500 Little Known Facts

A Deadly Release (1921)

D Marriott — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 18:06:04 +0000

Emmeline Wells, aged ninety, had served as General President of the Relief Society when Heber J. Grant took office as Church President. When he suggested she be released, she responded that it would kill her. The President left her in office but three years later, when she became ill, he approached her again. Knowing that all previous leaders, except Emma Smith, had died in office, Emmeline felt humiliated but her attempts to prove her abilities were to no avail. President Grant was kind but firm. As he left her home, Emmeline started up the staircase. At the top she suffered a stroke and fell unconscious. For three weeks she lay in a coma before passing away on 25 April 1921.

Cannon & Whitaker, p. 336.

It Took A Long Time (1918)

D Marriott — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 17:59:39 +0000

It took much longer than most Latter-day Saints like to believe. Although the Word of Wisdom was received by the Prophet Joseph as early as 1833, the Lord apparently understood the difficulty of giving up such habits as tobacco and strong drinks and thus did not make it a commandment. Early Church leaders apparently believed the habits were more deeply entrenched than even the Lord suspected and made only periodic attempts to enforce the Word of Wisdom. Actually, it was not until the administration of a twentieth century Prophet, Heber J. Grant (1918-1945) that the revelation received by Joseph Smith became a rquirement for advancement in the church and entrance to the temple.

Kimball, Stanley, p. 204 fn.

Seventy-Four Years To The Minute (1918)

D Marriott — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 17:52:56 +0000

The polished granite monument to Joseph Smith, dedicated at the homestead site in Sharon, Vermont, is well known to most Latter-day Saints. Less known is a similar shaft of Vermont granite erected to honor his brother Hyrum. Standing on the burial lot of Joseph F. Smith, Hyrum’s son, in the Salt Lake City Cemetery, it is half the height of the monument in Sharon. It was unveiled precisely at the hour and minute of the matyrdoms, 5:20 p.m., June 27, 1918, seventy-four years after the Carthage assassinations. Representing two brothers who were separated neither in death or burial, the two monuments representing that union are separated by nearly two thousand miles.

CHC, 6:429.

First Poet Laureate (1915)

D Marriott — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 17:43:03 +0000

Ninety-nine years after the final crop failure that forced Joseph Smith, Sr. to move from Vermont to Palmyra, his granddaughter was named the first poet laureate of California. Born Josephine, daughter of Don Carlos Smith, she was only three when her father died. Without Don Carlos, her mother Agnes apostatized and little Josephine grew up, faithful to a promise made to her mother, not to discuss her Smith background. When her mother remarried and moved to California, Josephine changed her first name to Ina and took her mother’s maiden name of Coolbrith. She became a beloved poet and today a the place where her home stood when it was destroyed by the San Francisco earthquake and fire, is name Coolbrith Park.

BYU Studies, Vol. 23, No. 4, p. 448.

The Last Kibbutz (1911)

D Marriott — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 17:35:14 +0000

As the Saints were feeling persecution in Missouri in the 1830s, Jews were fleeing persecution in Europe, beginning their return to Palestine and ‘back to the soil’ after centuries of landlessness. Then in 1881, the Jewish ‘back to the soil’ movement spread to America with approximately forty agricultural communities being established by the Jews in New Jersey, the Dakotas, Kansas, Oregon, Colorado, Louisiana, and finally, Utah. The first Jewish colonists arrived in Utah in 1911 and established the hamlet of Clarion, south of Gunnison on the Sevier River. Lack of water, funds and experience doomed the experiment from the beginning. It ended in 1916, becoming the last Jewish attempt to colonize land in the United States.

Goldberg, Robert Alan, “Building Zions: A Conceptual Framework.” Utah Historical Quarterly, Spring 1989, pp. 165-179.

Churchill And The Saints (1910)

D Marriott — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 17:27:11 +0000

Twenty years after the Manifesto halting plural marriage in 1890, polygamy was still a major charge being made against the church - especially in England. During the year 1910, eight debates took place in Parliament on the “Mormon Problem” in which the Home Secretary, Winston Churhill was asked what he proposed to do. “Was he aware”, a member asked, “of Mormon efforts to induce English women and girls to go to America and if so was he taking steps to stop them”? Replying to the implication that it was being done for immoral purpose, Churchill said he had determined it was not true that there was no ground for action. His reply prompted the Liverpool Post and Mercury to say, “The Home Secretary has an intelligent understanding of the situation and is friendly to the Church”.

Hoopes and Hoopes, p. 254.

Better Than Tandem Polygamy (1910)

D Marriott — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 17:17:58 +0000

Another friend of the Latter-day Saints was Fredrick Vining Fisher, pastor of Ogden’s First Methodist Church in 1910. After apostate Frank J. Cannon wrote some anti-Mormon articles in a national magazine, Fisher wrote an article titled “A Methodist Minister’s View of Mormonism” for a New York magazine, Outlook. He emphasized three points. The Saints were a deeply religious people in the mainstream of Protestantism, they were born of the best blood of New England, and they were well educated. His greatest condemnation from religious leaders from around the nation, however, resulted from his defense of the polygamy. He said “it was practiced as religious duty, was not sensual and was infinitely better than tandem polygamy in the east”. He continued throughout life as a defender of the saints.

Dawson, Janice P., “Fredrick Vining Fisher: Methodist Apologist for Mormonism,” Utah Historical Quarterly. Fall 1987. pp. 362-363.

Lot’s Wife and Reed Smoot (1907)

D Marriott — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 17:08:11 +0000

After a battle by anti-Mormons, apostle Reed Smoot took his seat in the United States Senate in 1907 and soon aquired the title of the “Sugar Senator” for his efforts to protect the sugar industry that the church was involved in with its own sugar factories. Some historians claim the famous Smoot-Hawley Tariff Bill was designed specifically for that purpose. Senator Smoot became so well known for his protection of domestic sugar production that the comedian Will Rogers likened him to Lot’s wife who was turned into a pillar of salt. “If Reed ever glances back”, Will said, “we are going to have a human sugar bowl on our hands”.

Hoopes and Hoopes, p. 193.

Teddy R. Tried (1905)

D Marriott — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 17:02:07 +0000

During the Congressional hearing designed to prevent Reed Smoot from being seated as a Senator from Utah, the chief counsel for the anti-Mormons was Judge R. W. Taylor, a bitter enemy of the Saints. President Tedd Roosevelt, who had earlier spoken in defense of Elder Smoot, saying it would be an outrage to turn him out because of his religious belief, took a clever route in support of Smoot. Unable to prevent the proceedings, he appointed Taylor to a federal judgeship in Ohio, hoping to deprive Smoot’s opposition of their lead counsel. It threw them into confusion, but Taylor, in spite of the ethics of continuing as counsel, stayed until the committee gave an unfavorable recommendation. Smoot still won the Senate vote.

Berrett & Burton, 3:202.

Deacon or President? (1903)

D Marriott — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 05:29:39 +0000

Reed Smoot, elected as Senator from Utah in 1903, fought a lengthy congressional battle with anti-Mormons before being given his seat in 1907. He was to hold that seat for thirty years, gaining a notable reputation as a statesman even among non-Mormons, but still an object of bigotry because of his faith. He later reported that he was twice offered the Republican nomination for President of the United States if he would denounce his membership in the Church. When later asked if that wouldn’t have been worth it, he replied, “If I had to take my choice of being a deacon in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or being President of the United States, I would be a deacon”.

Hinckley, Bryant S., The Faith of Our Pioneer Fathers, p. 202