Smith, Bathsheba (1822–1910)

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Smith, Bathsheba (1822–1910)

General president of the Relief Society of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Born Bathsheba Wilson Bigler on May 3, 1822, in Shinnston, Harrison County, Virginia (which became part of West Virginia after the Civil War); died in 1910; seventh of eight children of Mark Bigler and Susannah (Ogden) Bigler; married George A. Smith, on July 26, 1841 (died 1875); children: George A. Smith, Jr. (b. July 7, 1842, killed in an Indian raid in southern Utah on November 2, 1860); Bathsheba Smith, known as Kate (b. August 14, 1844, who married Clarence Merrill); John Smith (b. March, 1847, and died the same day).

The seventh of eight children, Bathsheba Smith was born on May 3, 1822, on her parents' 300-acre plantation in Shinnston, Harrison County, Virginia. Her father Mark Bigler was of Pennsylvania Dutch descent and her mother Susannah Ogden Bigler had been raised in Maryland, the Ogden family having provided one of Maryland's early governors. Bathsheba became an accomplished equestrian as she grew up, and acquired management skills from her father through accompanying him on his plantation inspections.

In August 1837, at age 15, she met George A. Smith, an elder of the recently founded Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (commonly known as the Mormon Church), who was traveling through the region on an ecclesiastical mission. Their nearly four-year courtship was interrupted by his frequent travels (including a two-year mission to England), but he nonetheless found time, as he noted in his journal, to accept invitations to 17 turkey dinners at the Bigler home. During this time, Bathsheba and her family moved from Virginia to Nauvoo, Illinois, which had been settled in 1839 by Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon Church, and 5,000 of his followers. There she and George were married on July 26, 1841; his wedding gifts to her included Staffordshire china acquired during his trip to England and art materials, for she had begun studying painting with a British portrait artist who had settled in Nauvoo.

The couple's first child, George, was born in 1842 (five years later, a second son would die soon after his premature birth), the same year that Smith became a charter member of the Nauvoo Female Relief Society. Religious and charitable, she blessed the sick and washed and anointed women prior to childbirth, in accordance with Joseph Smith's instructions. She also painted portraits of her husband and parents, as well as two leading officials in Nauvoo. Her second child, daughter Bathsheba—called Kate to distinguish her from her mother—was born in August 1844. Less than a month before that, however, the long-simmering distrust with which local non-Mormons viewed the Mormons of Nauvoo had escalated into the arrest and murder by a mob of Joseph Smith. The church was in turmoil, and Bathsheba and George aligned themselves with the large faction headed by Brigham Young. In 1846, Young led many of the Nauvoo Mormons, including George Smith, westward, where they settled the following year in what would become Salt Lake City, Utah. George then returned east to escort Bathsheba and their children to the new settlement. She made the trek with a single trunk, packed with art supplies, the portraits she had painted, and the tools with which to make the lace she was acclaimed for.

The family arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in 1849. Smith soon proved to be a natural pacesetter in the frontier community, her position enhanced after her husband was elected leader of the Utah Territorial legislature at its inception in 1850, and reelected at each session thereafter until his death in 1875. She held the position of treasurer of the local Relief Society, and for several years served as president of the 17th Ward Relief Society. At a meeting of Salt Lake City women in early 1870, Smith proposed "that we demand of the Governor the right of franchise." The motion was presented by the women's committee to Acting Governor S.A. Mann on February 12, 1870. His subsequent signature to the bill made women in Utah the first in the nation to exercise the right to vote. (The territory of Wyoming had also passed legislation to allow women to vote, but Utah voters cast their ballots earlier in the season.) After Brigham Young organized the churchwide Retrenchment Society, Smith was selected as one of its three women leaders. In 1882, she was elected to the board of directors of Deseret Hospital, a major source of medical care in the isolated community. The hospital had three staff physicians—all women—could accommodate 40 to 50 patients, and sponsored midwifery classes and a nursing school. In October 1888, Smith became the second counselor of the national Relief Society, with Zina D.H. Young named general president. The Relief Society actively supported the formation of the National Council of Women at that group's initial meeting in Washington, D.C., in 1889, and was part of the ensuing International Council of Women.

In 1893, Zina Young was chosen to take charge of the woman's department of the Salt Lake Temple, with Smith as her first assistant and Minnie J. Snow as her second assistant. Eleven years later, after Young's death, Smith became general president of the Relief Society. As president, she particularly stressed advances in education and health services, sponsoring nursing and midwifery classes, supporting home industry, and introducing "mothers' classes," with lessons on marriage, prenatal care, child rearing, and home improvement. The Relief Society also remained active in national and international women's organizations. With support from Lorenzo Snow, president of the Mormon Church, Smith coordinated local women's organizations to raise funds for a building to house their groups. These efforts were successful, leading to the erection of a building with offices for the Relief Society, the Young Woman's Mutual Improvement Association (an outgrowth of the Retrenchment Society), and the Primary Organization for children. (Included in the building by Mormon leaders were offices for the presiding bishopric, for which reason those leaders named it the "Bishop's building.") The building was dedicated in January 1910. Later that year, still president of the Relief Society, Smith died after a brief illness. Called "a master of organization, but never imperious" whose favorite farewell to friends was "peace be unto thee, peace unto this house," she was granted a funeral service in the Mormon Tabernacle, the first woman to be so honored.