Newell, Linda King

Emma Hale Smith was born in 1804 in Pennsylvania. She was the wife of Joseph Smith, Jr. the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, whom she married in 1827. Emma was the first president of what eventually became one of the world's largest and oldest women's organizations: the Relief Society of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As Joseph Smith began compiling revelations and teachings that would become the foundation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Emma collected songs for the LDS Church's first hymn book.

Emma did not agree with all the new church doctrines, such as the practice of plural marriage. When Joseph Smith was assassinated in 1844, Emma Smith did not join the church's migration west to Utah. Instead she married Lewis Bidamon, a non-Mormon. Emma believed that her son Joseph Smith III, should lead the religious movement that her husband founded. When this did not happen Emma left the LDS Church and joined the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Emma Smith died in 1879 in Nauvoo Illinois.

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