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Show PRESIDENT SITU ANSWERS SUMMONS SIXTH PRESIDENT OF CHURCH CLOSES REMARKABLE CAREER AFTER LONG ILLNESS. Leader in Church and Civic Affairs, Broad in His Sympathies, His Passing Will Be Sincerely Mourned by All Creeds. Salt Lake City. Joseph Fielding Smith, sixtli president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, died at 4 :,"() o'clock Tuesday morning, November 19, following an illness of several months' duration, against which he had made a determined fight and had on several occasions rallied sufficiently to permit his appearance in public. The end came peacefully us he lay at the official residence of the church president, surrounded by members of his family and church dig-uiiaries. dig-uiiaries. In the death of President Smith the state loses one of its best known and most constructive leaders. Broad in his sympathies, far-sighted in his judgments and tolerant to a marked degree, his passing will be mourned by men of all creeds in Utah and in the far-lying missions of the church to which he had been a frequent visitor. The church, loses in his death the last of her leaders whose birth occurred oc-curred prior to the settlement of the church in Utah. President Smith had just passed his eightieth, birthday when the end came. For 17 years and 1G days President Smith had been the supreme head of the Mormon church, to which he had devoted the greater part of his life, and for which he had endured in his earlier days hardships almost beyond the belief of the effete generation of today. During his term the church has witnessed wit-nessed the greatest prosperity of its history. More meeting houses have ! 1 , . v - r , s- K : - t i 1 - . -A i i t u - " ?V. s ' . . F1" ' ' '' &i,j3. ta sUi.'tjA S nui'Ltk.-j President Joseph Fielding Smith. been constructed in the course of his regime than were built during the entire en-tire previous history of the organization. organiza-tion. While President Smith is known principally as the churchman that he was, he leaves behind him an enviable record as a public citizen. He served several terms in the territorial and early state igislatures, was president of the constitutional assembly, and served several terms in the Salt Lake city council, as well as one term in the city of Provo. Joseph Fielding Smith was born ill Far West, Caldwell county, Mo., November No-vember 13, IS3S. He was the son of Hyrum Smith, and Mary Fielding Smith. His childhood days were spent amid scenes of persecution and hardship, hard-ship, which resulted in the death of his father and his uncle, the prophet, ' Joseph, Smith, June 27, 1S44. With his 'idowed mother, who left Nauvoo as an exile in 1846 ; lie drove an ox team for her across the state of Iowa to Winter Quarters, where the family spent the winter of 1S4G-7. He was then only S years of age, but while at Winter Quarters was employed as a herd boy, and it is said that during the time that he was herding cattle at Winter Quarters and after his arrival in Salt Lake "be never lost a hoof.'" On the death of George Q. Cannon in April, 1901, in California, Joseph F. Smith acted as first counsellor to President Snow. The latter died October Oc-tober 10, 1901. When the first presidency of the church and the twelve apostles met on October 17, 1901, the first presidency was reorganized with Joseph F. Smith as president, John Tv. Winder as first counsellor, and Anthon H. Lund as second counsellor. |
