Emma’s Dream

In the final days of Emma’s life her son Alexander recorded that she had a remarkable dream. In Gracia N. Jone’s article, “My Great-Great Grandmother, Emma Hale Smith” she wrote:

“A granddaughter, Emma Belle Smith Kennedy, remembers Emma: “Her eyes were brown and sad. She would smile with her lips but to me, as small as I was, I never saw the brown eyes smile. I asked my mother one day, why don’t Grandma laugh with her eyes like you do and my mother said because she has a deep sorrow in her heart.”

A woman who served as a maid in Emma’s home during Emma’s later years related the fact that each evening after the chores were done, Emma would climb the stairs to her room, sit in her low rocker, and gaze out the window at the western sunset over the Mississippi River. No one dared approach to offer comfort, because they did not know how to touch the depth of sorrow evidenced by the tears that coursed down her cheeks. 

We can ask, “Why did she cry?” Was it the awful loss of her beloved Joseph? Was it the memory of her babies laid in graves in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois? Was it the tragedy of seeing her precious youngest son hopelessly ill? Was it regret for past mistakes? Was it sorrow for disappointments lived through? Was it haunting uncertainties regarding the course she had taken, as well as thoughts about what might have been had tragedy and persecution not dogged her life? Having lived a long life, as the Lord had promised in her patriarchal blessing, and now seemingly humbled and refined, Emma must have pondered questions about the hereafter. Her son Alexander later reported that a few days before her death, Emma had a vision that disclosed her acceptance by the Lord.”

You can hear and see Emma’s dream in this lovely video made by Kimberly Jo Smith, a direct descendant of Emma and Joseph

Or here if you can’t (or don’t want to) want to watch the video here is the rest of what Gracia Jones wrote in her article:

Emma lived almost thirty-five years after the martyrdom of her Prophet-husband. She died 30 April 1879 in her seventy-fifth year. In her last years she was greatly loved, and in the last hours of her life she was attended by her family: Louis Bidamon, Julia, Joseph III, 26 and Alexander. According to Alexander, Emma seemed to sink away, but then she raised up and stretched out her hand, calling, “Joseph! Joseph!” Falling back on Alexander’s arm, she clasped her hands on her bosom, and her spirit was gone. Both Alexander and Joseph thought she was calling for her son Joseph, but later, Alexander learned more about the incident. Sister Elizabeth Revel, Emma’s nurse, explained that a few days earlier Emma had told her that Joseph came to her in a vision and said, “Emma, come with me, it is time for you to come with me.” “As Emma related it, she said, ‘I put on my bonnet and my shawl and went with him; I did not think that it was anything unusual. I went with him into a mansion, and he showed me through the different apartments of that beautiful mansion.’ And one room was the nursery. In that nursery was a babe in the cradle. She said, ‘I knew my babe, my Don Carlos that was taken from me.’ She sprang forward, caught the child up in her arms, and wept with joy over the child. When Emma recovered herself sufficient she turned to Joseph and said, ‘Joseph, where are the rest of my children.’ He said to her, ‘Emma, be patient and you shall have all of your children.’ Then she saw standing by his side a personage of light, even the Lord Jesus Christ.”