author
Lucy Smith
1775–1856
A vivid firsthand voice from the early Latter Day Saint movement, remembered both as Joseph Smith’s mother and as the author of an influential family memoir. Her writing preserves intimate details of hardship, faith, and the making of a new religious community.
1 Audiobook
History of the Prophet Joseph, by His Mother
by Lucy Smith
About the author
Born in Gilsum, New Hampshire, in 1775, Lucy Mack Smith became an important early figure in the Latter Day Saint movement. She married Joseph Smith Sr. in 1796 and was the mother of Joseph Smith Jr. and his siblings, and her life was closely tied to the family’s religious experiences and migrations.
She is best known as the author of Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith, the Prophet, and His Progenitors for Many Generations, a memoir that helped shape how later readers understood the Smith family’s early history. Because she wrote from personal experience, her account remains one of the most memorable firsthand sources for the movement’s beginnings.
Beyond her role as a memoirist, she was remembered by early church members as a steady and influential presence during years of upheaval. She died in Nauvoo, Illinois, in 1856, leaving behind a record that is still read for its family detail, spiritual intensity, and sense of lived history.