Comments on: Guest Post: Unexpected Tenderness: Joseph F. Smith on the Death of George A. Smith

By: Craig M.

Craig M. — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 20:18:08 +0000

Thanks for letting me know Kevin. I haven’t read any of the Gibbons biographies, preferring what I presume to be more academic treatments elsewhere, but I’m sure they can be very useful. The only biographical material I have read on JFS is Scott Kinney’s article on the young JFS from Sunstone, which was very interesting but seemed to greatly emphasize the sensational.

By: kevinf

kevinf — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 17:19:25 +0000

Craig,

I’m currently reading the Francis M. Gibbons bio right now. I would rate is as excellent for the average reader, well written and entertaining, but light on references. I’d also say that it is not on a par with, for example, Prince’s David O. McKay biography, in that it is more devotional and not as rigorous. It also is not so much a cultural biography, and doesn’t do a very thorough job of positioning JFS in the context the times. I am planning on reading the Holzapfel biography next.

By: The Other Clark

The Other Clark — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 17:14:55 +0000

#18- Has the bio of S.W. Richards ever been published? I’d be very interested in reading it.

#20-The only bio of JFS I’m aware of is the one written by his son. If there are others, how does the son’s treatment compare to other authors?

By: Craig M.

Craig M. — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 15:11:15 +0000

Kevin, I’m curious what JFS biographies you have been reading and which you consider to be the best.

By: Paul

Paul — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 14:18:31 +0000

#15 Mark, “But the 18 months or so that Joseph Fielding Smith served as president of the church proved that we were all wrong.”

Or at least that he behaved differently while serving as the president than when he served as an apostle. I was a teenager living far from Salt Lake for President Smith, but I remember President Benson’s behavior as president of the church was different from expectation based on his reputation as an apostle.

I suspect truth is somehwere in the middle: it’s easy to imagine that there is a tempering of the man who hold the office of president, and it’s also certainly true that public perception of these men is less complete than who they really are.

By: Maurine Ward

Maurine Ward — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 03:53:53 +0000

I always enjoy learning more about our leaders from their words, not from some editor or biographer. Thank you for this personal glimpse. My own second great grandfather, Samuel Whitney Richards lost several children. The thing that endeared me to him more than anything was his journal account of watching his daughter die. It tore my heart out reading it.

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 23:26:35 +0000

For some reason, the movements of Mormons across the plains, including those who began their travels in Europe, have almost always — then and now — been called “emigrations” (emigrants, Emigration Agent, etc.), regardless of whether the speaker/writer was standing in Liverpool watching them sail away, or standing in the Utah canyons watching them arrive. You can always offer the historical defense if anybody ever calls you on using “e-” rather than “im-”

I guess our civil disobedience kept company with our grammar disobedience.

And, by the way, congratulations to everybody for the discussion of the last half dozen or so comments. In some neighborhoods, TOClark’s honest comment would have called forth a rancorous catalog of every point — real and (often) imagined — where any church leader offered/received/merited correction. Not you-all.

By: kevinf

kevinf — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 23:23:21 +0000

There must be some imaginary dotted line somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic where the description as emigrant vs immigrant changes. The International Immigration/Emigration Dateline, perhaps?

Mark, that exactly echoes my own memories of Joseph Fielding Smith in the transition from apostle to President of the Church. I distinctly remember the fears of a churchwide mandate for 90 minute sacrament meetings, which did not take place, for example.

By: Mark B.

Mark B. — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 23:16:18 +0000

Actually, kevin, people can be immigrants and emigrants simultaneously. From England, for example, they were all emigrants, and from America, or Utah, they were immigrants.

Back to your post, though, this line intrigued me:

I have had a perception of him as strict, doctrinaire, and very stern.

Intriguing because that is a good description of how a lot of the church (including me) felt about his son, Joseph Fielding Smith, up until the time that he became the president of the church when Pres. McKay died. But the 18 months or so that Joseph Fielding Smith served as president of the church proved that we were all wrong.

By: kevinf

kevinf — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 22:58:07 +0000

The Other Clark, to your point about "public errors", I'd like to admit that I apparently have messed up the distinction between immigration and emigration in the OP. If I am using them correctly, people leaving the UK for Utah would be emigrants until they reached the port in New York or Philadelphia, where they would be met by Immigration Agent W. C. Staines. Or at least, I think that is what I meant to say. Probably. Or maybe I was right in the first place. Nah, probably not.