Category Archives: Board of Trustees

Letter from the Board – 2024

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Dear Joseph F. Smith Family,

I am pleased to invite you to attend our annual Joseph F. Smith Family Reunion in celebration of Papa’s 186th birthday where we will enjoy another opportunity to gather, honor his life and remember the noble heritage with which we are blessed. It will be great to see you there!

One day prior to last year’s reunion, our beloved family champion President M. Russell Ballard passed beyond the Veil. We offer our love and condolences to his family and express our deep gratitude for his apostolic leadership, support and love over many decades. His wisdom and influence are greatly missed by us all.  

The 2024 Joseph F. Smith Family Reunion will be held on Monday, November 11, with registration beginning at 6:30 PM and the program at 7:00 PM. We will gather at the usual location: Monument Park Stake Center, 1320 South Wasatch Drive, Salt Lake City, Utah.

Our presenter this year is Dr. Kenneth L. Alford, a professor of Church history and doctrine at Brigham Young University. A retired colonel in the US Army, he has published and presented on a wide variety of American and Church history subjects, with a specialty in the Doctrine and Covenants. He has been invited to share with us his experiences working on the Hyrum Smith Papers project. (Additional information about his career is available on the JFS family website, https://josephfsmith.org.

A children’s program will also be provided. Please remember that it is for children ages 3-7. Parents are to pick up their children immediately after the adult program concludes.

For those unable to attend in person, the reunion will be live-streamed on Facebook and available for later viewing at https://www.facebook.com/jfsfamily.

As announced last year, all family members are now responsible to review, update and maintain their own family contact information by using the https://josephfsmith.org/subscribe website. Please access this website on a regular basis to keep your family contact info up to date. As a reminder, all data stewards have been released from this responsibility and we again thank them for their countless hours of selfless service.

Your donations to the family organization are most appreciated and help cover the cost of printing, postage, refreshments, website domain renewal costs, etc. The suggested donation amount this year is $10 to $30 per household. You can make your donation at the reunion registration table, send a personal check or use the online bill-pay feature at your bank or credit union. Thank you for your contributions. 

Make checks payable to: Joseph F. Smith Family Association
c/o Paul Smith – Treasurer, 2273 West Smith Legacy Cove, Taylorsville, Utah 84129

We love you and hope that you will actively participate in carrying on the Smith Family legacy by living the gospel, strengthening your family and reporting family contact-information changes. May we keep our family connected and united in faith! You might even consider volunteering to serve on the family board. It is a great experience getting to know our “cousins.” 

Craig M. Smith
2024 JFS Family Association Chairman

Letter from the Board – 10/01/2017

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Dear Cousins!

We have a great program this year. Some wonderful Hawaiian saints, who “want to honor your Grandfather and his descendants for his lifelong efforts for the people of Hawaii”, are coming all the way from Hawaii to do just that!  Shannon and Kimo Kanekoa who run an LDS Historical Tours business on Maui and are faithful members of the LDS Church, thanks to Joseph F. Smith and others, have much to share in honor of our ancestor. They will talk about ancient Hawaiian religious traditions that correlate with the restored gospel. They will provide insights about the Iosepa (Joseph) colony in Skull Valley that Joseph F. Smith started and where descendants of those early Hawaiians still meet for “spirit-filled reunions”. We will hear about the Authentic Hawaiian Voyaging Canoe, built at BYU-Hawaii, and is named for Joseph F. (another Iosepa). We will hear from a young Hawaiian whose name means “The Keeper of the Record” after his great-great-grandfather, along with some Hawaiian genealogy of those who were first converted to the gospel by Joseph F. and those who accompanied him. The Kanekoas have arranged for the Utah Polynesian Choir to sing for us as well – in Hawaiian and English. Perhaps you thought you knew all about Joseph’s visits to Hawaii. Come and see if you can learn something new and amazing!

Don’t miss this reunion/birthday celebration/Family Home Evening! It will be on:

Monday, November 13, 2017
At the Monument Park Stake Center (1320 East Wasatch Drive)
Registration begins at 6:30 PM. Program will start promptly at 7:00 PM.

As always, we will honor our 8- and 12-year-old family members. They will be singing “We’ll Bring the World His Truth,” so remember to practice a little. The children’s program, for children ages 3-7, will be held in the Primary area of the building. Light refreshments will be served following the program.

Some family members have expressed an interest in a program for children older than our 3- to7-year-old group. If you have ideas for such a program, or would be interested in helping, please send your ideas to Julie Goodro, juliengoodro@hotmail.com  As Vivian McConkie, our Educational Outreach officer says, “I absolutely believe that the youth are the most important members of the family and that it is more important to reach them than anyone!”

For next year’s program, we are requesting any stories about Papa that you might have heard from your grandparents, parents, etc.  Email the stories ASAP to Andrea Black, abmomof6@gmail.com. Thank you!

Upcoming Joseph Smith, Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith Family Reunions

August 2-5, 2018 – in Salt Lake City, Utah
August 6-9, 2020 – in Palmyra, New York

For questions, contact Steve Orton, steve.ortonio@gmail.com, or Frances Orton, ortonfrances@gmail.com.

Please make a family donation so our reunion can continue to be an annual event. To make the reunion happen we research family names and addresses and send out nearly 5000 invitations each year. The money covers postage, refreshments, website domain renewal, sharing family history research, etc. Suggested donation is $10-$50 per household. You can make your donation at the reunion or through the website http://josephfsmith.org/. Last year, sadly, we did not receive enough to cover reunion expenses. Thank you for your contributions!

We hope you will be active participants in carrying on the Smith Family legacy by attending the reunion, helping to keep our family connected, by reporting updates to Data Stewards, and perhaps volunteering to help on a committee.

With love,

Julie Nichols Goodro
2017 Committee Chairman

Letter from the Board – October 2, 2016

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Dearest Cousins,

It is that time of year again when we have the privilege to come together to celebrate our heritage as descendants of Joseph F. Smith.  Please join us for the annual family reunion/birthday celebration/Family Home Evening on:

Monday, November 14th, 2016
at the Monument Park Stake Center (1320 East Wasatch Drive)
Registration begins at 6:30 p.m. and the program will start promptly at 7:00 p.m.

This year we will be privileged to hear from Michael F. Hemingway. Brother Hemingway is currently the Director of Proselyting for the Missionary Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. He served as the mission president of the New York Rochester Mission from 2007 to 2010. Because of his service there, Brother Hemingway has a great knowledge of the Church historic sites in that part of the country. He will be sharing stories about the influence that Joseph F. Smith had in procuring many of the historic sites in the New York and Vermont areas.

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Letter from the Board – September 30, 2014

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Dear Cousins:

Greetings from the Trustees and Officers of the Joseph F. Smith Family Association. We are looking forward to our annual family gathering in celebration of “grandpapa’s” birthday. Joseph F. Smith, our “grandpapa”, greatly valued his large family. He said, “the richest of all my earthly joys is in my precious children,” (Life of Joseph F. Smith, comp. Joseph Fielding Smith, 1938, 449.) We ALL are of this noble heritage. We carry on “grandpapa’s” value of a loving, strong family by meetings together. We hope you will join with us for this event.

FAMILY INTERESTS AND CONCERNS

    • Honoring our 8 yr. olds and our 12 yr. olds. We all will sing, “We’ll Bring the World His Truth”
    • Family Names and Addresses. Special message from our main data steward, Mary Donoho:

“Yesterday I met a very delightful charming, gifted, charismatic, faithful Latter-day Saint. He was teaching a class I was attending in Advanced Internet Research. I discovered he was a descendant of Joseph F. Smith. No, he isn’t getting our invitations and family updates. No, he doesn’t know which wife of Joseph F. he descends from. He isn’t the only one missing from our database. Maybe this doesn’t bother you, but it bothers Grandpapa Joseph F. Smith. (I know this because sometimes the veil gets very thin.) PLEASE help us update. Fill out the contact information sheet for your family. You can send it snail mail or lightning speed e-mail to your family representative (Names listed in the reunion program) or send it to Andrew with your family dues or send it to me.” Mary Donoho, 9871 N West Crimson Ct, Highland, Utah 84003; thomasj@pathstone.us; 801 756-7305

We are challenging the great grandchildren of Joseph F. Smith to make sure their information is correct as well as submitting the contact information for their children and their grandchildren if they live in a household separate from their parents. What a great gift this would be.

  • Donations. Our donations pay for reunion expenses (mailing especially), special projects as they come to us and every two years a scholarship to one of our own. Suggestion: $15 per household. Pay: at the reunion, online, by PayPal. Thank you for your support!
  • Website: Please stop by the Website display at the reunion. It is a wonderful resource for the family.