Joseph Fielding Smith (1899-1964)
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Joseph Fielding Smith (30 January 1899—29 August 1964) was Presiding Patriarch and a General Authority of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1942 until 1946.
Smith should not be confused with his grandfather, Joseph F. Smith, nor his uncle, Joseph Fielding Smith, both of whom served as Apostles and later as Presidents of the Church.
Smith was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, the son of LDS Apostle Hyrum M. Smith and Ida Elizabeth Bowman. At the age of 43, Smith was ordained a High Priest and Patriarch to the Church on 8 October 1942 by Church President Heber J. Grant. He served but four years before it was reported by the Church that he had requested to be released from his position. His request was granted by Church President George Albert Smith on 6 October 1946, with the Church announcing that Smith was released for reasons of "ill health."[1] After Smith's death it was discovered that he had been forced to resign his position when George Albert Smith learned that the patriarch had been involved in a homosexual affair with a 21-year-old U.S. Navy sailor, who was also a Latter-day Saint.[2]
Smith died and was buried in Salt Lake City, Utah.
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes
- ^ "Patriarch to the Church: Released from Duties", Improvement Era 49 (Nov. 1946), 685, 708.
- ^ Quinn, D. Michael (2001). Same-Sex Dynamics among Nineteenth-Century Americans: A Mormon Example. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, p. 370. ISBN 978-0-252-06958-1.
[edit] References
- Irene M. Bates and E. Gary Smith (1996). Lost Legacy: The Mormon Office of Presiding Patriarch. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
- D. Michael Quinn (2001). Same-Sex Dynamics among Nineteenth-Century Americans: A Mormon Example. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
