Bathsheba W. Smith
2nd to the youngest, Bathsheba was born May 3,
1822 in West Virgina . Her parents Mark and Susannah Ogden Bigler
lived on a family 300 acre plantation.
Her life there was spent learning handicrafts and horseback riding. In 1837 her life changed when the
missionaries came to her home.
“I heard them preach and
believed what they taught. I believe the
Book of Mormon to be a divine record and that Joseph Smith was a Prophet of
God. I knew by the spirit of the Lord
which I received in answer to prayer, that these things were true.”
The entire family was baptized and the following
persecutions had the family move on and leave their comfortable life to join
the Saints in Nauvoo.
July 25, 1841, age 19, Bathsheba married one of the
missionaries who had converted her and her family. His name was George A. Smith, a cousin to the
prophet Joseph. Together they had two
children. Following the doctrine of
plural marriage, George A. Smith married five other women with her blessing.
She wrote, “Being thoroughly
convinced…that the doctrine of plurality of wives was from God; and having a
fixed determination to attain to Celestial glory, I felt to embrace the whole
gospel.”
Bathsheba was the youngest member of the Relief Society in
Nauvoo. She devoted her time and talents
to provide for and strengthen her family.
She loved her husband and wrote him often while he was away on assignments
and missions for the church. She cherished
her children and often said how proud she was for them.
Her letters and autobiography are filled with descriptions of
the shirts, carpets, curtains, cushions, soaps, rugs, caps, pillowcases,
sheets, comforters, bonnets, stockings, diapers, candles, dresses, aprons, and
so forth, that she made to make her family comfortable, not to mention the
animals she tended, the gardens she kept, and the sick she visited. She once wrote that she had “done all we
could to encourage home manufactory.” LDS.ORG
When Bathsheba became the fourth general president of the
Relief Society she was also called to be the Salt Lake Utah , earthquake
survivors in San Francisco , and famine victims
in China .
“President
Smith felt strongly that women needed to be spiritually self-sufficient and
that Relief Society was the place for that to occur: ‘It is plainly necessary
that women as well as men, cease not while life lasts to study diligently for
the knowledge which is of greatest worth.’
Bathsheba Wilson
Bigler Smith died at age 88 on September 20, 1910
