Emma Smith, the “First Lady of the Restoration,” is something of an enigma. It is surprising, in light of history, biography, legend, and folktale, how little we really know of her as a person, as Joseph’s closest companion, from almost the beginning of his calling to its tragic end. Fortunately, what history does not provide, our creative faculties can furnish by imagining her presence and personality. The poem I introduce here is an example of what life might have been like for this remarkable woman, who was ever more central to the restoration than all but her prophet-husband.
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Witness to the Restoration
Just as we can imagine Emma Smith, we can also picture her imagining what the many revelations, events, and trials of the Restoration might have meant for her as a central figure in the drama, as she experienced them first or second-hand.
For example, what did she imagine when Joseph told her about Moroni’s visits and then the night he took her with him to get the plates?
And what did she imagine when she heard words translated from those very plates in her husband’s voice as she wrote them down?
We don’t have to imagine if she wondered if he was somehow faking it, as some have concluded, because she reports:
Joseph Smith could neither write nor dictate a coherent and well-worded letter, let alone dictate a book like the Book of Mormon. I am satisfied that no man could have dictated the writing of the manuscripts unless he was inspired. . . .
It would have been improbable that a learned man could do this; and, for one so ignorant and unlearned as he was, it was simply impossible.
Emphasis added
The Elect Lady and Her Calling
We can also try to imagine how Emma Smith must have felt when she herself was the subject of revelation (Section 25 of the Doctrine and Covenants), one that refers to her as “an elect lady, whom I [the Lord] have called,” and in which God speaks to her tenderly as “my daughter.”
It must have caused her to wonder the meaning of being told that she would be “ordained to expound scripture, and to exhort the church” and “receive the Holy Ghost” as she is “given to writing, and to learning much.”
Her imagination would certainly have been awakened upon hearing that God was calling her to compile a hymnal for the restored church.
We can even imagine melodies of some of her favorite hymns going through her mind at the time, including, perhaps, after this personal revelation, “I Know That My Redeemer Lives,” one of the 90 hymns she chose for her collection.
A Life of Unflinching Courage
It would be both helpful and enriching, especially for Latter-day Saint women, to imagine how Emma Smith felt:
- Being called to lead the Relief Society.
- Being the first woman to receive her endowments.
- Being baptized for her deceased mother and sister.
There are so many other things about Emma’s life left silent by history that poets, storytellers, and filmmakers might help us imagine and see.
Clearly, hers was a life worthy of creative and responsible imagining.
As her mother-in-law, Lucy Mack Smith, said of Emma:
I have never seen a woman in my life, who would endure every species of fatigue and hardship, from month to month, and from year to year, with that unflinching courage, zeal, and patience, which she has ever done; for I know that which she had had to endure. … She has breasted the storms of persecution, and buffeted the rage of men and devils, which would have borne down almost any other woman.
The following poem, “Emma in Sunlight,” suggests other elements of this remarkable woman’s story that we might bring alive in our imaginations.
“Imagine!” As John Lennon wrote, “It isn’t hard to do.”
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“Emma in Sunlight”
I
Even before they met
she had heard stories—
spirits, treasure, salamanders—
and the warning of her father’s voice:
“shiftless,” “visionary.”
The night they ran away to be married
was the first time she heard it
in his telling.
Lying in a field
looking into heaven
her body bathed in moonlight,
wonder in her eyes,
any story
was believable.
At first she thought
It must have been a dream—
the way he told it,
as if he were awakening
in a vortex of darkness:
he stopped, stuttered, his breath quick.
A ghost story
to frighten her?
She shuddered
as she grasped his hand.
Then It was too fantastic–
angels, light, the sun,
his heart a seer stone.
Who was this man
her father so feared
who could tell such tales,
who had seen the inside of the sun?
II
Later, one morning at his parents’ farm
while he was away,
life growing in her,
she walked to the forest
beyond the farm
searching for the place
he had scribed in her mind:
a large beech tree with a white stone
tangled among the roots.
Finding it, she looked up at the trees
and then the sky
hoping to see
what he had seen.
Suddenly, a chorus of birdsong:
Black-throated Warblers, Scarlet Tanagers, Purple Finches—
She closed her eyes and listened:
Indigo Bunting? . . . Hermit Thrush? . . .
There were too many to name.
She listened . . .
The wind on leaves?
Angeles’ wings?
She opened her eyes to the sun lighting her face
and knew.
When he came back the next night
she asked for the story again
as they embraced in moonlight
prismed through the window.
III
Years later, after Missouri, after
the temple overlooking the great river,
after the rumors
that froze her heart,
the night before they took him away,
she said, “Tell it to me again.”
“Which part?”
“All of it, from the beginning.”
He paused, took a deep breath, and began,
“A devouring darkness overclouded my mind,
flooded my heart with
blackened blood like the rivers of hell.”
She felt him flinch.
“ . . . My tongue was bound,
a whirlpool pulled me
down and down . . .
and then the sun opened its heart
and I was ablaze in brightness.”
“I know,” she said,
I saw it too.”
They held each other
until dawn
when they took him to Carthage.
IV
Years after the wagons had rolled over
the ice-covered river,
after the abandonment
by the Usurper,
after all the questions about
wives and lovers,
after all the entreaties
to go to the Great Basin,
the night before she died
she dreamed
“The Lord of light”
and said,
“Joseph! Yes, yes,
I’m coming.”
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About the Scholar
Robert A. Rees is a distinguished scholar, poet, and editor who has spent decades exploring the intersection of faith, history, and the arts. He is the author of Imagining and Reimagining the Restoration (Greg Kofford Books) and has served as the editor of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. Formerly an Assistant Professor of English at UCLA, a Fulbright Professor in Lithuania, and a Visiting Professor and Director of Latter-day Saint Studies at the Graduate Theological Union, Dr. Rees brings a seasoned academic perspective and a poet’s sensitivity to the lived experiences of early Church figures such as Emma Smith.
Further Reading
Explore more From the Desk articles about Emma Smith and early church history:
- How Did Emma Smith Influence D&C 25?
- Who Were Joseph Smith’s Wives?
- What Did Joseph Smith’s Family Know About the First Vision?
- Who Was Fanny Alger?
- What Are the Discourses of Eliza R. Snow?
Imagination and the Restoration
Read what top scholars and publishers say about Robert Rees’s book, Imagining and Reimagining the Restoration.
- Imagining and Reimagining the Restoration (Greg Kofford Books)
- Book Review: Imagining and Reimagining the Restoration, by Robert A. Rees (Times and Seasons)
- Rees, “Imagining and Reimagining the Restoration” (Reviewed by Ryan Ward) (Association of Mormon Letters)
- Episode 982: Interview with Robert Rees (The Cultural Hall)
- “Imagining and Reimagining the Restoration” (Sic et Non)