Lucy Mack Smith: Who Was Joseph Smith's Mother?

Lucy Mack Smith, mother of the Prophet Joseph Smith, was an honored and venerated matriarchal figure among the Latter-day Saint community that affectionately called her “Mother Smith.” Born in Gilsum, New Hampshire in 1776 to Solomon Mack and Lydia Gates, she was the youngest of eight children.

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Lucy Mack Smith’s father, Solomon, was born in 1732 and adhered to a strict sense of morality but held no religious affiliation until 1810, when he witnessed spiritual manifestations and miracles. From that time forth, he began devoting himself to family and God.¹ Lucy’s mother, Lydia, was born in 1732 and was a member of the Congregational Church in Tunbridge, Vermont, who impressed upon her children the importance of education, religious duty, and the consistency of morning and evening prayer.² The spiritual trajectory of her parents became an influential force in Lucy’s formative childhood years.

However, Lucy experienced great loss at an early age. In 1794, her two older sisters, Lovisa and Lovina Mack, died from tuberculosis—a contagious bacterial infection that reached epidemic proportions in North America during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.³

Learn more about Lucy Mack Smith’s testimony of the Book of Mormon.

Lovisa’s health rallied and she enjoyed three years of good health as she boldly testified of God’s intervention in her behalf and warned of the coming judgment of Jesus Christ. Lovina lingered for three years while Lucy attentively nursed her, to no avail. Lucy acutely felt the death of her sisters for the rest of her life.⁴

Lucy Mack Smith’s early life and marriage

Within two years of her sisters’ deaths, Lucy married Joseph Smith Sr. in Turnbridge, Vermont, in 1796, but tragedy struck when their first baby died.⁵ After Lucy had her sons Alvin and Hyrum, she became so ill with tuberculosis that it pushed her to the brink of death.

She heard a voice.

In the depths of her sickness she realized, “I knew not the ways of Christ; besides, there appeared to be a dark and lonesome chasm, between myself and the Saviour, which I dared not attempt to pass.”⁶

She pled with God to spare her life for the sake of her husband and two little boys and covenanted with God that if she lived, she would serve Him. She heard a voice respond to her plea in an amalgamation of Matthew 7:7 and John 14:1—“Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. Ye believe in God, believe also in me.”⁷

Lucy recovered from her illness and her attentions quickly turned to religion where she previously held no affiliation. Whereas Joseph Smith Sr. was a Universalist and believed all people would receive salvation, Lucy held a firm belief in baptism. For several years with the Bible as her guide, she attended many churches and ultimately received baptism without religious affiliation. Lucy encouraged her children to seek their own personal salvation even though she was convinced the religion she sought was not on the Earth.⁸

While religion and salvation were a constant diet in the Smith family household, significant hardships tested their perseverance and faith in difficult circumstances.

Joseph and Lucy Mack Smith’s Tunbridge Farm

Joseph Smith Sr.’s speculation in the ginseng trade around 1802 brought financial instability for a period.⁹ When typhus fever raged through Lebanon, New Hampshire, in the winter of 1812-1813, all the Smith children in turn succumbed to the illness.

Her child had stopped breathing.

Although most readers of Latter-day Saint history are aware of Joseph’s fever and the gruesome leg operation that shortly followed, the acute illness of his sister, Sophronia, and the undaunted faith Lucy showed during the episode is generally marginalized and forgotten.

Lucy Mack Smith soberly recounted how Sophronia laid motionless exhibiting signs of her encroaching death, while she and her husband Joseph Sr. pled with God to spare Sophronia’s life; they received a testimony that she would recover.

Upon receiving this witness, Lucy tenderly gathered Sophronia in her arms and began pacing the floor. Others in the room protested at how seemingly futile her maternal gestures were. Her child had stopped breathing.

Lucy continued to pace the floor, her sights fixed upon the promise she received from God, until Sophronia sobbed. Lucy laid her on her bed, “completely overpowered” by her intense emotions.¹⁰

Joseph Smith and the gold plates

A decade later, Joseph Smith received visitations from the angel Moroni signaling the continued unfurling restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ in the last dispensation. As his prophetic mission unfolded and Joseph experienced many miraculous events first-hand, the restoration quickly became a familial experience.

While Joseph’s heavenly visitations increased, he divulged these experiences to his parents and siblings in the evening after their day’s work had concluded. These evening recitations from Joseph included detailed descriptions of ancient peoples who once lived on the American continent, their cities and their religion, and were conveyed with such ease as though he had lived among them.

The family was convinced that God was about to bring forth “a more perfect knowledge of the plan of salvation and the redemption of the human family.”¹¹

What Did Joseph Smith’s Family Know About the First Vision?

The family was particularly vested in Joseph obtaining the plates from the angel. As Alvin lingered on his death bed in 1825, he earnestly implored Joseph to do everything in his power to receive the record from the angel. The family collectively felt despondent when the plates were taken away after the 116 translated pages were lost.

Despondency was replaced with hope and rejoicing when the plates were returned, and the translation process resumed.

The translation and printing of new scripture was prelude to the organization of the church in 1830. Once the church was formed in Fayette, New York, Joseph Smith received a revelation commanding the Saints to move to Ohio where they would receive further instruction on the building of Zion.¹²

Lucy Mack Smith in Ohio and Missouri

Miracle on ice

In Spring 1831, when the waterways seemed sufficiently clear, approximately 80 church members overseen by Lucy Mack Smith and Thomas B. Marsh journeyed by boat on the Erie Canal to Fairport, Ohio—a harbor town approximately twelve miles from Kirtland.

She dared them to be “gentlemen” and shoot her dead quickly.

The caravan of Saints encountered a broken canal outside of Buffalo and chilling weather that froze Lake Erie, which elicited bitter complaints from some of the travelers. In an episode of indomitable and unwavering faith, Lucy chastised her fellow Saints and questioned their faith and confidence in God.

If “you will all of you raise your desires to heaven,” Lucy Mack Smith said, “that the ice may be broken up, and we be set at liberty, as sure as the Lord lives it will be done.” The ice parted sufficiently for the boats to pass through after Lucy exhorted the Saints to pray.¹³

The traveling entourage safely arrived in Kirtland and their efforts quickly focused on the temporal logistics of building both a religious community and a temple of God. The Smith family opened the doors of their home to arriving Latter-day Saints who were devoid of shelter, and Lucy boldly testified of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon to Mack relatives.

History of the Kirtland Temple

Missouri bravery

Lucy Mack Smith was also miraculously healed from a head injury that briefly induced blindness.¹⁴ After relocating to Missouri in June 1838, she fiercely defied a company of armed officers intent on killing her son Joseph, the Latter-day Saints, and ultimately destroy the church.

She casually informed them that she was an adherent to the faith, daring them to be “gentlemen” and shoot her dead quickly as she “should not like to be murdered by inches.”¹⁵

Lucy Mack Smith in Nauvoo

Lucy witnessed the detainment of Joseph and Hyrum at Far West leading to their incarceration at the Clay County, Missouri, jail; she fled to Illinois without them. Lucy understood through the gift of prophecy that they would live. After arriving in Illinois, she saw in vision her hungry and feeble sons traveling over the prairie towards Quincy, Illinois, having escaped the jail.¹⁶ She prepared for their pending arrival and greeted them with joy.

Yet there was also hope.

Tragedy and triumph intermingled in Lucy’s life in Nauvoo, Illinois. The death of Joseph Smith Sr. in September 1840 led Lucy to describe the event as “the greatest grief which it was possible for me to feel.”¹⁷

Yet there was also hope in the new and immensely comforting revelation on baptism for the dead that enabled Alvin, who had died so many years previous, to receive an essential ordinance of salvation.¹⁸ Lucy took comfort in the precepts of the gospel of Jesus Christ and immersed herself in the gratifying work of building Nauvoo.

Nauvoo Relief Society

She joined the Nauvoo Relief Society in 1842, although her interaction with the society was nominal due to her advancing years and declining health.

Lucy Mack Smith conveyed her joy at the society’s formation and its mission to help the poor, pronounced a blessing upon the assembled ladies, testified of the prophetic mission of her son Joseph and the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, and exhorted the women to foster and cultivate greater unity and love for each other.¹⁹

Marytrdom and aftermath

The murders of Joseph and Hyrum in June 1844 were a heavy blow to Lucy and in the agony of her pained soul she questioned why God had forsaken her family. She received a comforting response that they were brought to God and they had obtained an “eternal triumph.”

What Led to Joseph Smith’s Death at Carthage?

A month later, her son Samuel Harrison died from injuries sustained from fleeing a mob, leaving only one of her sons—William—alive.²⁰

As proceedings for the murders of Joseph and Hyrum ensued in the Hancock County Circuit Court in 1844-1845, Lucy Mack Smith spoke publicly about the numerous incidences of persecution inflicted upon her family in defense of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the role Joseph played in the restoration.²¹

“The History of Joseph Smith by His Mother”

She partnered with Martha Jane Coray, a “rapid and lucid writer” who had a penchant for preserving notes of sermons from prominent church leaders, to compile a history, entitled, “The History of Joseph Smith by His Mother”.²²

The history predominantly followed incidences in the life of her son and incorporated selections from Joseph Smith’s history, Smith family correspondence, and documents, with episodic dictations from Lucy about Mack and Smith family members, including key events in Joseph’s life that were recorded nowhere else.

Lucy completed the history by spring 1845 and it became an anchor for Latter-day Saint religious identity for generations to come.²³

Important Early Latter-day Saint Documents

Lucy Mack Smith stayed in Nauvoo

Lucy Mack Smith remained in Nauvoo after the body of Latter-day Saints left Illinois in early 1846, residing in a home provided by church leaders.²⁴ However by fall of that year when the Battle of Nauvoo commenced, she left Nauvoo to live with her daughter Lucy Millikin near Galesburg, Illinois; she returned to Nauvoo when the conflict subsided.²⁵

Lucy longed to be among the Saints.

Lucy occasionally hosted Utah Latter-day Saints traveling eastward. British convert and poetess Hannah Tapfield King, who visited Lucy in 1853, found the aged, bedfast matriarch had left such an indelible impression that she felt compelled to compose a poem about the singular experience.²⁶

Lucy bestowed a “mother’s blessing” upon the company and gave an unwavering testimony of the latter-day gospel and the mission of her son Joseph.²⁷ Frederick Piercy also visited Nauvoo and found himself quite fascinated by Mother Smith, who earnestly defended her sons and their “reputations for virtue and truth.”²⁸

Read George D. Watt’s 1851 Journal From Liverpool to Chimney Rock for the First Time

She longed to be among the Saints but her ill health and the influence of others had apparently hindered her travel west.²⁹ As Lucy’s health continued to decline, she moved from the Smith farm on the outskirts of Nauvoo to the Mansion House and became completely bedridden. “She appeared somewhat fearful of death at a little while before he came,” reflected her grandson, Joseph Smith III, “yet appeared resigned afterwards.”

Lucy Mack Smith died on the morning of 14 May 1856 holding his hand.³⁰

Lucy Mack Smith’s legacy

Lucy Mack Smith’s place in the tapestry of Latter-day Saint history is perhaps best expressed in a blessing Wilford Woodruff bestowed upon her following the deaths of her sons Hyrum, Joseph, and Samuel. Calling her “the greatest Mother in Israel,” Woodruff told her she would be held “in honorable remembrance forever in the Congregations of the righteous.”

The work performed by her sons would also be held in “honorable remembrance” among mankind and “the keys of the Kingdom of God” would be held by her posterity until the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

Expressing some doubt over whether he would see her again in the flesh, Woodruff was certain they would greet each other on the morning of the first resurrection where she would receive “thrones, powers, [and] a dominion and kingdom” with her husband.³¹

Lucy Mack Smith’s never-failing devotion, faith, and sacrifice for the gospel of Jesus Christ, qualified her for the choicest blessings of eternity.

About the Scholar

Sharalyn Howcroft is a Project Archivist for the Joseph Smith Papers Project. She specializes in custodial history and handwriting identification of Joseph Smith era records and manuscripts, and has conducted extensive research on Lucy Mack Smith. Her publications include Foundational Texts of Mormonism (Oxford University Press) and “Follow Me to Zion: Stories From the William Handcart Pioneers” (Journal of Mormon History).

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3 replies on “‘The Greatest Mother in Israel’: The Life of Lucy Mack Smith”

I believe it is in her 1845 conference address that she says she wants to stay in Nauvoo where her husband and children are buried.

Oh, and I really enjoyed this overview! Thanks SDH!

This is a terrific article. Thank you for your excellent work.