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Mary Taylor Smith was born in Holladay, Utah, April 30, 1865. Her father was William Schwartz, by birth a German, a miller by occupation. Her mother was Agnes Taylor, youngest sister of President John Taylor. Mary was the last child in a large family. The family moved to Southern Utah for a short while and then returned to Salt Lake. The family home was in the Fourteenth Ward where the Greyhound Bus Station now stands. Mary shared the common lot of the rest of the pioneer children, attending the public school in her ward and the Deseret University.
Mary was sixteen in 1881 when she went to live in the Gardo House with her mother who had been asked by President John Taylor to be his housekeeper. There was a large family of young people and they had a wonderful time together at the plays, the dances, the parties and concerts. After these, they would gather at home to eat scrambled eggs, fruit, and American fried potatoes with milk to drink.
President Taylor was Mary’s ideal. She tried to serve him in every way she could. She said he was the only father she ever knew, and his every wish was her law. She became his official ironer and no one else could ‘do up’ his shirts as well. The girls served at the tables. President Taylor was prompt for meals because it made for an orderly household routine. Dinner time carne and all those in his office were brought in for the noon meal. Seldom was the table set for less than thirty and as President Taylor served in the English family style, each plate was dished by him and carried to the places by the girls. President Taylor often left very little for himself as his was the last plate. Mary learned to set a nice plate aside for him when all were served.
Here she met and knew personally the Church leaders and she also met most of the other distinguished guests from the ‘outside’ who carne to call on the President. Here she became acquainted with President Joseph F. Smith, who was a counselor to President Taylor. He often came to dinner. She was married to him January 13, 1884. She was eighteen and she placed her husband on the pedestal with her loved President Taylor. There she has kept them both throughout her life, “hero worship.”
Those were very troublous days for the Saints generally. The courts and its adherents were constantly seeking those who had, they claimed, broken the law because of plural marriage. Legalized deputy marshals hunted the Saints. Few people knew of this marriage because of this government persecution. When some of her young men friends wanted to invite her to dances, their fathers quietly told them she was not available.
Mary did not escape her share of this persecution. Twice when deputies were after her she walked out fearless, yet trembling, and passed in front of them and they did not know her. In the Gardo House she had the experience of walking out from under its portals without concern or fear while the deputies were all over the house.
While Joseph F. Smith was on a mission, Mary attended Brigham Young University. There one day she was tersely told that the deputies were at the door waiting for her. She took one of the boys by the arm and laughing and talking she walked out past them. Then the boy who was frightened wanted to run but she told him that would give them away, and not to be scared. Not till sometime after did her pursuers find out how they had been eluded. Mary had the utmost confidence that she would escape them because she had been promised by a Patriarch of the church when giving her a blessing that she should escape from the hands of her enemies.
Mary served in ward and stake primaries, beginning at the age of thirteen. On her return to the city she was called to the presidency of the Fourteenth Ward Retrenchment Association, She was president of that organization during the years 1886-87. She was an aid in the Salt Lake Stake Primary and became the first Primary President of Ensign Stake. She worked with Sister Cobb, Sister Ruth May Fox, and Sister Martha Horn and also served on the General Board of the Relief Society.
In 1886 she took up the study of obstetrics and nursing, being the first graduated pupil of Dr. Margaret Roberts. She was set apart for her work by Apostle Franklin D. Richards, John Henry Smith and Heber J. Grant.
In 1887 Mary went on a visit to the Sandwich Islands where her husband was on a mission and in exile. She stayed only a short time but was well received. She accepted the gifts of fruit and food that were so graciously brought to her dwelling place and then just as graciously fed them back to her visitors. They liked this very much.
Mary T. Smith was the proud mother of seven children, six sons and one daughter. Her eldest son, John, was born at the old Smith home in the Sixteenth Ward in 1888. Once again Mary entered the lists of medical students, this time under Dr. Mattie Hughes Cannon. Her second son, Calvin, was born in 1890, and in 1892 Mary moved to Franklin, Idaho, to make a home or a place of refuge for the family in case of need.
Her third and fourth sons, Samuel and James, were born in Franklin in 1892 and 1894. Here she made lasting friendships with Julia Nibley, Sister Elna Merrill, Sister Eccles and Sister Stoddard who were also there in exile. They had some happy times and some tragic times before she moved back to Salt Lake to a home on Ninth East. Here Agnes and Silas were born. Then she moved to East North Temple and here Royal was born. Mary wanted him named after President Grant because she thought so much of his mother, but Royal was prefixed to Grant because Papa said he was a royal baby. Often Mary took off for Holladay or elsewhere. Her children had fun while she put up provisions for the winter. Then when it was “safe” she came home again.
In 1910 there was a trip to Europe with President Smith who was not too well. She cared for him tenderly during the trip, hoarding his strength for his public duties.
Soon after coming home she obtained a piece of land to farm, because she could not find anyone to hire her sons. Summers she took the boys and Agnes out to the farm to work. Samuel, then the eldest son home, was seventeen and James fifteen, when this project was started. Often Mary walked the entire distance from Murray to Taylorsville to care for chickens on the farm. She was a woman of great energy and purpose and determination.
All her life she was loyal to the Church and to President Smith’s family. She tried to do the best she could for all she knew. Her greatest wish expresses her concern for “papa” and his family.
She says, “Papa’s family is wonderful. I only hope they remember how much he loved them all and uphold him in every way. By their conduct never, never bring sorrow, hurt, or dishonor to him, but bring joy to him because of their faithfulness.”
Mary loved company. She loved to invite President Smith’s friends and associates to dinner and to social activities. Her major concern was her family. She devoted almost her entire energy to feeding, clothing, directing and teaching them. Her mind was inquisitive. In the midst of all her motherly cares, she was still a student and her home was filled with the choicest books. She was one of the first Utah subscribers to the new elegant Encyclopedia Brittanica and acquired volumes of classics.
She was honest and trustworthy. She went without rather than to borrow or charge something if she could not pay for it. If she said she would do something, she always did it.
She liked pretty things. She collected coins and other interesting items. She collected flowers made of people’s hair. She played the piano and practiced whenever she had the opportunity. She liked pretty clothing. One time she got brave and bought a beautiful dress. She looked wonderful in it. When papa saw her in it he said he would pay for it if it broke the bank. She was a beautiful woman and was known all over for her beauty.
Mary was a great admirer of Karl G. Maeser. She told the children that when she stood in his presence she felt like she was standing in the presence of an angel of God. Uncleanliness and disorder were out of place in such a presence. She wanted her children to be educated and she made great sacrifices to that end. She said, “Education does something for and to people. I don’t know what it is, but it is good for them.” She sent all her children through college and three of them have acquired doctor’s degrees and only marriage prevented Agnes from getting her degree.
“As a pioneer daughter born in 1865 out in Holladay, Mary knew the rigors of work. This knowledge became the inheritance of her sons and daughter, each of whom has honored her with distinguished achievement.”
After Papa’s death, she became a worker in the Salt Lake Temple. She
took a name through almost daily in the course of her services as a worker.
She served here faithfully’ for thirty year s and was known affectionately as “Aunt Mary” by the other officials in the Temple. “It will always be difficult to recall Aunt Mary without thinking of her years of daily and dedicated service in the Salt Lake Temple, of her ‘mothering’ everyone who was discouraged by his problems, of her taking a kettle of soup to a sick neighbor and of her speaking frankly and plainly about matters she thought important, for Aunt Mary was a woman of conviction.”
President David O. McKay said of Mary “I think her noblest achievement, as it is of any woman, is in the family which she’s reared.
“It’s probably unwise to say which is the greatest profession or occupation in the world. Teachers are ever ready to say its teaching. Physicians, realizing the great good they do, are willing to say that is the greatest profession. But I think we will all agree that a profession that incorporates love, the divinest attribute of the human soul , and the great element of service, is probably the greatest in all the world. And that’s motherhood.
“It’s something to paint a picture that will bring forth the admiration and
praise of artists. It’s worthwhile, indeed, to write a book that will influence millions. But the greatest is to rear a family of sons and daughters who will be loyal to truth, honest, upright, faithful citizens, and servants in the Kingdom of God. And that’s what Aunt Mary has done, the noblest of all professions.”