| Joseph Fielding Smith | |
|---|---|
 | |
| 10thPresident ofthe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints | |
| January 23, 1970 (1970-01-23) – July 2, 1972 (1972-07-02) | |
| Predecessor | David O. McKay |
| Successor | Harold B. Lee |
| Counselor in theFirst Presidency | |
| October 29, 1965 (1965-10-29) – January 18, 1970 (1970-01-18) | |
| Called by | David O. McKay |
| End reason | Dissolution of First Presidency upon the death of David O. McKay |
| President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles | |
| April 9, 1951 (1951-04-09) – January 23, 1970 (1970-01-23) | |
| Predecessor | David O. McKay |
| Successor | Harold B. Lee |
| End reason | Became President of the Church |
| Acting President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles | |
| August 8, 1950 (1950-08-08) – April 4, 1951 (1951-04-04) | |
| Reason | David O. McKay was serving as Second Counselor in the First Presidency toGeorge Albert Smith |
| End reason | Became President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles |
| Quorum of the Twelve Apostles | |
| April 7, 1910 (1910-04-07) – January 23, 1970 (1970-01-23) | |
| Called by | Joseph F. Smith |
| End reason | Became President of the Church |
| LDS ChurchApostle | |
| April 7, 1910 (1910-04-07) – July 2, 1972 (1972-07-02) | |
| Called by | Joseph F. Smith |
| Reason | Death ofJohn R. Winder;John Henry Smith added to First Presidency |
| Reorganization at end of term | Bruce R. McConkie ordained |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Joseph Fielding Smith, Jr. (1876-07-19)July 19, 1876 Salt Lake City,Utah Territory, U.S. |
| Died | July 2, 1972(1972-07-02) (aged 95) Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S. |
| Resting place | Salt Lake City Cemetery 40°46′37.92″N111°51′28.8″W / 40.7772000°N 111.858000°W /40.7772000; -111.858000 |
| Spouse(s) | |
| Children | 11 |
| Parents | Joseph F. Smith Julina Lambson Smith |
| Signature | |
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Joseph Fielding Smith Jr. (July 19, 1876 – July 2, 1972) was an American religious leader and writer who served as thetenthpresident ofthe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) from 1970 until his death in 1972. He was the son of former church presidentJoseph F. Smith and the great-nephew of church founderJoseph Smith.
Smith was named to theQuorum of the Twelve Apostles in 1910, when his father was the church's president. When Smith became president of the church, he was 93 years and 6 months old; he began his presidential term at an older age than any other president in church history. Smith's tenure asPresident of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles from 1951 to 1970 is the third-longest in church history;[1] he served in that capacity during the entire presidency ofDavid O. McKay.
Smith spent some of his years as an apostle as theChurch Historian and Recorder. He was a religious scholar and a prolific writer. Many of his works are used as references for church members. Doctrinally, Smith was known for rigid orthodoxy and as an arch-conservative in his views on evolution and race, although it has been said that age had softened him and as a result he put up less resistance to reforms by the time he had become president.[2][3]
Smith was born in Salt Lake City,Utah Territory, on July 19, 1876, as the first son ofJulina Lambson Smith, the second wife and first plural wife of Joseph F. Smith, then a member of the Quorum of the Twelve. By agreement between his parents, Smith was given his father's name, even though Joseph F. Smith's third and fourth wives had previously had sons.[4] Growing up, Smith lived in his father's large family home at 333 West 100 North inSalt Lake City.[5] The house was opposite the original campus of the University of Deseret (modernUniversity of Utah),[5] on a site now occupied byEnsign College. He also often worked on the family farm inTaylorsville, Utah, as a child.[6]
In January 1879, when Smith was two years old, theU.S. Supreme Court inReynolds v. United States upheld theconstitutionality of theMorrill Anti-Bigamy Act of 1862, which had criminalized the Mormon practice ofplural marriage.[7] Due to aggressive federal enforcement of this ruling, as well as theEdmunds Act of 1882 and theEdmunds–Tucker Act of 1887, many LDS Church leaders, including Smith's father, were either imprisoned or forced into hiding and exile during most of the 1880s. Smith's father, as the keeper of the records of theEndowment House, felt a special need to avoid capture since the records could allow the federal authorities to easily prove polygamy charges against certain Latter-day Saint men.[8] In January 1885, Smith's parents and his younger sister, Julina, left for the Sandwich Islands (modern Hawaii), where Smith's father had served a mission as a teenager in the 1850s.[8] In their absence, Smith continued to live in the family home with his brothers and sisters and his father's other wives, whom he "lovingly called 'aunties'".[9] Smith's mother returned to Salt Lake City in 1887, followed later by his father.[8] Even after his return, Joseph F. Smith was unable to openly visit and care for his wives and children until receiving apresidential pardon from U.S. PresidentBenjamin Harrison in September 1891.[10]
Smith's mother worked as amidwife to help provide for the family, and delivered nearly 1,000 babies in her career without ever having a mother or infant die in childbirth.[11] As a boy, Smith often drove his mother by wagon to the variousdeliveries that she attended in Salt Lake City. Smith's primary schooling took place in "ward schools", which in the 19th century were semi-formal schools run by members of eachward which taught the traditional "three R's": reading, writing, andarithmetic.[12] As a teenager Smith completed two years of study at theLatter-day Saint College, an institution equivalent to the modern U.S.high school, which provided courses in the basic areas of mathematics, geography, history, basic science, andpenmanship.[13] After leaving the college, Smith began working as a stock clerk doing manual labor atZCMI to supplement the family's income.[13] Smith was present in the large assembly room of theSalt Lake Temple for its dedication on April 6, 1893, by church presidentWilford Woodruff.[14]
Smith married his first wife, Louie Emily "Emyla" Shurtliff (born June 16, 1876) on April 26, 1898. In March 1899, church presidentLorenzo Snow called him on amission to Great Britain, which he completed (May 1899 - July 1901), leaving Louie in Salt Lake City. On May 12, 1899, Smith wasset apart as a missionary and ordained aseventy by his father. A small group of missionaries, including Smith and his older brother, Joseph Richards Smith, left the next day for England. After his return from the British mission, Smith and his wife had two daughters, Josephine and Julina. Louie died of complications of a third pregnancy on March 28, 1908.[15] For part of this time Smith was a member of theMormon Tabernacle Choir, including time withEvan Stephens as conductor.[16]
Smith married Ethel Georgina Reynolds (born October 23, 1889), the daughter of prominent LDS Church leaderGeorge Reynolds, on November 2, 1908. They had four girls (Emily, Naomi, Lois, and Amelia) and five boys (Joseph Fielding (often called Joseph Fielding Smith, Jr.), Lewis Warren, George Reynolds, Douglas Allan, and Milton Edmund). Their youngest daughter, Amelia, marriedBruce R. McConkie, who was named to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles shortly after Smith's death. Ethel died of acerebral hemorrhage on August 26, 1937, at age 47.[17]
Ethel had specifically requested that Jessie Ella Evans (December 29, 1902 – August 2, 1971) sing at her funeral. Evans, born to Jonathan Evans and Janet Buchanan Evans, had joined the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in 1918,[18] was a member of theAmerican Light Opera Company (1923–27), and was the Salt Lake County Recorder.[19] In November 1937, Evans and Smith were engaged to be married.[20]
In April 12, 1938, Smith married Evans in theSalt Lake Temple. The marriage was performed byHeber J. Grant.[21] The couple had no children and Jessie died on August 2, 1971.[22]
After completing his mission in 1901, Smith began working in the office of the Church Historian and Recorder. In 1906, he was given the position of Assistant Church Historian. He wrote his first doctrinal book,The Origins of the Reorganized Church and the Question of Succession in 1909,[23] to defend the LDS Church against the recent proselytizing by missionaries for theReorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS Church) in Utah. He was the acting recorder of the 1910general conference when he was called as an apostle. Prior to his call as ageneral authority, Smith served as the secretary and treasurer of theGenealogical Society of Utah.[24] In 1921, Smith assumed the office of Church Historian and Recorder, which he held until 1970.
Before 1910, Smith was a member of astake high council and a home missionary (somewhat similar to a modern ward missionary). He also served on theYoung Men's Mutual Improvement Association General Board.[25]
Early in his apostleship, hiscreationist[26][27][28] views on the dispute between Mormonism's Biblical teachings and thetheory of evolution brought him attention. (SeeMormonism and evolution.) Smith authored the bookMan, His Origin and Destiny on the subject and unsuccessfully tried to make it the basis of a course of study at the church seminaries. The book was met with disapproval from church president David O. McKay, who made it clear that the book was unauthorized by the church and was not to be taken as reflecting church doctrine. However, because Smith was theActing President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles at the time of publication and later became president of the church, his views carried substantial weight with the general church membership and grew to be accepted by a significant portion.[29]
Smith lived most of his time as an apostle in Salt Lake City. He also waspresident of the Salt Lake Temple from 1945 to 1949. During this time, Smith was sent on a tour of the church's Spanish-AmericanMission. Before his return to Salt Lake City, he informed the president of theArizona Temple that he would recommend to theFirst Presidency that the temple ceremonies be translated into Spanish.[30]
Smith served as president of theGenealogical Society of Utah and its successor the Genealogical Society of the LDS Church from 1934 to 1961. At the time of his release from this position, he had been President of the Quorum of the Twelve for over a decade. During the late 1950s, Smith attempted to reduce staff turnover at the Society by trying to convince the First Presidency that women should be permitted to stay on as employees after they married. However, Smith was only able to get a change to allow them to work six months past marriage.[31]
In early 1961, Smith preached to astake conference congregation in Hawaii:
We will never get a man into space. This earth is man's sphere and it was never intended that he should get away from it. The moon is a superior planet to the earth and it was never intended that man should go there. You can write it down in your books that this will never happen.[32]
Earlier, Smith had written that "it is doubtful that man will ever be permitted to make any instrument or ship to travel through space and visit the moon or any distant planet".[33] At the 1970 press conference where Smith was introduced as President of the LDS Church, he was asked about these statements; Smith reportedly responded, "Well, I was wrong, wasn't I?"[34][35]
Smith'steachings as an apostle were the 2014 course of study in the LDS Church's SundayRelief Society andMelchizedek priesthood classes.
Smith did at times take church assignments abroad. In 1939, he toured the missions in Europe and supervised the withdrawal of missionaries asWorld War II began. In 1950 Smith toured the church's Mexican Mission.[36] In July and August 1955 he made an extensive tour of Asia, during which he dedicatedKorea and thePhilippines for the preaching of the gospel. In 1957 he went to Europe for the dedication of theLondon Temple and also presided over the excommunication of several missionaries in theFrench mission who had apostatized. From October 1960 to January 1961 he and Jessie toured the church missions in Central and South America.[37]
The first book Smith published wasAsael Smith of Topsfield, Massachusetts, with some Account of the Smith Family (1902). In all, Smith published 25 books.[38]
Smith became LDS Church's president on January 23, 1970, following the death of David O. McKay. He choseHarold B. Lee andN. Eldon Tanner as his counselors. Smith elected not to retainHugh B. Brown in theFirst Presidency. According to Church HistorianLeonard J. Arrington, Smith's age and health prevented him from having much of a supervising role during his presidency; most work was done by his two counselors.[39]
Although he served as church president for less than three years, Smith's administration introduced several new initiatives:Area conferences were introduced, significant organizational restructuring in the church'sSunday School system and the church's Department of Social Services occurred, and the church magazines were consolidated into theEnsign,New Era andFriend in English, with centralized planning for all publications. His tenure was also marked by steady growth in the number ofmissionaries, and the dedication oftemples inOgden andProvo, Utah.
Smith died at his home in Salt Lake City on July 2, 1972, at age 95. He attended church services with his ward that day, and while visiting with one of his daughters that evening he quietly died while sitting in his favorite chair.[40] He was buried in theSalt Lake City Cemetery.[41]
| 8.Joseph Smith Sr. | |||||||||||||||
| 4.Hyrum Smith | |||||||||||||||
| 9.Lucy Mack | |||||||||||||||
| 2.Joseph F. Smith | |||||||||||||||
| 10. John Fielding | |||||||||||||||
| 5.Mary Fielding | |||||||||||||||
| 11. Rachel Ibbotson | |||||||||||||||
| 1.Joseph Fielding Smith Jr. | |||||||||||||||
| 12. Boaz Lambson | |||||||||||||||
| 6. Alfred Boaz Lambson | |||||||||||||||
| 13. Polly Walworth | |||||||||||||||
| 3.Julina Lambson | |||||||||||||||
| 14. Mark Bigler | |||||||||||||||
| 7. Melissa Jane Bigler | |||||||||||||||
| 15. Susannah Ogden | |||||||||||||||
Smith wrote the text of the hymn "Does the Journey Seem Long?", which appears as hymn number 127 in the current English-language edition of theLDS Church hymnal.
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| The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints titles | ||
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| Preceded by | President of the Church January 23, 1970 – July 2, 1972 | Succeeded by |
| President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles April 9, 1951 – January 23, 1970 | ||
| Preceded by | Quorum of the Twelve Apostles April 7, 1910 – January 23, 1970 | Succeeded by |
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