Former
neighbors remembered [Lucy Smith] as a wise woman with a reputation
for ministering to the sick. Orlando Saunders recalled that the Smiths “were
the best family in the neighborhood in case of sickness. One was at my house
nearly all the time when my father died.” [144] Hyram Jackway recollected that “old
lady Smith was kind in sickness.” [145] The sister of Porter Rockwell, who
lived just down the road from the Smiths, remembered that “Jo Smith’s mother
doctored many persons in Palmyra.” [146] And, according to Anna Eaton, Lucy “knew
the virtues of remedial roots and herbs, and was ever ready to administer and
assist when her lowly neighbors were sick or dying.” [147]
Notes for the Above:
[144]
Orlando Saunders, interviewed by William H. Kelley and Edmund L. Kelley, Palmyra,
New York, 6 March 1881, William H. Kelley, Notebook No. 5, p. 6, in EMD,
2:85. See also William H. Kelley, “The Hill Cumorah, and the Book of Mormon,” Saints’
Herald, 1 June 1881, p. 165, col. 1.
[145]
Hiram Jackway, interviewed by William H. Kelley and Edmund L, Kelley, Palmyra,
New York, 6 March 1881, William H. Kelley, Notebook No. 5, p. 6, in EMD,
2:86. See also William H. Kelley, “The Hill Cumorah, and the Book of Mormon,” Saints’
Herald, 1 June 1881, p. 166, col. 3.
[146]
Mrs. M C[aroline]. R[ockwell]. Smith, Statement, 25 March 1885, in Deming, “Mormon
Prophet” Naked Truths about Mormonism, April 1888, p. 1, col. 3.
[147]
Mr. Dr. Horace Eaton, The Origin of Mormonism (New York: Woman’s Executive
Committee of Home Missions, 1881), 3. Dan Vogel informs me that the author’s
name is Anna Ruth.
Source: Mark Ashurst-McGee,
"A Pathway to Prophethood: Joseph Smith Junior as Rodsman, Village Seer,
and Judeo-Christian Prophet" (M.A. thesis., Utah State University, 2000),
96-97