Category Archives: Reunion

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 – 2023

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Dear Joseph F. Smith Family,

I am pleased to announce our upcoming Joseph F. Smith reunion in celebration of Papa’s birthday! What a blessing it is to join together in remembering and honoring the great heritage he left. It is such a delight to have another opportunity to gather as his family in commemorating the great work of the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We hope you will come join us!

Our presenter this year is church historian and curator, Andrea Maxfield, who has recently worked on restoring the Beehive Home to the Joseph F. Smith era. Some of you had an opportunity to tour the Beehive House, and anyone who did with Andrea, got a special treat. She is one of the rare experts on Papa, and can bring him to life like few can, so this reunion promises to be special! You can find additional information about Andrea this project on the family website.

We are grateful for the children’s program service provided and would like to remind the family that this program is for children ages 3-7.

The reunion will be:

When: Monday, November 13th at 7 pm
Where: Monument Park Stake Center
            1320 South Wasatch Drive
            Salt Lake City, Utah

The Reunion will also be live streamed on Facebook and will be available for later
viewing at https://www.facebook.com/jfsfamily

We would like to recognize the passing of Mary Donoho and express our sincere gratitude for the countless hours she spent as the family’s Principal Genealogy Data Steward & Address Coordinator. Our family has reached a tectonic shift in how we will maintain our family data. Please refer to the additional handout in this mailing for further details on how to manage your own data. We would like to thank all data stewards who have sacrificed their time and effort in maintaining that data to this point.

Please consider making a family donation so our reunion can continue to be an annual event.  The donations cover invitation postage, refreshments, website domain renewal, sharing family history research, etc.  Suggested donation this year is $10-30 per household.  You can make your donation at the reunion registration table or send it to the family treasurer’s address below.  Thank you for your contributions!

Joseph F. Smith Family Association
Paul Smith – Treasurer
2273 West Smith Legacy Cove
Taylorsville, Utah 84129

We love you and hope that you will be active participants in carrying on the Smith Family legacy by living the gospel, visiting the family website, strengthening your family, helping to keep our family connected, reporting to data stewards, and perhaps volunteering to serve on a committee, which is a great experience.  It is such a privilege to be part of a modern-day prophet’s family.

Sarah Richins
2023 JFS Reunion Committee Chairman

Links:
Online version of this letter
Contact Management Letter
2023 Program


Contact Management

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October 1, 2023

Dear Joseph F. Smith Family Members,

What a joy it is to gather as a family each November and celebrate the birthday of our beloved
grandfather, Joseph F. Smith! It is exciting to know that his posterity continues to grow and do
so exponentially! And with that growth comes the on-going challenge of keeping the family
contact information database up to date. Mary Donoho, who served as the Master Data Steward on the JFS Family Board, dedicated countless hours over many decades gathering and updating address and contact information for “Papa’s” ever-growing family. Many stalwart data stewards, who represented the families of Joseph F. Smith’s five wives, worked together keeping the JFS Family Database as current as possible. Then, in September of 2021, our dear Mary Donoho was called Home.

With Mary’s unexpected passing, the JFS Family Board has concluded that the JFS database upkeep has reached a pivot point where we need to change the model for managing family contacts. We will be using technology to improve the database upkeep, protect the privacy of family members and keep their information safe. To that end, the JFS Family Board has unanimously adopted the following approach regarding how the family contact information will be gathered, updated, and maintained for the foreseeable future:

1) All Data Stewards will be “released” from their duties with a huge THANK YOU for all their efforts to gather family contact information!

2) Each nuclear family will be responsible to keep their own family’s contact information updated. As children move out of their parent’s home and have their own physical address, they are responsible to update their own contact information.

3) To enter or update your contact information, please visit https://josephfsmith.org/subscribe and fill out the form. By doing so, each family member can make sure their physical address and/or email address is up to date.

4) Family members who keep their contact information current will receive their invitation to the annual family reunion by mail or email and be apprised of JFS Family news.

5) The deadline for entering or updating one’s contact information is October 1 of any given year.

We appreciate the opportunity to serve the posterity of Joseph F. Smith and hope this change will be supported by the family members as we continue to gather each year and celebrate “Papa’s” birthday.

Sincerely,

The 2023 Joseph F. Smith Family Board

Letter from the Board

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Dear Joseph F. Smith Family,

I’m delighted to announce, that after a 2-year hiatus, the reunion this year will again be in person!  We have missed seeing each other and invite each of you to attend.   On a personal note, my husband and I started bringing our kids to the JFS Reunion years ago, because we wanted them to know their remarkable family heritage.  What a blessing to descend from prophets like Joseph F. and his amazing parents, Hyrum and Mary Fielding Smith.  We wanted that heritage to be part of their personal identity to help fortify them in an increasingly secular world.  Come join us!

Our presenter this year is artist and official Smith Family portraitist, Julie Rogers.  Julie is especially well known for her many paintings of early Latter-Day Saint pioneers, but she has also painted members of the Joseph Smith Sr. family many times, and her recent work includes paintings of Hyrum and Mary Fielding, as well as Joseph F., some of which she will share at the reunion.  Julie will focus her presentation on her love for the Smith family and how she feels inspired to paint them.

The Last Embrace by Julie Rogers

The reunion will be:

When: Monday, November 14th at 7 pm
Where: Monument Park Stake Center
            1320 South Wasatch Drive
            Salt Lake City, Utah

The Reunion will also be live streamed on Facebook and will be available for later viewing at https://www.facebook.com/jfsfamily

Please notify your family data steward to update addresses, add missing family members, and let us know how you would like us to contact you for future reunions.  Names of data stewards are located on the back of your program—some families need new data stewards and volunteers are welcome!

Also, please consider making 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 over 2000 invitations each year.  The donations cover postage, refreshments, website domain renewal, sharing family history research, etc.  Suggested donation this year is $10-35 per household.  You can make your donation at the reunion registration table or send it to the family treasurer’s address below.  Thank you for your contributions!

            Joseph F. Smith Family Association
            Paul Smith – Treasurer
            2273 West Smith Legacy Cove
            Taylorsville, Utah 84129

We love you and hope that you will be active participants in carrying on the Smith Family legacy by living the gospel, visiting the family website, strengthening your family, helping to keep our family connected, reporting to data stewards, and perhaps volunteering to serve on a committee, which is a great experience.  It is such a privilege to be part of a modern-day prophet’s family.

Shauna Sandberg
2022 JFS Reunion Committee Chairman
shaunasandberg@yahoo.com