| Joseph F. Smith Outgoing Correspondence |
| July 11, 1891 to C. C. Goodwin, Salt Lake City | ||||
| JFS amnesty petition stalled | [Copy of a letter from General George B. Williams, lobbyist for Huntington.] It has been impossible to get the Attorney General and the President together regarding the matter of Joseph F. Smith, but you may be assured that the matter has my attention and I recognize the importance of attaching to the same. | |||
| July 14, 1891 to Elder N. C. Edlefsen | ||||
| Good
LDS may be good Republicans but only poor Democrats |
I am so pleased to learn that you and many of the Scandinavians in Logan are Republicans. It speaks well for your good judgment in regard to political matters. While good Latter-day Saints may be good Republicans, a good Latter-day Saint must of necessity be a poor Dem. I don't think a good Democrat. can be a thorough good Mormon. it would be contrary to principles. Generally good Republicans have the courage of their convictions. A Dem. never! | In 1886 Idaho Democrats, including Governor Hailey, abandoned their previous allies, Mormons in the southern part of the state, to support the the Idaho test oath. Anti-Mormonism in Idaho, 92–93. | ||
| July 14, 1891 to Charles W. Nibley | ||||
| JFS borrowing capacity | [JFS is a director of the State Bank without compensation. Cannot borrow without $2 to $1 security , or, as a director, borrow over $10,000] and I have exhausted this limit. [Would like to buy stock in Nibley's Sumpter Valley Railway.] The little ZCMI stock and the O. L. Company stock I hold is about all the profitable investments I own. | |||
| July 14, 1891 to Miss Lucy Hoving, Logan | ||||
| Adoption | [Approve you and Harriet Houtrim McQuarrie to be adopted to Joseph Smith and Aunt Priscinda L. Smith.] | |||
| July 21, 1891 to J. B. Fairbanks, Paris | ||||
| Funds for Paris artists | We sent you and party $500 a short time since to help you along. | John B. Fairbanks (1855-1940), his mentor John Haven, and Lorus Pratt, were sent to study art in 1890. See this link. | ||
| July 21, 1891 to My dear Aunt Thompson | ||||
| Dream
of Mary Fielding's return Joseph F.'s joy Do the duty of a son |
Last night I dreamed (I do not often dream) that my precious Mother came home to live with me. It seemed that she had been gone for a long time–I knew not where, but she had returned to stay with me–and make her home under my own roof. Oh! how blessed and happy I felt to meet her once more, and do the duty of a son to her. All her love and labors, and anxiety for my welfare in childhood came up before me, and now I had the joy of repaying her in some degree, for her life of toil. |
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| Joy | How I kissed her, watched her! until I wept for joy and gratitude
and felt but one dread, and that was the fear she would not stay. I did
all I could to make it impossible for her to part from me again. I cannot
express the joy I felt. It was my own loved Mother come again! |
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| Asks about city lot | She spoke of her city lot, and asked if John had a share in it. I told her no, that John had had the farm, and the Lot was all mine and hers, and she [was] pleased to hear it. | The farm, where Mary lived, was at 27th South and Highland Drive. The city lot was on the west side of what is now Third West at about 176 North. | ||
| Mary makes improvements to lot | She was not content to be idle, but wanted to make some improvements,
and she had a building and some improvements made on the east end of the
lot, and paid for it out of means she had brought from Canada. She gave
me the money to pay out and I had difficulty to count it, as it was Canadian
coine. I thought I gave some of it to John, but why I could not tell. |
Mary migrated from England to Canada in 1834, joined the church in Toronto, and moved to Kirtland in May 1837. | ||
| Comfortable
and safe Fear of losing her again |
I fixed her up a room all for herself and made it as comfortable as I could, and at night I would go to her room to see if she was still with me, still at home, and comfortably in bed and safe. I could not bear to have her out of sight, for fear she would be lost to me again, and when my friends came in to see her, I felt too full of happiness to restrain my tears. | |||
| Awakes
in tears and sobs of joy Still an exile from all that I love |
I thought it could not be a dream, for everything seemed so real and tangible; and when I fully realized, in my mind, there was no mistake about it—that my mother had really come to make her home with me, and come to stay, my emotions knew no bounds and I awoke in tears and sobs of joy, only to find myself alone in my chamber and still an exile from all that I love. Yet I rejoiced for the brief pleasure I had experienced in meeting her who bore me in sorrow, only in a dream. | |||
| Meaning? Impression: do something |
You cannot gather even a faint idea of how I felt by this
statement, for I cannot tell it. Whether it has a meaning or not, I do not
know. This is the third time I have seemed to meet my mother since she left
us. Each time I have been impressed that something should be done but what
I do not know. |
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| July 27, 1891 to Elder M. F. Farnsworth | ||||
| Adoption to Joseph Smith | [Approve adoption of Araminta North to Joseph Smith.] | |||
| July 27, 1891 Elder A. J. Davis, Oahu | ||||
| Ward E. Pack injures self by threatening missionary | [Mission president Ward E. Pack is returning home after problems in Laie.] Brother Pack only injures himself by threatening to send you home, with whom he has had no words, just because he has got mad at your wife. | A. J. is the eldest son of JFS's brother-in-law, Albert Davis. | ||
| July 27, 1891 to Aunt Thompson | ||||
| Were
Mary Fielding's ordinances done correctly? Redo them? |
[Regarding Mary's return in the dream discussed in July 21 letter:] My understanding is that in Nauvoo she received her sealings, her second anointings, and her children were sealed to her. Were these matters attended to right? [This] has been a question in my mind. I have been somewhat impressed to have them done over again in one of the temples, and see if that would quiet my mind on the subject. The trouble is Mamie is not prepared to act for her grandmother, on account of the established rules. She would have to have all these ordinances for herself before she could act in them for her grandmother. I hope that light will come on this matter to me in due time. | Mamie: Mary Sophronia (1869–1948), Joseph F.'s and Julina's oldest living child. | ||
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