Joseph F. (Joseph Fielding) Smith

Born in 1838 in Far West, Missouri, Joseph Fielding Smith was the son of Hyrum Smith and a nephew of Joseph Smith. After his father and uncle were killed in 1844, he moved west with his family and reached Utah as a child. He later served missions in Hawaiʻi and in Britain, experiences that helped shape his reputation as a capable and steady church leader.

Over the years, he became an apostle and took on many important leadership roles in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In 1901 he became the church’s sixth president, serving until his death in 1918. During that period he was a prominent figure in both church and civic life in Utah.

He is often remembered as someone whose life connected the church’s founding generation with the early twentieth century. Because he had known key figures from the movement’s earliest years and then led the church in a later era, his story offers a direct link between its turbulent beginnings and its growing institutional strength.