1980.12.08

[_Imwashingmypirate]

What was the Bohemian era about? I was watching Moulan Rouge and I didn't know what they were talking about concerning Bohemians and stuff.

[_harmony]

John Lennon beat his wives and lovers. No need to deify the guy.

Perhaps he was channelling Joseph F Smith. It wasn't right when Joseph F Smith did it, and it's not right for John Lennon either.

How do you know this?

[_Dr. Shades]

Perhaps he was channelling Joseph F Smith. It wasn't right when Joseph F Smith did it, and it's not right for John Lennon either.

How do you know this?

I echo that.

I also ask harmony, how do you know that Joseph F. Smith beat his wife/wives?

[_harmony]

I echo that.

I also ask harmony, how do you know that Joseph F. Smith beat his wife/wives?

Sunstone, Nov 2001. "Before the Beard: Trials of the Young Joseph F. Smith". pg 30-31.

Levira's side:

So I raised one corner of the blind and looked out of the window. Joseph ...immediately came in with a rope, which he doubled four or five times, and struck me five or six times across my back notwithstanding I begged him not to strike me and said I was sorry that I had disobeyed him.

Joseph's side:

He rushed back to find her looking out the window at a band playing "Dixie" in front of the Gilbert & Company's boarding house across the street. To get her back into bed, he struck her --only twice-- not with a rope, but with "a peach limb not as large around as the bott of an office pencil."

Anyone here ever been hit with a limb from a tree, and mistake it for a coiled up rope?

This was not the first time he hit her. The article talks of him using force under various other circumstances also. His temper was legendary, and the article talks about the times he beat his neighbors and his wife's friends with various implements.

[_Dr. Shades]

Geez, what a scumbag.

And this is the guy that God chose to be His mouthpiece?

[_harmony]

Geez, what a scumbag.

And this is the guy that God chose to be His mouthpiece?

Oh, he was a piece of work. After he was called as an apostle, he clubbed his neighbor with a cane... and then had the gall to state in conference shortly thereafter:

[he] did not claim to be perfect, as he had many weaknesses; he was a passionate man, and had sometimes been, to a certain extent, overcome by it, but had not done anything criminal in that respect. The gospel kept him at peace with his neighbors and his brethren, with whom he never had any quarrel that is, said Mr Smith, but to a very limited extent.

I'm not sure how beating your wife and clubbing your neighbor with a cane while in a white hot rage counts as "not criminal", but maybe the laws were different for apostles back then.

Interesting note at the end of the article:

The Joseph F Smith papers, including correspondence, diaries, account books, and miscellaneous papers, are in the LDS Church Archives. Shortly after they were delivered to the Historical Department in 1975, Church Historian Leonard J Arrington invited me {author Scott G. Kenney} to go through them, suggesting I might prepare a biography. Unfortunately, the collection has since been closed.

The footnotes are extensive.

[_ludwigm]

HE IS THE MAN WITH THE LONG BEARD WHOSE

face we have been looking at for the past two years on the cover of the 2000–01 Priesthood and Relief Society manual. He is Joseph F Smith, son of Hyrum and Mary Fielding Smith, sixth president of the Church (1901–18), and the father of the tenth, Joseph Fielding Smith. He was born in Far West, Missouri, two weeks after the Haun’s Mill massacre, and he died in Salt Lake City eight days after the end of World War I.
President Smith’s accomplishments are remarkable. He husbanded five large families and steered Mormonism into a safe and uncontested position in American culture He defined the nature of Mormonism sans theocracy, cooperatives, and polygamy. He is truly the father of modern Mormonism.
But his many triumphs cannot be appreciated without understanding in like measure the trials and inner struggles he endured. I hope this portrayal will be a step toward an honest and empathetic portrait of the young Joseph F Smith, of the man before the beard.

Sometimes, one can find real pearls in Sunstone and in Dialogue. I have all downloadable material of them.

[_harmony]

What exactly does a man do for a living, when he has 5 wives and 48 children?

That's what struck me last night as I was rereading the article again.

Oh, yeah. He lives by the sweat of the brows of others.

[_ludwigm]

What exactly does a man do for a living, when he has 5 wives and 48 children?
That's what struck me last night as I was rereading the article again.
Oh, yeah. He lives by the sweat of the brows of others.

What exactly think a man about wife [wives]?

Ten children - eleven children - thirteen children?

That poor childproducer machines ...

[_harmony]

What exactly does a man do for a living, when he has 5 wives and 48 children?
That's what struck me last night as I was rereading the article again.
Oh, yeah. He lives by the sweat of the brows of others.

What exactly think a man about wife [wives]?

Ten children - eleven children - thirteen children?

That poor childproducer machines ...

And those were just the ones who lived. There were some that died shortly after birth.