ramus.

Kyle Walker: She’s buried in Webster.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. Scott, you and I found her headstone when we went to Ramus a couple of years ago. That’s what was throwing me off.

Scott Woodward: She’s buried in Webster, but she settled over in Plymouth. Okay, this is good for my mind.

Casey Griffiths: If I recall correctly, doesn’t Brigham Young offer some financial help to Katharine?

Kyle Walker: Yeah. In later life, probably 1871, she reaches out to Brigham Young for financial help to help build a house there in Fountain Green, which is right next to Webster, Ramus area. Brigham Young sends her $200 to help build a house there, and will eventually send her additional funds to help finish the house because it wasn’t enough. And eventually, Church leaders will send her additional funds. Joseph F. Smith helps, John Taylor, others to send her additional funds. So she has 40 acres and her own house for the first time in her whole life that she owns outright. So that was a great gift that they bestowed because of their love for the Prophets’ family, willing to send that money to her.

Scott Woodward: And so she stays widowed for half a century.

Kyle Walker: That’s right. And her children are raised right there next to those who march to Carthage, and they experience a lot of religious persecution. Her oldest son, Solomon, starts taking these walks with a girl that he really liked, and they do these Sunday walks. The father finds out about this, and all of a sudden, the excursions stop. Eventually, Solomon finds out from the gal’s little sister that their father forbade her walking with him any longer because you’re a nephew of Joseph Smith, or your mother is a sister of the Prophet. And so there’s these heartrending stories with the children who are really ostracized from their peers out in Hancock County, and that’ll be difficult for decades, even violent at times for the family, with some neighbors shooting at the Salisburys at times, Katharine and her children. Just a rough go of it out there. And yet they stayed there. Daughter Lucy and Sophronia actually move over into McDonough County, which is a little further away, and there’s a lot of immigrants that have come into that area. And so I don’t think they’re as familiar with the story of the Saints in nearby Hancock County. And so I don’t know why Katharine didn’t go further east, where she could have been with her sisters and maybe related some of that.

Kyle Walker: But maybe she had a free home because some of the abandoned homes of the Saints were there that she could move into, and she didn’t have money, and maybe that’s why she stayed there.

Scott Woodward: And religiously, so she does not go West with the Saints, obviously. Then she joins up with the RLDS Church, is that correct?

Kyle Walker: That’s right. Yeah. Again, it’s much later. Some of the descendants of the sisters make it sound like she was with the reorganization from the first, but it’s not until 1873 that she affiliates with the RLDS Church. And she’s right there. In fact, she even writes to some of the leaders out in Salt Lake about the neglect she’s experienced from Joseph Smith III, that they haven’t proselytized her children and involved them with the reorganization. She’s upset about that because some of her children have gone west and going after gold, the gold rush, and some of that. She complains that they might be preaching the gospel rather than seeking for gold. If Joseph III and his brothers had taken more interest in her children and involved them with the reorganization. But eventually, Solomon, her oldest son, gets sick. He has this dream where he says a messenger appeared to him and told him to call for Joseph Smith III for a priesthood blessing. Joseph Smith III comes out, gives him a blessing, and he gradually recovers and ends up joining the RLDS Church. And Katharine’s happy. They really haven’t been going to church, if you think about it, for almost two decades by that point.

Kyle Walker: And so she’s happy to see her children begin to show more interest in religion, and they all kind of unite around the RLDS Church. Katharine is the only sister that’s formally rebaptized by Joseph Smith III. The other sisters are received on their original baptism, which is common for those who belonged to the early Church, and they really aren’t affiliating with the RLDS Church that much. There’s no branch out there where they lived. They’d have an occasional preacher that would come through. So that’s kind of the extent of their involvement. But Katharine is much more involved, her son becomes the branch president there. They create a branch right where they lived, and he will eventually be a district president over Nauvoo and is kind of a leader in that area.

Scott Woodward: And then back to Sophronia, talk to us about her from Nauvoo. What happens there.

Kyle Walker: Yeah, that’s an interesting story because Lucy Mack Smith and Sophronia and her husband received their endowments in the Nauvoo temple. So they’re supporting Brigham Young’s leadership initially, and they are building a wagon to go west. William McCleary, her husband, this is her second husband by this point, goes ahead. He goes to Winter Quarters, maybe to prepare a place for them and get settled. When he comes back the next spring to retrieve Sophronia and her only surviving daughter, Mariah, apparently she’s changed her mind.

Scott Woodward: Do we know why she decided to not go West?

Kyle Walker: Not a lot of records. You know, maybe to be with her mother and her sisters. The rest of the Smith family is staying in the Midwest, so that’s certainly probably a factor, but we have very little records from Sophronia herself. I think we have one letter in her own hand. But William McCleary actually goes back to Winter Quarters, so apparently, they separate over this issue. He will go West in 1849. He migrates with the Silas Richards Company and will arrive in Salt Lake, and there’s a record of him arriving there. And then he disappears. I don’t know what happened to him. I cannot find a death date for William McCleary. But there is some accounts from missionaries that go out and visit Katharine, Sophronia, and Lucy, and say that Sophronia is a widow. So we think that maybe he died shortly after arriving in Salt Lake Valley, and we haven’t found a record of that. If anybody can help find a death date for William McCleary, I would love it. So Sophronia stays there. She’s a widow as well, apparently. She has her only daughter, Mariah, and they will, eventually, her daughter marries, and they to Colchester in McDonough County.

Kyle Walker: And Lucy Millick and daughter Lucy will also go to Colchester, so, and they live about a block away from each other. I found both of their locations where they lived in McDonough County, and they will remain there, both of them, for the rest of their lives. Sophronia has no posterity. Her daughter Mariah marries. They have two children, and by the 1880s, they’ve all passed away.

Scott Woodward: Then tell us about little Lucy then. The youngest sister, what do we know about her?

Kyle Walker: She marries in 1840 to Arthur Millikin. Joseph Smith performs the wedding ceremony in Nauvoo. He’s a saddle and harnessmaker. They are supporting William Smith a little bit after the martyrdom, I think, although they never travel to where he settles. They will move out to that area of Webster. And we have the whole Smith family, actually, besides William, all living in that Ramus/Webster. It was originally called Ramus, then Macedonia. And then eventually, locals don’t want those names that the Saints gave it. They changed the town name to Webster. So that’s why we’re talking about all of those names. But they all live there in Webster in the 1850 census. You’ve got Lucy Mack Smith, you got Sophronia, you got Lucy Millikin, all out there. Katharine, all out there living in Webster, Illinois for a time. And I think it’s just important to note that Lucy Millikin, daughter Lucy, takes care of her mother. You know, we hear about Emma taking care of Lucy Mack Smith, but for probably eight years, Lucy Millikin and a granddaughter, Mary Bailey Smith, are really taking care of Lucy Mack Smith. So her daughters are taking care of her for eight years. And then about 1852, the same time that Sophronia kind of moves to Colchester, Lucy Mack Smith moves back to Nauvoo, where she’s cared for by Emma during her final years.

Kyle Walker: And Emma does a good job of taking care of her and Louis Bidamon, her second husband, taking care of Lucy Mack Smith during that time. So they’ll work in Colchester, the Millikin’s Lucy, daughter Lucy and her husband, Arthur Millikin, and their children will work in the coal mines in Colchester. And he’ll be a railroad man there in Colchester. Some of his children work in the mines. So some of the missionaries from Salt Lake will go out there and they’ll go down in the mines with the Millikins and show them around, how coal mining worked in that area. But they’ll work in that business for the rest of their lives. Both Lucy and her husband, Arthur Millikin, pass away in 1882, and Sophronia dies in 1876. So Katharine and William are the only two that are left during those final decades of the 19th century.

Casey Griffiths: And I’m trying to do the math here. How old was Lucy when she passed away? If she dies in 1882.

Kyle Walker: Yeah, so she’s born in 1821, and she has a large posterity. The Millikins have a number of children, and they become successful. There’s one who has a drug store there in Colchester, and they become very prominent there in that area. It’s a small town, but well known in that area.

Casey Griffiths: And Kyle, there’s a Smith Family Association, right, that kind of brings together all the descendants. Have you had any dealings with them?

Kyle Walker: Yeah, I’ve presented at times at the family reunion. There’s a Joseph Smith Sr., Lucy Mack Smith family, and they hold a reunion, I think, almost every year. I think they’ve had the last one in Salt Lake. But I presented in Nauvoo one time to them and shared some of the accounts of some of the family members and some of the qualities of the family. And that was fun to get to know many of the family, which they have quite a posterity. In doing the Katharine book, it was interesting. I met somebody just right up here. And I’m in Rexburg, Idaho, and he lived in Rigby, and he’s a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And it’s interesting to meet some of the descendants. I don’t know if you remember Estel Neff. He had a bookstore in Nauvoo. He’s a direct descendant of Katharine Smith Salisbury and worked in the temple there after the Nauvoo temple was rededicated. And had a little bookstore there. Was a good friend. I met some other descendants. I met Mary Dennis over in Burlington, Iowa, and some Dukes over there. Mary Dennis had most of Katharine’s papers, including a photobook that belonged to Katharine, so she had a lot of her personal effects.

Kyle Walker: This photobook, the first picture in the photobook was a picture of Emma Hale Smith, and she also had a picture of William Smith, a tin-type photograph that was used in the Joseph Smith Papers. And so I was able to help track that down, and eventually, BYU Special Collections was able to purchase that collection, and it’s now housed at BYU on their campus. Some neat things in interacting with some of the descendants of some of the sisters out there that are still there, a lot of the descendants right there in Hancock County, McDonough County.

Casey Griffiths: Is it correct to say that a lot of the Smith family descendants are not Church members? They don’t belong to any Restoration Church. Is that accurate?

Kyle Walker: That’s correct. I met Mary Dennis there in Burlington. Her family, her parents had been long-time RLDS. She had a hard time when they distanced themselves from the Book of Mormon. And since that time, she stopped attending, but still believed in the Book of Mormon, had copies of the Book of Mormon there in her house, and faith in Joseph Smith as a prophet, which had been passed down from Katharine through her descendants.

Scott Woodward: At the end of their lives, can you just tell us, like, with each sibling, real quick, of Joseph Smith Jr. What was their faith as far as we can tell in terms of Joseph Smith’s prophetic mission, the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, et cetera, the core fundamentals?

Kyle Walker: Well, William Smith vehemently defended his brother’s reputation. In fact, he’s even writing as newspaper articles come out, and he will write to the editor of those newspapers, defending the character of his family and defending Joseph Smith and what he said. And so throughout his life, he is, like I say, just very outspoken about that. There’s actually a fun account of William Smith’s kind of laying low up in Elkader, Iowa, before he joins the RLDS Church, and nobody knows he’s a brother of Joseph Smith. And there’s a Mr. Stoneman who comes to town preaching against Mormonism. And all of a sudden, when he’s about halfway done with his lecture, William Smith stands up and says, Well, I’m a brother of Joseph Smith, the person that you’re denigrating, and I know that the things that you’ve said are not true. And I propose to speak tomorrow night and show you the other side of the coin here. And so everybody in town gets really excited about this. They didn’t know William Smith was a brother of Joseph Smith. And they even buy him a suit of clothes so that he can have a fresh suit to wear. And the newspapers say he did an amazing job of defending the character of Joseph Smith and his family.

Kyle Walker: And we don’t think Mormonism is half as bad as we thought before he spoke. And so that’s an example of the Smith family. Katharine, especially, will publish a number of accounts. She’ll write to the Saints’ Herald newspaper talking about her recollections of the early Church and defending the character of her brother, Joseph Smith, that he really did have the plates, and her faith in the Restoration. Sophronia and Lucy, there’s less accounts, but we do have some from traveling LDS missionaries that go out to that area, and they make sure to record in their journals, they still have faith in their brother, Joseph Smith, as a prophet of God and in the Book of Mormon. And so there’s several accounts of those missionaries saying that they had said that. So yeah, every one of them actually defended their brother, Joseph Smith, the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, the early Church. I think the Smith family members had a hard time transitioning a little bit, 1844, ’45, to it not being a Smith in leadership. And I think William Smith heightens that with some of the things he was proclaiming, but always defended Joseph Smith and his divine mission.

Scott Woodward: That feels important because if Joseph Smith Jr. is making all this up, right, and he’s trying to foist this forgery upon the world. It seems like his family would be the hardest ones to convince, to pull the wool over their eyes. The people that know you best tend to be able to see through your shenanigans. And to me, this is one of the thousand testimonies toward the validity of the Restoration, is that those who knew Joseph best actually stood by him to the death, some of them literally, and to their death, continued to testify that their brother was actually a living prophet and continued to read the Book of Mormon as sacred scripture. To me, I find that just incredibly compelling.

Kyle Walker: Yeah, I agree with you. Just to reiterate, you know, the, if anybody knew that Joseph was enacting some sort of fraud, I think it would have been his family. Even though William was as unstable as Hyrum was loyal, I think one of the great strengths of the Restoration is that the first family held true to each other and were supportive of Joseph Smith. He needed that support, especially early on. You think about Palmyra, you know, kind of being ostracized in the Palmyra community, his family was there for him, and that every one of them believed in his mission, followed him, like I said, you know, to Ohio and to Missouri and to Illinois, and continued to declare their faith. That is one of the strengths of the Restoration, I think.

Casey Griffiths: I love the way you phrased it earlier, Kyle, where they would say stuff like, We and our family. It wasn’t Joseph’s mission, it was our mission.

Scott Woodward: Well, Kyle, as we wrap up this session with you, first of all, thank you so much again for being with us and taking this time and sharing your knowledge and your great research with all of us here at Scripture Central. Just in closing, any final things you want to say about what studying the Smith family has done for you? Anything along those lines you’d like to say as we wrap up today.

Kyle Walker: Yeah. One question I thought about a little bit. Does it matter that Joseph Smith came from a solid good family? Something to think about a little bit. I mean, we’ve seen prophets come from homes that were divided, right? Certainly, as a counselor, you know, I’ve seen people overcome great traumas, horrific backgrounds, challenging backgrounds. But I think Joseph needed that support, maybe that foundation. And so the Lord did provide, in this case, a strong family to launch the Restoration, a family who was spiritual, a family who believed in the efficacy of prayer, who believed in angels. And so I think he prepared Joseph, prepared the family, and prepared the parents, and prepared the grandparents so that Joseph could come into this family and have that solid foundation.

Casey Griffiths: Well, thank you, Kyle. Thank you for all your research. Again, books on the entire Smith family, books on William, and a new book on Katharine that we hope our listeners will go and take a look at. And Kyle, just thanks for shining a light on these stalwart believers who just happen to be Joseph Smith’s family as well, so. Thank you for all the good you do.

Kyle Walker: Yeah. Great to visit with you guys.

Scott Woodward: Yeah. Well, thank you. Thank you for joining us on this episode of Church History Matters. Our new episodes drop every Tuesday, so please join us next week as we continue to dig into the context, content, controversies, and consequences of the revelations of the Doctrine and Covenants. If you’re enjoying or gaining value from Church History Matters, we would love it if you could pay it forward by telling your friends about it or by taking a moment to subscribe, rate, review, and comment on the podcast. That makes us easier to find. Today’s episode was produced by Scott Woodward and edited by Daniel Sorenson, with show notes and transcript by Gabe Davis. Church History Matters is a podcast of Scripture Central, a nonprofit which exists to help build enduring faith in Jesus Christ by making Latter-day Saint scripture and Church history accessible, comprehensible, and defensible to people everywhere. For more resources to enhance your gospel study, go to scripturecentral.org, where everything is available for free because of the generous donations of people like you. Let me say that again. All of our content is free because people like you donate to make it possible. So if you’re in a position where you’re both willing and able to make a one-time or ongoing donation, be assured that your contribution will help us here at Scripture Central to produce and disseminate more quality content to combat false and faith-eroding material out there in the digital marketplace of ideas.

Scott Woodward: