History of Relief Society: Mary Ellen Wood Smoot

Mary Ellen Wood Smoot

1997-2002

In her youth, Mary Ellen held a variety of Church callings as well as student government positions. She attended Utah State University in Logan, Utah. When she was in the ninth grade, she met Stanley Millard Smoot. After Stanley completed his LDS mission to Hawaii, the couple married on October 8, 1952, in the Salt Lake Temple. They had seven children and five foster children. Mary Ellen’s community service included holding positions as diverse as PTA president, host of a teen radio show, and president of the Centerville (Utah) Women’s Republican Club.

Sister Smoot served on the editorial board for the Children’s Friend from 1966 to1971. She and her husband served seven years on Church public affairs committees and were directors of Church Hosting for VIPS from 1993 to1997. In 1999 the Relief Society collected 350,000 quilts in response to a need for 30,000 quilts for Kosovo refugees. Sister Smoot was a keynote speaker at the second World Congress on Families in Rome, Italy, in 1999.⁵

Visiting teaching is an important way to uplift sisters and bring the gospel of Jesus Christ into their lives and the lives of their families. Mary Ellen W. Smoot, 13th general president of the Relief Society, wanted every sister to catch that vision and live up to her responsibility in it.

When sisters truly understand their identity, they make better decisions, and that includes living gospel-centered lives and visiting teaching with sincere interest. At the 1999 general women’s meeting, Sister Smoot presented the Relief Society Declaration, which expressed the “meaning, purpose, and direction”³ of the lives of Relief Society sisters.

“We need each other,” she said. “We need visiting teachers … who are sincerely interested in those they visit and realize the importance of their calling as they strive to reach the one.”