I had the most wonderful experience learning about The Rift, a piece of history of which I was not aware. I attended the Sons of the Utah Pioneer Convention (2011) and met with some great Mormon heritage: Gracia N. Jones, and Michael and Darcy Kennedy (from the Smith family), and Mary Ellen Elggren (from the Young family).

They spoke about the rift between Emma Smith and Brigham Young. You may have heard that Emma and Brigham did not get along very well and that Emma stayed behind in Nauvoo with bad feelings, but there is quite a bit more to the story.

Those bad feelings became a skeleton-in-the-family-closet over the years. Somehow, without overtly talking about it, the Smith descendants grew to be wary of the Utah Mormons and to keep hushed the fact their ancestor was a prophet of the Mormon Church. Many of these people grew up without religion because the Smith grandchildren eventually became disillusioned with the RLDS and left that church as well.

Gracia talked about her role in all of this (being the first descendant of Joseph Smith to be baptized). All she thought, in the beginning, was that the missionaries were kind of cute. Little did she know that her mission on this earth would be as profound as collecting the members of this lost family, and bringing them back together.

She didn’t grow up with bad feelings about Brigham Young, but little by little, as she met other cousins, she sensed there was something going on. During the 1977 reunion in Kirtland, she was preparing to speak on the role of the women in Kirtland. She began feeling overwhelmed with the burden of teaching correct doctrine to the children and bringing their hearts to their fathers. She needed to share her burden of responsibility with someone and the Lord sent her Michael and Darcy Kennedy. Michael is a cousin, and the first to hold the Melchizedek priesthood in the Smith family, since Joseph Smith.

Darcy has received countless inspirations to promote healing and gathering within the family. The three have worked endless hours in bringing this fragmented family together. Although related only by marriage, Darcy has been involved from the beginning, offering encouragement and spiritual insight for the cause. We should all be so invested in our spouse’s heritage.

Gracia told us of a vision she had at that first reunion. In the vision, she could see Joseph’s posterity standing in dark shadows, while on the other side Hyrum’s family stood in the light. There was a rift between these two families because Hyrum’s family went out west with the Saints. The message she received was that Hyrum’s family needed to be the missionaries to bring Joseph’s family back into the church.

And who should lead Hyrum’s family? Gracia Jones. She remembers asking the Lord, “Why don’t you get a man to do it?” She distinctly heard a reply, “It is a mother’s duty to gather her children.” She recalled how Lucy Mack Smith, known to all as Mother Smith, bore her testimony often that she hoped all would be able to sit together in the Celestial Kingdom.

Rifts not only involved the descendants within the Smith family, but they also extended into the Young family as well.

It was Michael who felt impressed to request that a representative, from the Brigham Young Family Organization, formulate an apology, or “Healing Letter”, to be read at the Smith Family reunion in 2007.

When Mary Ellen Elggren, past president of the Brigham Young Family Organization, first heard of this request, she was shocked and completely caught off guard. She knew the Youngs had no bad feelings toward Emma, but she was quickly learning that Emma’s children indeed had a tradition of hurt that had somehow caused a rift through the ages.

She set out to write the apology but discovered, because she didn’t have a personal feeling about it, it was a difficult task. After much prayer and fasting, she felt the heavens open, and the words came down landing emotionally on the page. She acknowledges that the words are not hers.

She was invited to read the “Healing Letter” to the Smith family at their reunion, which was held in Nauvoo that year. Afterward, members of both families, along with some from Hyrum’s family, attended a temple session together in that temple that was built by Joseph. Everyone felt multitudes of other family members from the other side of the veil embracing the event.

Later that summer, the Smith family was invited to Salt Lake City to attend the Young family reunion. Again, they attended a session together; this time in the temple that Brigham built. And once again, the veil was very thin.

When this “Healing Letter” was read to the Smith family, they all recognized a key had been turned that unlocked the resentment of a generation. The rift, now dissolved, allowing the Smith family to be gathered with open arms. Both Gracia and Michael ask all of us while searching out our ancestors, to preach and invite with love, to bring them all into the fold.

Interestingly, Joseph and Emma’s posterity has been stunted over the years. The family believes this is one more way Satan has tried to get rid of Joseph Smith. Their children didn’t have that many children.

Of those children who grew to adulthood:

• Julia had no children
• Joseph III had seventeen children (married three times), but only thirty-one grandchildren.
• Frederick died as a young father to one daughter and had no grandchildren.
• Alexander had eight children and forty-eight grandchildren. His line is the most fruitful, and both Gracia and Michael come from him.
• David Hyrum spent much of his adult life in an insane asylum for a disease we now recognize as hypoglycemia. Because of this, many of his relatives chose not to have children in order to end the disease. He did have one child and three grandchildren.

In all, there are 1100 known descendants directly related to Joseph and Emma, and only 200 of those are members of the church. Compare that to 23,000 descendants from Hyrum.

There are so many lessons we can learn from this heartfelt event. I’m going to have to think about the answer the Lord gave to Gracia. “It is a mother’s duty to gather her children”. This is incredibly profound; to understand the calling each of us has to gather, teach, and raise our children in the gospel. Mother Smith is an example of someone who mothered many. And then, we have Emma’s great example of taking in so many of the orphans that were left behind after the many mob attacks. Children don’t have to be “ours” to be gathered, taught, and raised by us. Our responsibility covers all of God’s children.

Gracia has met every prophet since David O. McKay. She told some funny stories. When she met with Pres. Ezra Taft Benson, he gave her a big hug and said, “May the Lord bless ya and the Devil miss ya!” During their conversation, she said, “It must be hard to go against the grain and do what isn’t popular.” Pres. Benson took his cane, pounded it against the floor, and said, “In here, it’s popular!” Oh, the stories and experiences she has had because of the call she has accepted!

All the prophets she has met with have said that her weighty responsibility, of gathering the children of Joseph and Emma, is one of great importance. Her message for all of us in living the gospel is:

–Don’t let it down

–Don’t let your children let it down

–Don’t let your grandchildren let it down.

Gracia was a defender of Emma when it wasn’t popular. But think of this:

These two pictures were captured six years apart. In this time period, Emma lost 24 members of her immediate family.

I don’t blame her for her feelings of despair. She was a giant among women and will be worthy to stand at the side of her prophet-husband again.

Before passing, Brigham uttered, “Joseph” three times. Two years later, Emma told her family that Joseph had come to get her. He promised that she would have all of her children once again. Her final word was calling out her husband’s name.

Indeed, it took these women to gather the families together: Gracia, Darcy, and Mary Ellen. How grateful I am for strong and faithful women of the church.

The photo is of “Emma” (Tammy Simister Robinson) and “Brigham” (Robert Clawson Shields) singing together “The First To Make The Healing Start” (written by Clive Romney).