This program was created by Sariah Silver Hillam for the Joseph F. Smith Family Reunion held on Monday, November 14th, 2011. It is dedicated to Rick Silver, who inspired its creation in his comments to the author after the previous year’s reunion in 2010, and who was kind enough to run the PowerPoint presentation during the program in 2011. The five parts of this document are each followed by references to the sources and websites their information and the corresponding pictures were taken from, with links where possible. A slightly abbreviated form of the entire document was read in the program while the PowerPoint was shown in the background. Readers currently at the approximate age Joseph F. Smith was at the time of each section read a selection from Joseph F. Smith’s own account. Each of these readings are included in the text, though it should be noted the first was considerably edited in the program for easier reading by a child.
As is the tradition, living grandchildren of Joseph F. Smith were recognized and wore yellow boutineers at the reunion. Children who had turned 8 or 12 in the past year were given a small packet of candy and a candy kiss, since “Papa” would always greet family with a kiss and give children candy from a secret pocket in his coat. They were also given a copy of the postcard he had made up and sent to one of his granddaughters, Lucy Mack Smith, the first child born to him and Alice Ann Kimball Smith together, and the great-grandmother of the author. (A facsimile can be found in Holzapfel and Shupe’s 2000 biography of Joseph F. Smith, p 200.)