Then they quietly returned to their homes to try to comprehend the terrible loss that had been wreaked upon them.
That evening, four brethren labored in silent grief to prepare the bodies of the fallen martyrs. They had been carefully washed. Cotton soaked in camphor was put into each of the several wounds both men had sustained. The brothers, not separated now in death any more than they had been in life, were dressed alike in their finest trousers and white shirts. White neckerchiefs were placed at their throats, white cotton stockings put on their feet, and white shrouds draped across their chests.
Tomorrow, the Saints would gather to say their last good-byes. Tonight, the family and some close friends would spend a few moments with their beloved Joseph and Hyrum.
Lucy Mack Smith stood quietly in front of the door that separated her from her two sons. She steeled herself with all the power of that mighty will that had sustained her through so many trials and so much hardship. Since the first word of the tragedy had reached her she had braced herself for this moment, roused every energy of her soul, and called on God to give her strength. She was not sure that she could bear to look upon the bodies of these two sons struck down so cruelly in the prime of life.
Beside her stood Mary Fielding Smith, tall and straight, her eyes red and puffy but her face composed. Clinging to her hands or her dress were her children, who, like their mother, were trying to be brave.
There was a noise behind them and Mother Smith turned. Emma and her four children were coming down the stairs. Dimick Huntington, a longtime friend of the family, walked beside her, holding her arm. The roundness of Emma’s stomach was evident, a painful reminder that the unborn child would never know its father. At the sight of her mother-in-law and sister-in-law, Emma stopped. She swayed and nearly swooned, and Huntington had to grab on to her to hold her. Lucy Mack started toward her, but Emma straightened again and waved her back. This was not the first time she had started down to join them, and Mother Smith wasn’t sure but what once again she would have to turn back and return to her room. Emma was shattered, totally devastated by this latest and most terrible calamity in her life. And who could blame her? Mother Smith thought. This woman had seen enough trials and challenges for any five other women. As Emma came up to stand beside her mother-in-law, Lucy Mack reached out and took her hand. “We’ll make it, Emma,” she whispered, not sure if it would be true for either of them.
“I’m ready, Mother Smith.”
Lucy straightened to her full four-foot-eleven-inch height, then turned to Brother Goldsmith, who stood guard at the doors, and nodded. Gravely he stepped aside and they went in.
The bodies were lying together side by side on a long table. As the families moved into the room, Emma cried out and threw her hands over her eyes. Her son Joseph the Third broke from her gasp and ran to his father’s body, crying out, “Oh, my father! My father!” That was too much for the rest of the children—Emma’s and Mary’s—and they burst into tears and started to wail and cry.
Emma, barely able to walk, let Brother Huntington take her forward to stand beside the table. She fell to her knees and threw her arms around Joseph. “Joseph! Dear Joseph! Speak to me! Just once speak to me. Oh, Joseph! Have the assassins killed you?” She dropped her head and began to weep with mighty, shuddering sobs.
Mary Smith moved forward slowly, trembling at every step. When she reached her husband, she too could no longer hold the anguish in. She reached out and touched Hyrum’s face, not wanting to look at where the ball had struck him, yet not able not to. “Oh, Hyrum,” she gasped. She ran her fingers through his hair. “Oh, speak to me, Hyrum. I cannot believe that you are dead.”
Lucy Mack Smith stood back, listening to the sobs and cries of her daughters-in-law and her grandchildren. Tears streaked her cheeks too and finally she had to look away. After a few moments, Emma was taken out, on the verge of hysteria, barely able to walk. A great wrenching cry welled up inside Mother Smith. She could not give voice to it, but neither could she stop the question from bursting forth in her mind. She did not know it, but it was very much like the cry of Emma earlier that day. “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken this family?” She dropped her head, covering her eyes with her hands.
And then it came, as clearly as if someone stood at her elbow. It was not an audible voice, but one inside her mind. It spoke softly but with perfect clarity. “I have taken them to myself, that they might have rest.”
Her head came up with a start and she looked around. In an instant, peace flooded through her soul like a summer’s rain. She stood there, almost too overcome to move, letting the wonderful realization of the words sink into her soul. In her crushing grief she had momentarily forgotten that it was only the flesh that lay before her now. Joseph and Hyrum still lived. And at a future time they would take these bodies up again and live forever. Their Savior would bring them forth again someday, and in the meantime, they would have rest.
Slowly now, still mindful of the great grief around her, she moved forward to stand before the table. She looked down at her sons. She saw the evidence of the violence that had snuffed out their lives. She saw the paleness of their faces and felt the coldness of the flesh. But now she saw something more. Though tears were still streaming down her face, as she looked down upon them she saw the calm repose on their faces. Their eyes were closed in death but they were also closed in peace.
She marveled. And as she marveled she cried out in her mind, this time not with grief but with longing, “Oh, my sons, how I shall miss you.”
And once again it came. Quiet, peaceful, clear. Only now it was the voice of her sons that came into her mind. “Mother, weep not for us. We have overcome the world by love. We carried to them the gospel, that their souls might be saved. They have slain us for our testimony and thus placed us beyond their power. Their ascendency is for a moment. Ours is an eternal triumph.”
For a long time, Lucy Mack Smith stood there, saying good-bye to her sons, no longer grieving as she had when she came
in. And then she turned and moved over to stand beside her daughter-in-law. Mary looked around in surprise. Mother Smith slipped an arm around her waist. Together they stood and looked at the two men who lay before them.
The six of them walked slowly along in the darkness. No one spoke. Seeing the bodies lying there on the table was so stark, so shattering, so totally, irrevocably real, that they could not put words to their grief.
They had gone together to the Mansion House at the specific invitation of Mother Smith, Emma, and Mary. The rest of the Church would come tomorrow, when the doors would be thrown open and ten thousand Saints would move past the coffins in long, silent lines, paying one last sorrowful tribute to their leaders. But tonight only the extended family and a small group of intimate friends were invited to come in after the immediate families had their chance to say farewell to their husbands and fathers.
That the Steeds had been included was silent testimony to the bonds that had been forged between these two families. Emma and Mother Smith had asked for Benjamin, Mary Ann, Lydia, and Nathan. In addition, Mary had requested that Rebecca and Derek be included because of her longtime friendship with Rebecca.
As they approached the first houses on Steed Row—Nathan and Lydia’s on the left, Derek and Rebecca’s on the right—they stopped. It was almost ten o’clock. The streets were deserted. Most of the homes were dark now. A great reverential hush seemed to lie over the city. They were reluctant to speak and break the silence, and yet they could not simply part without giving word to their sorrow.
“It was seventeen years ago this spring,” Mary Ann said softly. “Remember? Martin Harris suggested that we hire those two Smith boys to help us clear the land. He said what good workers they were.”
Nathan’s voice was husky as he nodded and spoke. “I walked partway home with them one afternoon. That was when Joseph first told me about his going to the grove to pray.”
“And I fired them,” Benjamin said with shame in his voice, “because everyone in town was saying that Joseph was a charlatan. I didn’t want people to think I was believing anything Joseph said.”
Rebecca was still crying softly, but she smiled through it. “Do you know what I remember? Joseph pulling sticks with me and with Matthew and letting Matthew win.”
“He didn’t let you win too?” Lydia asked.
“No. I was giggling so hard before we even started, Joseph just pulled me over and started to tickle me. I loved him from that moment on.”
“I feel as if part of me has died,” Lydia said in a hoarse whisper.
“It has,” Benjamin said, his voice also trembling. “A part of all of us has died. But in another way, it is a part that will always live too.”
Mary Ann moved closer to Benjamin and slipped under his arm, as though she were cold, but her chin was up and her eyes were radiant through the tears. “Do you realize how fortunate we are to have had Joseph and Hyrum be that much a part of us for all these years? Future generations will call us blessed. We walked and talked with the Prophet. We ate with him. We sat at his feet.”
“We were his next-door neighbors,” Nathan murmured.
Only Lydia understood all that he meant by that comment, and that brought the tears flowing again for her. Nathan slipped an arm around her and held her tightly. Rebecca turned to her too. “How is Emma, Lydia?”
Lydia had gone upstairs with Dimick Huntington to see Emma while the others were viewing the bodies. She shook her head. “She is totally, completely devastated. I’ve never seen her like this. It seems all of her reserves are gone. She has nothing more to draw on.”
“Those reserves have been tapped too many times,” Mary Ann said sadly.
“But she’s a strong woman,” Lydia went on. “I predict that tomorrow she’ll be there with her head high to greet the people. But tonight, she is just completely lost.”
“Oh, I hope this doesn’t make her lose the baby,” Rebecca said.
“I asked her about that and she says she’s all right. The baby seems strong and healthy.”
“Mother Smith was the one who surprised me,” Derek put in. “She was obviously grieving, but there was such a peace and serenity about her tonight. I felt like she was comforting us instead of the other way around.”
“She was, wasn’t she?” Nathan said. He had been struck by the same thing quite powerfully.
“Mother Smith is an incredible woman,” Benjamin said.
Suddenly, Rebecca moved away from Derek and into her mother’s arms. “Oh, Mama!” she cried. “Why did this happen? We needed Joseph so much.”
“I don’t know,” Mary Ann said. “I don’t know.”
“What is going to happen now?” Lydia cried, giving voice to her own fears. “How can we go on without Joseph?”
“Oh, we’ll go on,” Nathan said, “but it will never be the same again.”
“But who will even lead us?” Rebecca asked in anguish. “Who could ever take Joseph’s place?”
Benjamin suddenly straightened. “May I speak for Joseph and answer that?”
They all turned to him in surprise.
“If Joseph were here at this moment, I think I know what he would say.” And then he began to quote something. It was something that had so impressed Benjamin that day when Peter had burst into the house to read it to them, that he had committed it to memory. Earlier in the day, as he walked out on the prairie by himself, trying to cope with the shock of knowing that Joseph was dead and wondering what that would mean now, it had come back to him with great power.
“‘The standard of truth has been erected,’” he began; “‘no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing.’”
He stopped, letting that sink in for a moment. “Yesterday, many unhallowed hands tried to stop the work, and I suppose today they are celebrating their supposed triumph. But Joseph said that no unhallowed hand could stop this work. Not one!”
As they nodded now, he went on. “‘Persecutions may rage, mobs may combine, armies may assemble, calumny may defame, but the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent till it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country, and sounded in every ear, till the purposes of God shall be accomplished and the great Jehovah shall say the work is done.’”
Benjamin looked at each one in turn. “I think that’s what Joseph would say to us if he were here.”
Mary Ann’s head came up now in wonder. “He would, wouldn’t he? He would chide us, remind us that what we are engaged in wasn’t
his
work and
his
glory, or it would die with him. It is God’s work and God’s glory. And it is not done!”
Nathan now understood Mother Smith’s serenity and peace. “Do you remember Joseph’s prayer? The one given him by revelation back in Ohio?”
They all looked blank.
“I can’t quote it verbatim, but it goes something like this. ‘The keys of the kingdom are given unto man on the earth, and from there the gospel will roll forth to the ends of the earth.’ ”
He hesitated, trying to remember the exact wording, and then Derek came in softly “‘As the stone that was cut out of the mountain without hands shall roll forth, so shall the gospel roll forth until it fills the whole earth.’”
For a long time they stood there in the darkness and in the quiet. Each was lost in their memories, each was immersed in their thoughts. Then Rebecca pulled away from her mother and stepped to her father. She went up on tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you, Papa,” she said softly.
Chapter Notes
The guard’s coming to the bedroom door and the prisoners’ sampling of the wine were the last things to happen prior to the attack on the jail. The story is accurate; the motive the guard had in having Joseph and the others test it as given here is a surmise. (See
HC
6:616.)
The details of the Martyrdom are retold in many sources, but all are based on the eyewitness accounts of John Taylor and Willard Richards (see
HC
6:616–21; B. H. Roberts,
Life of John Taylor,
Collector’s Edition [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1989], pp. 137–40). Even though he was terribly wounded, John Taylor remained conscious throughout the attack. It is likely that when Elder Richards put the mattress on top of Elder Taylor, the straw and ticking helped stop the bleeding and saved his life.