Sunday Tidbits-Mothers

I’m forgoing the question today, rather sharing a great story of a mother’s love for her sons. When I read this story, it reminds me of the women in my life (wife, daughters, mom, sisters) and the same love that they have for their children.  Happy Mothers Day!!!!

Lucy Mack Smith told Edward Partridge that she would see her sons before the next night. This was after months of separation and no word of their escape. “That night upon lying down on my bed to go to sleep,” she recorded, “I saw my sons in vision on the prairie in Missouri. They appeared to be very tired and hungry. They had about one horse, and I saw them stop and tie him to the burnt stub of a sapling, after which they lay down on the ground to rest themselves. Oh, how pale and faint they looked! I sprang up in bed. ‘Oh, Father,’ I said, ‘I see Joseph and Hyrum, and they are so weak they can scarcely stand, and now they are lying on the cold ground asleep. On, how I want to give them something to eat!’ . . . My soul was grieved, and I could not sleep, so I arose from my bed and spent the night walking the floor.

   “The next day I commended making preparations for their reception as confidently as though I had received word that they would be there for supper, but the day was so long and so tedious that in the afternoon near sunset, I went upstairs to consult with Lucy about my cooking. As we came down, she was before me, and when she came to the bottom of the stairs, she screamed out, ‘There is Elder Baldwin. On, my brothers,’ said she, ‘where are they?’ This was Caleb Baldwin, who had been in prison with my sons. He told us that Hyrum and Joseph were the on their way over the river and would soon be in Quincy. . . .

   “Hyrum and Joseph landed soon after and went immediately to see their families. They, with their wives and the rest of our connections, spent the next day with us. . . . Our friends swarmed around us, and we spent the day in eating and drinking and making merry. During the afternoon, I asked Joseph in the presence of the company if they were not on the prairie the night previous in the situation that I saw them in vision. They replied that they were.”

Lucy Mack Smith, The Revised and Enhanced History of Joseph Smith by His Mother. Edited by Scot Facer Proctor and Maurine Jensen Proctor (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1996), 420-22.

Yesterday’s answers:

(C) Sixteen times

The following from the journal of Jesse N. Smith dated June 14, 1864 while serving a mission to Scandinavia:

Off by steamer, up the Rhine by 5 a.m. Reached Mannheim between 11 and 12, from whence proceeded by rail, passing through Heidelberg, catching a glimpse of its celebrated castle, reached Karlsruhe and lodged at the hotel “L’Esprit”; Brother Riter went out and found a Bro. J. Miller, whom we met last year at Landschlacht, Switzerland; he had been imprisoned 16 times since last February for preaching the gospel. The Bailiff once offered to release him if he would deny his religion but this he declined to do.

Oliver R. Smith, ed., The Journal of Jesse Nathaniel Smith-1834-1906 (Provo: Jesse N. Smith Family Assn., 1970), 163.