45-53: First Presidency Underground

Joseph was prominent but not well off financially. Everyone in the family worked to help support each other. Julina and Edna both became obstetricians and shared call.

Things became more difficult as the federal government began cracking down on polygamy after 1879, when the United States Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of an 1862 anti-bigamy act.(1) The government sent officials after men who did not abandon their plural wives. In 1883, the three wives had household duties so well divided that they were at first concerned with how to fit someone else in when President John Taylor asked Joseph to marry Alice Ann Kimball. Alice already had three children and had just obtained a divorce from her alcoholic husband. The wives were grateful she had her own home, just a half block from Sarah and Edna’s and next door to Aunt Mercy and her daughter Mary Jane Taylor.(2) Alice married Joseph in December 1883. One month later Joseph married his last wife, Mary Schwartz Smith, on January 13, 1884.

Joseph was in exile from September 1884 to September 1891.(3) He was a particular target both because of his outspoken defense of polygamy and because his work with the Historian's office meant he had access to records of numerous polygamous unions, including those to his last two wives.(4) He was adamant in keeping his commitments to his entire family, and wished he could provide for them better. As a result of government pressure, each wife had to be moved into a separate house, though most lived on the same block and they all helped raise each other's children. When federal officials came by seeking Joseph or asking questions about his whereabouts, his children refused to even tell them their names.(5)
In January 1885 Joseph and Julina and her new baby left on a mission to Hawaii to get him away, leaving their other children behind. Joseph did his best to find humor and connect with his children as best he could. While in exile at Laie, Oahu in July 1886, he found two dead fleas, bathed them in alcohol, wrapped them in cotton, and sent them home in a letter with the following poem:

Accept the dying embers
Of this festive little flea
As a token of remembrance
From Tottie J. and me.
How often he has nipped our shins
While lurking in our house,
And tickled us beneath the ribs,
The tyvel only knows.
But at last J. caught him napping
In the folding of her stocking,
And the way she squeezed his life out
Was particularly shocking.(6)

More often, though, the pain of separation was difficult. One time he felt a spirit of depression without knowing the cause, and found days later that one of his little ones at home had died. He had often spent all night walking with a sick child; it broke his heart to be unable to help. His houses were raided in his absence by officials hoping to capture him unawares or subpoena his wives. All this weighed heavily on his mind. On April 1, 1885 he wrote:

There is a strong east wind blowing which, in a colder clime, would be wintry and harsh. Is it blowing gently or unkindly upon my loved ones? Are they warm or cold? Are they wandering and houseless or cozily nestled in their own homes? Are they hungry or fed? In the midst of friends or foes, fretted or peaceful? Peace, be still!(7)

Joseph kept busy administering the church in Hawaii and assisting in the building of fences, cultivating fields, shingling houses, making sugar, mending wagons, and in general assisting his brother-in-law Albert Davies, a stalwart missionary who took the brunt of manual labor in the colony at Laie, and his wife, who continued her work delivering babies.(8)

Julina was so homesick that she returned to Utah in March 1887, leaving Joseph alone until he was called home in July 1887 because of the severe illness of President John Taylor, who lay dying in seclusion in Kaysville Utah. President Taylor died on July 25.

Because Joseph was at the top of the government’s arrest list, he never attended public meetings or appeared on the streets unless it was dark or he was in disguise, which at times consisted of his not being recognized because he tucked his beard into his collar.(9) From February to June 1888, at the request of the new President Wilford Woodruff, Joseph travelled under the alibi of Jason Mack to Washington to manage some financial matters and attend to other matters which required attention, such as the continued immigration of Saints from Europe.(10)

In March 1887, Congress had passed the Edmunds-Tucker Law, which disincorporated the Church, confiscated its property, and placed the affairs of the church in the hands of a receiver unfriendly to the Church. The Church was allowed to occupy its own tithing office, historian’s office, and the Temple Block, but was forced to pay a stipulated rental on the property. In October 1890 President Wilford Woodruff read the Manifesto, or official declaration withdrawing the practice of polygamy from the church, in general conference. It was unanimously accepted by the members, though persecution for polygamy continued. Joseph was able to able to attend to his daily duties in disguise, but was only occasionally able to spend time with his family because they were still being watched.

In July 1891, Joseph F. Smith petitioned President Benjamin Harrison asking for amnesty; news of its being granted arrived in late September of that year.(11) That October the entire First Presidency of the Church were able to be together at a conference for the first time in 7½ years. Joseph shook hands with his friends until his hand and arm felt lame.(12)

(1) Joseph Fielding Smith: Gospel Scholar, Prophet of God by Francis M. Gibbons, Deseret Book, 1992, p. 12.
(2) Joseph Fielding Smith’s compilation Life of Joseph F. Smith: Sixth President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (The Deseret News Press, 1938), p 255-256.
(3) “The Wives of Joseph F. Smith,” compiled by Karol G. Chase and available under “Biographies” on this website. under “Sarah”, “Edna” and “Alice”.
(4) Gibbons 1992, p. 13.
(5) Joseph Fielding Smith recalling his youth, quoted in Gibbons 1992, p. 15.
(6) Smith 1938, p 444.
(7) Smith 1938, p 283.
(8) Smith 1938, p 278-279
(9) Gibbons 1992, p 33.
(10) Smith 1938, p 288 & 291, also Richard Nietzel Holzapfel & R.Q. Shupe, Joseph F. Smith: Portrait of a Prophet, Deseret Book Company, 2000, p 75.
(11) Smith 1938, p 299.
(12) Smith 1938, p 300.