Joseph Fielding Smith

Joseph Fielding Smith Jr. (July 19, 1876 – July 2, 1972) was an American religious leader and writer who served as the tenth president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) from 1970 until his death in 1972.

He was the son of former church president Joseph F. Smith and the great-nephew of Church founder Joseph Smith.

Smith was born in Salt Lake City, Utah Territory, on July 19, 1876, as the first son of Julina 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.

Growing up, Smith lived in his father's large family home at 333 West 100 North in Salt Lake City.

The house was opposite the original campus of the University of Deseret (modern University of Utah), on a site now occupied by Ensign College.

He also often worked on the family farm in Taylorsville, Utah, as a child.

Smith married his first wife, Louie Emily "Emyla" Shurtliff (born June 16, 1876) on April 26, 1898.

In January 1879, when Smith was two years old, the U.S. Supreme Court in Reynolds v. United States upheld the constitutionality of the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act of 1862, which had criminalized the Mormon practice of plural marriage.

Due to aggressive federal enforcement of this ruling, as well as the Edmunds Act of 1882 and the Edmunds–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 the Endowment 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.

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.

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'".

Smith's mother returned to Salt Lake City in 1887, followed later by his father.

Smith married Ethel Georgina Reynolds (born October 23, 1889), the daughter of prominent LDS Church leader George 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, married Bruce R. McConkie, who was named to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles shortly after Smith's death.

Even after his return, Joseph F. Smith was unable to openly visit and care for his wives and children until receiving a presidential pardon from U.S. President Benjamin Harrison in September 1891.

Smith's mother worked as a midwife to help provide for the family, and delivered nearly 1000 babies in her career without ever having a mother or infant die in childbirth.

As a boy, Smith often drove his mother by wagon to the various deliveries that she attended in Salt Lake City.

Smith was present in the large assembly room of the Salt Lake Temple for its dedication on April 6, 1893, by church president Wilford Woodruff.

On May 12, 1899, Smith was set apart as a missionary and ordained a seventy 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.

In March 1899, church president Lorenzo Snow called him on a mission to Great Britain, which he completed (May 1899 - July 1901), leaving Louie in Salt Lake City.

Ethel had specifically requested that Jessie Ella Evans (December 29, 1902 – August 2, 1971) sing at her funeral.

Louie died of complications of a third pregnancy on March 28, 1908.

For part of this time Smith was a member of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir for part of the time that Evan Stephens was the conductor.

Smith was named to the Quorum 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.

Evans, born to Jonathan Evans and Janet Buchanan Evans, had joined the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in 1918, was a member of the American Light Opera Company (1923–27), and was the Salt Lake County Recorder.

Ethel died of a cerebral hemorrhage on August 26, 1937, at age 47.

Smith's tenure as President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles from 1951 to 1970 is the third-longest in church history; he served in that capacity during the entire presidency of David O. McKay.

Smith spent some of his years among the Twelve Apostles as the Church 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.

Smith's primary schooling took place in "ward schools", which in the 19th century were semi-formal schools run by members of each ward which taught the traditional "three R's": reading, writing, and arithmetic.

As a teenager Smith completed two years of study at the Latter-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, and penmanship.

After leaving the college, Smith began working as a stock clerk doing manual labor at ZCMI to supplement the family's income.