“Heirs of Salvation,” chapter 13 of Saints: The Story of the Church of Jesus Christ in the Latter Days, Volume 3, Boldly, Nobly, and Independent, 1893–1955 (2022)
Chapter 13: “Heirs of Salvation”
Chapter 13
Heirs of Salvation
In January 1917, Susa Gates traveled to New York City to visit a sick friend, Elizabeth McCune, who served with her on the Relief Society general board. Elizabeth and her husband, Alfred, had moved to New York that winter so Alfred could conduct business in the city. When Susa learned about her friend’s illness, she came at once to help her recuperate. By the time she arrived, however, Elizabeth was already on the mend. Still, she urged Susa to stay and keep her company. While there, Susa could use the city’s libraries to conduct genealogical research, which had become an all-consuming part of her Church service.
In Denmark fifteen years earlier, Susa had fallen gravely ill while attending a meeting of the International Council of Women. She sought a blessing from apostle Francis Lyman, the president of the European Mission at the time, who blessed her not to fear death and promised that she had a work to do in the spirit world. But then, midway through the blessing, he paused for about two minutes. “There has been a council held in heaven,” he finally told Susa, “and it has been decided you shall live to perform temple work, and you shall do a greater work than you have ever done before.”1
After recovering from her illness, Susa had dedicated herself to genealogy and temple work. She became active in the Genealogical Society of Utah, a Church-run organization created after Wilford Woodruff’s 1894 revelation on temple sealings. She began working in the Salt Lake Temple, teaching genealogy classes, and writing a weekly column on family history for the Deseret Evening News.
When Susa and Elizabeth McCune became members of the Relief Society general board in 1911, they made genealogy and temple work a new priority for the women of the Church. They visited wards and branches in the United States and Canada and trained Saints to do research on their ancestry. Susa also wrote genealogy lessons for the Relief Society Magazine, and, at the request of the general board, she was currently writing a reference book to aid Saints in their family history work.2
While in New York City, Susa researched McCune family names at the library as well. She also did her best to give Elizabeth all the love and attention she could offer.
The day before Susa was scheduled to return home, Elizabeth felt well enough to attend a Relief Society meeting at the Eastern States Mission headquarters in the city. Susa spoke to the women about genealogical research. Even though the number of Latter-day Saint women in New York City was small, she felt the Spirit powerfully among them.3
On her return trip, Susa stopped in two other cities to visit the Saints. After one meeting, a branch president stopped to speak with her. “I always enjoy the testimonies of the aged,” he said, “and love to hear an old person speak of their experiences.”
Susa laughed inside. “You are an aged person, Susa, do you hear?” she told herself. She was sixty years old, but she still had years ahead of her—and so much more work to do.4
“We are living in critical times,” Joseph F. Smith acknowledged as he opened the Church’s April 1917 general conference. Newspapers throughout Utah were filled with alarming reports of German aggression against the United States.5 For the past two and a half years, the United States had remained neutral in the war. But Germany had recently renewed its policy of unrestricted submarine warfare, making American ships vulnerable to attack. German officials had also sought an alliance with Mexico, creating a pathway to attack the United States from the south. In response, the U.S. Congress had authorized President Woodrow Wilson to declare war on Germany.6
Standing at the pulpit of the Salt Lake Tabernacle, President Smith understood that many Saints in the congregation were anxious and fearful. He encouraged them to seek for peace, happiness, and the well-being of the human family. “If we do our duty today, as members of the Church and as citizens of our state,” he said, “we need not greatly fear what tomorrow may bring forth.”7
President Wilson formally declared war later that day. Nearly five thousand young men from Utah—most of them Latter-day Saints—soon enlisted.8 Many women in the Church joined the Red Cross to serve as wartime nurses. American Saints who could not enlist in the armed forces supported their country in other ways, such as by purchasing government-issued “Liberty Bonds” to help fund the war. Betty McCune, Elizabeth’s daughter, learned to operate and service an automobile and became an ambulance driver. Elder B. H. Roberts of the Seventy volunteered to serve as one of three Latter-day Saint chaplains in the army.9
Shortly after general conference, Joseph F. Smith traveled to Hawaii and observed the progress on the temple in Laie. Under the direction of foremen Hamana Kalili and David Haili, workers had already completed the outside of the temple and were now busily finishing its interior. Built from reinforced concrete and lava rocks from the nearby mountains, the Hawaii Temple was cross-shaped and had no steeple. Cement sculptures of scriptural scenes, cast by Utah artists Leo and Avard Fairbanks, adorned the outside of the building.10
In October, a month before his seventy-ninth birthday, the prophet told the Saints that he was beginning to feel old. “I think I am just about as young as I ever was in my life in spirit,” he told them, “but my body gets tired, and I want to tell you, sometimes my poor old heart quivers considerably.”11
His health continued to decline as the year came to an end, and he began seeing a doctor regularly at the start of 1918. Around the same time, his son Hyrum became ill as well. Sixteen months had passed since the end of Hyrum’s tenure as president of the European Mission, and during that time he had been healthy and strong. Still, Joseph was anxious about his welfare. Hyrum had always occupied a special place in his heart, and Joseph found immense joy in his son’s service and devotion to the Lord. He even reminded Joseph of his own father, the patriarch Hyrum Smith.12
Hyrum’s sickness became more serious with each passing day. He felt severe pain in his abdomen, a sign he had appendicitis. His friends urged him to go to the hospital for an operation, but he refused. “I have kept the Word of Wisdom,” he said, “and the Lord will take care of me.”
On January 19, the pain became almost unbearable. Hyrum’s wife, Ida, notified Joseph immediately, and he prayed earnestly for his son’s recovery. Apostles Orson F. Whitney and James E. Talmage, meanwhile, joined Hyrum at his bedside and watched over him during the night. A group of doctors and specialists, including Dr. Ralph T. Richards, Joseph’s nephew, also attended him.
After examining the patient, Dr. Richards feared that Hyrum had waited too long to seek medical help, and he pleaded with him to go to the hospital. “There is only one chance in a thousand if you go now,” he warned Hyrum. “Will you take it?”
“Yes,” Hyrum said.13
At the hospital, the doctors took two x-rays and decided to remove Hyrum’s appendix. During the procedure, Dr. Richards discovered that the appendix had ruptured, spreading toxic bacteria throughout Hyrum’s abdomen.
Hyrum survived the procedure, but Joseph remained weak with anxiety and spent the afternoon lying down, unable to eat. Hyrum seemed to gain strength that evening, which lifted Joseph’s spirits. Filled with gratitude and relief, he returned to his duties as Church president.
Then, three days after Hyrum’s surgery, Joseph received a telephone call from the hospital. Despite many prayers and the careful work of the doctors, Hyrum had passed away. Joseph was speechless. He needed Hyrum, and the Church needed Hyrum. Why was his life not spared?
Overcome with grief, Joseph poured out his anguish in his journal. “My soul is rent asunder,” he wrote. “And now what can I do! Oh! What can I do! My soul is rent, my heart broken! Oh! God help me!”14
A cloud of sorrow hung over the Smith family in the days after Hyrum’s death. There were Saints questioning his decision not to go immediately to the hospital. “If he had gone when first spoken to,” some said, “he might have lived.” Presiding bishop Charles Nibley, a close friend of the family, agreed. Hyrum’s faith in the Word of Wisdom was well intentioned, he noted, but the Lord had also provided skilled men and women who were scientifically trained to care for the body.15
Seeking comfort in their loss, the Smiths gathered at the Beehive House, Brigham Young’s old home where Joseph F. Smith lived. Being together eased some of their sadness and gave the family a chance to rejoice in Hyrum’s honorable and faithful life. But everyone remained stunned by his death.16
Ida, his widow, was speechless with grief. She and Hyrum had been married for twenty-two years. During that time, Hyrum would sometimes say, “Now, look, if I ever die first, I’m not going to leave you here very long.”17 He meant it as a playful expression of love and affection. Neither he nor Ida could have known how soon and unexpected his death would be.
On March 21, 1918, Hyrum’s forty-sixth birthday, Ida invited his closest friends over to her house for a small party to remember his life. As they reminisced about their friend, sometimes telling humorous stories, the conversation turned heartfelt. Orson F. Whitney, who had long been a friend to Hyrum and Ida, recited a poem about God’s perfect plan for His children.
Sometime, when all life’s lessons have been learned,
And sun and stars forevermore have set,
The things which our weak judgment here have spurned,
The things o’er which we grieved with lashes wet,
Will flash before us out of life’s dark night,
As stars shine most in deeper tints of blue;
And we shall see how all God’s plans were right,
And what most seemed reproof was love most true!
Ida loved the poem, and she told Orson that its message was one she had longed to hear since Hyrum’s death. But the evening was a strain on her emotions. When the guests gathered around the dining table, she could not help but cry when she saw the vacant chair where Hyrum usually sat.18
One of her few consolations was knowing she and Hyrum would have one more baby. She had learned that she was pregnant shortly after her husband’s death. She immediately invited her older sister Margaret to move in with her to help with the other four children, whose ages ranged from nineteen to six years. Margaret accepted her invitation.
Ida’s health was good all summer, yet she acted as if she were preparing for her own death. “There’s nothing wrong with you,” Margaret would tell her. “You’re going to live.”19
Yet, as the end of her pregnancy drew near, she seemed convinced she would not live long after the birth of her child. While visiting with her mother-in-law, Edna Smith, Ida spoke as though she was anxious to be with Hyrum in the spirit world. She said they could do important work together on the other side of the veil.20
On Wednesday, September 18, Ida delivered a healthy baby boy. Afterward, she told her mother that Margaret would raise him. “I know I am going home to Hyrum and will have to leave my children,” she said. “So please pray for my baby and for my lovely children. I know the Lord will bless them.”21
The following Sunday, Ida felt as if Hyrum was at her side all day. “I heard his voice,” she told her family. “I felt his presence.”22
A few days later, her nephew burst into his family’s home. “I just saw Uncle Hyrum go into Aunt Ida’s house,” he told his mother.
“That’s ridiculous,” his mother said. “He’s dead.”
“I saw him,” the boy insisted. “I saw him with my own eyes.”
Mother and son walked over to the Smith house, just a few doors down. There they found out that Ida was gone. She had died earlier that evening from heart failure.23
Joseph F. Smith’s family did not immediately tell him about Ida’s passing, afraid the news would crush him. He had grown more frail since Hyrum’s death, and he had rarely appeared in public over the last five months. On the day after Ida’s death, however, family members brought her newborn son to Joseph, and he wept as he blessed the baby and named him Hyrum. The family then told him about Ida.
To everyone’s surprise, Joseph received the news calmly.24 So much suffering and pain had descended on the world lately. The daily newspapers contained horrific reports on the war. Millions of soldiers and civilians had already been killed, and millions more had been maimed and wounded. Earlier that summer, the soldiers from Utah had arrived in Europe and witnessed the unrelenting brutality of the war. And now more young Latter-day Saints were preparing to join the fight, including some of Joseph’s sons. His son Calvin, in fact, was already on the front lines in France, serving with B. H. Roberts as an army chaplain.
A deadly strain of influenza had also begun taking lives throughout the world, compounding the pain and heartache of the war. The virus was spreading at an alarming rate, and Utah was only days away from shutting down its theaters, churches, and other public places in hopes of stopping the wave of disease and death.25
On October 3, 1918, Joseph sat in his room, reflecting on the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the redemption of the world. He opened his New Testament to 1 Peter and read about the Savior preaching to the spirits in the spirit world. “For this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead,” he read, “that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.”
As he pondered the scriptures, the prophet felt the Spirit descend upon him, opening his eyes of understanding. He saw multitudes of the dead in the spirit world. Righteous women and men who had died before the Savior’s mortal ministry were joyfully waiting for His advent there to declare their liberation from the bands of death.
The Savior appeared to the multitude, and the righteous spirits rejoiced in their redemption. They knelt before Him, acknowledging Him as their Savior and Deliverer from death and the chains of hell. Their countenances shone as light from the presence of the Lord radiated around them. They sang praises to His name.26
As Joseph marveled at the vision, he again reflected on the words of Peter. The host of disobedient spirits was far greater than the host of righteous spirits. How could the Savior, during His brief visit to the spirit world, possibly preach His gospel to all of them?27
Joseph’s eyes were then opened again, and he understood that the Savior did not go in person to the disobedient spirits. Rather, he organized the righteous spirits, appointing messengers and commissioning them to carry the gospel message to the spirits in darkness. In this way, all people who died in transgression or without a knowledge of the truth could learn about faith in God, repentance, vicarious baptism for the remission of sin, the gift of the Holy Ghost, and all other essential principles of the gospel.
Gazing upon the vast congregation of righteous spirits, Joseph saw Adam and his sons Abel and Seth. He beheld Eve standing with her faithful daughters who had worshipped God throughout the ages. Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses were also there, along with Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and other prophets from the Old Testament and Book of Mormon. So too was the prophet Malachi, who prophesied that Elijah would come to plant the promises made to the fathers in the hearts of the children, preparing the way for temple work and the redemption of the dead in the latter days.28
Joseph F. Smith also saw Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff, and others who had laid the foundation of the Restoration. Among them was his martyred father, Hyrum Smith, whose face he had not seen in seventy-four years. They were some of the noble and great spirits who had been chosen before mortality to come forth in the latter days and labor for the salvation of all God’s children.
The prophet then perceived that the faithful elders of this dispensation would continue their labor in the next life by preaching the gospel to the spirits who were in darkness and under the bondage of sin.
“The dead who repent will be redeemed, through obedience to the ordinances of the house of God,” he observed, “and after they have paid the penalty of their transgressions, and are washed clean, shall receive a reward according to their works, for they are heirs of salvation.”29
When the vision closed, Joseph pondered all that he had seen. The next morning, he surprised the Saints by attending the first session of the October general conference despite his poor health. Determined to speak to the congregation, he stood unsteadily at the pulpit, his large frame shaking from the effort. “For more than seventy years I have been a worker in this cause with your fathers and progenitors,” he said, “and my heart is just as firmly set with you today as it ever has been.”30
Lacking the strength to speak of his vision without being overcome by emotion, he merely alluded to it. “I have not lived alone these five months,” he told the congregation. “I have dwelt in the spirit of prayer, of supplication, of faith, and of determination, and I have had my communication with the Spirit of the Lord continuously.”
“It is a happy meeting this morning for me,” he said. “God Almighty bless you.”31
About a month after the fall general conference, Susa and Jacob Gates went to the Beehive House to pick up a box of apples from the Smith family. When they arrived, Joseph F. Smith called for Susa to join him in his sickroom, where he had lain bedridden for weeks.
Susa did her best to comfort him, as he had comforted her family in the past. But she was discouraged about her Church service.32 Aside from Elizabeth McCune, who had donated a thousand dollars to the Genealogical Society of Utah the year before, few women on the Relief Society general board seemed enthusiastic about family history or temple work. In fact, some board members had proposed abandoning monthly Relief Society genealogy lessons, which stake Relief Society leaders had recently criticized for being too difficult and not spiritual enough.33
“Susa,” Joseph said as they spoke, “you are doing a great work.”
Embarrassed, Susa replied, “I am certainly busy enough.”34
“You are doing a great work,” he insisted, “greater than you know anything about.” He told her that he loved her for her faith and devotion to the truth. He then asked his wife Julina to bring him a paper. As she did so, Jacob and a few other people joined them in the room.
With everyone gathered, Joseph asked Susa to read the paper. She took it and was astonished by what she read. As a prophet, Joseph had always tried to be cautious when speaking about revelation and other spiritual matters. But here, in her hands, was an account of a vision he had seen of the spirit world. He had dictated the revelation to one of his sons, apostle Joseph Fielding Smith, ten days after general conference. Then, on October 31, the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve had read the vision and fully endorsed its content.
As Susa read the revelation, she was moved that it mentioned Eve and other women serving alongside the prophets in the same great work. It was the first time that any revelation she knew of spoke of women laboring with their husbands and fathers on the Lord’s errand.
Later, after saying goodbye to Joseph and his family, Susa felt blessed for having read the revelation before it had been made public. “Oh, it was a comfort to me!” she wrote in her journal. “To know the heavens are still opened, to have Eve and her daughters remembered, and above all—to have this given at a time when our temple work and workers and our genealogy need such encouragement.”
She could hardly wait for Elizabeth McCune to read it. “It is a view or vision of all of these great ones laboring on the other side for the salvation of the spirits in prison,” she told her friend in a letter. “Think of the impetus this revelation will give to temple work throughout the Church!”35
On November 11, 1918, the armies in Europe agreed to an armistice, ending four years of war. The influenza pandemic, however, continued to spread, eventually leaving millions of victims in its wake. In many places, the rhythms of everyday life ceased. People began wearing cloth masks over their noses and mouths to protect themselves and prevent the spread of the virus. Newspapers regularly published the names of the dead.36
A week after the cease-fire, Heber J. Grant decided to check on Joseph F. Smith at the Beehive House. Heber was now the president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, the next man in line to lead the Church. He was not eager to take on the responsibilities of the Church president. He had hoped and prayed that Joseph would live twelve more years—long enough to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of the Church. Even now he did not believe that Joseph would die.
At the Beehive House, Joseph’s son David met him at the door and invited him to come speak with his father. Heber hesitated, however, not wanting to disturb the prophet.
“You had better see him,” David said. “It may be your last chance.”37
Heber found Joseph lying in bed, awake and breathing heavily. Joseph took his hand and pressed it firmly. Heber looked into his eyes and saw the prophet’s love for him.
“The Lord bless you, my boy,” Joseph said. “You have got a great responsibility. Always remember this is the Lord’s work and not man’s. The Lord is greater than any man. He knows who He wants to lead His Church and never makes any mistake.”38
Joseph released his hand, and Heber stepped into a side office and wept. He went home, ate his evening meal, and then returned to the Beehive House to see Joseph one more time. Anthon Lund, Joseph’s counselor in the First Presidency, was there with Joseph’s wives and several of his sons. Joseph was in great pain, and he asked Heber and Anthon to give him a blessing.
“Brethren,” he said, “pray that I may be released.”
Joined by Joseph’s sons, they placed their hands on his head. They spoke of the joy and happiness they had shared while laboring with him. And then they asked the Lord to call him home.39