Smith, Mary Fielding
From The Encyclopedia of Mormonism
See this page in the original 1992 publication.
Author: Madsen, Susan Arrington
Mary Fielding Smith (1801-1852) has the unique distinction of being the mother of one President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Joseph F. Smith) and the grandmother of another (Joseph Fielding Smith).
Born on July 21, 1801, at Honidon, Bedfordshire, England, Mary Fielding was the sixth child of John Fielding and Rachel Ibbotson, staunch Methodists. In 1834, Mary migrated to Toronto, Canada, where her brother and sister, Joseph and Mercy, had moved two years earlier. Nearby at Charleton, there the three Fieldings were baptized into the Church in May 1836. The following year, Mary moved to Kirtland, Ohio.
Attractive and well educated, Mary became a live-in governess and teacher for various families in Kirtland. On December 24, 1837, Mary Fielding married the widower Hyrum Smith, whose first wife had died while giving birth to their fifth child. Though reluctant to become a stepmother, Mary accepted this responsibility as the will of the Lord.
Mary and Hyrum were forced to flee Kirtland for Far West, Missouri, in early 1838. That November 13th, while Hyrum was incarcerated in Liberty Jail in Clay County, Missouri, and the Missouri Saints were under siege, Mary gave birth to a son, whom she named Joseph Fielding Smith, and who would become the sixth President of the Church in 1901.
Ill for several months after the birth of her son, Mary was transported on a bed in a wagon to Quincy, Illinois, in February 1839. Freed from imprisonment in April, Hyrum joined her there. Soon they settled in nearby Commerce, which became Nauvoo. On May 14, 1841, Mary gave birth to a daughter, Martha Ann. Mary assisted Hyrum as he served as vice-mayor of Nauvoo, patriarch to the Church, and Associate President of the Church. She and her sister Mercy helped organize the women of the Church to raise funds for the Nauvoo Temple. Tragedy befell the entire Church on June 27, 1844, with the martyrdom of joseph and Hyrum Smith in Carthage Jail.
Mary and her children left Nauvoo in the fall of 1846. After living in winter quarters eighteen months, they crossed the plains to the Salt Lake Valley in 1848. Her son Joseph F., only nine years of age, drove one of the wagons. When Peter Lott, captain of their company, complained that Mary was underequipped and would be a burden on the entire company, she replied that she would beat him to the valley-and without his help. A deeply spiritual person, Mary often relied on prayer. On one occasion while crossing the plains, two of her finest oxen disappeared. Several men looked for them at length but without success. Back in camp, Mary knelt in prayer and then walked straight to a ravine, where she found her oxen caught in a clump of willows. Her family arrived in Salt Lake City on September 22, 1848-ahead of Captain Lott.
Mary secured a lot in Salt Lake City and a farm in Mill Creek. Her two-room adobe farmhouse is preserved in the pioneer village near the "this is the place" monument in Salt Lake City. Although a widow with few means, she directed her children to pick the best of their farm produce for the tithing office. When a clerk at the office suggested that the Widow Smith should not tithe when she had so little, she scolded him. It was a privilege to pay tithing, she insisted, and to recommend that she not pay her tithing was to deny her the blessings that she needed.
Mary Fielding Smith died September 21, 1852, probably from pneumonia, at the age of fifty-one. She was widely respected and admired during her lifetime. Later generations saw her through the eyes of her son, President Joseph F. Smith, who often spoke of her as a model of courage and faithfulness.
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