Show Me Missouri: Nauvoo (6.21.24)

Dave and I have visited LDS history sites so often and with so many family members that there is a rich patina of memory on all Church sites.  In July 2013, for our family reunion in the Massachusetts Berkshires, we met Camille's family in Ohio and visited Kirtland, Ohio, together.  Kirtland was the first major gathering place for Church members after the Church was organized in upstate New York.
 

On the way to our family reunion in Tennessee in 2011, Lisa's family stopped with us in Nauvoo, Illinois.  Illinois was the third gathering place for Church members, before they crossed the prairie to Utah.  The second gathering place was disastrous Missouri.

The first Church site we visited, on our drive from Missouri to Nauvoo this year, was Carthage Jail, where the Church's first president, Joseph Smith, was murdered in July 1844.  Dave and I have a soft spot in our hearts for young women missionaries, since four of our granddaughters have served as missionaries.  This statue is of Joseph Smith and his brother, Hyrum, who were killed by mobbers who broke into the Carthage Jail.  Joseph and Hyrum were imprisoned on trumped up charges.

We saw the room where the jailers lived, below the prison in which Joseph Smith and Hyrum were kept.

We saw the cell where Joseph Smith and Hyrum were held, until the jailer moved them into a room with windows and more light.

We saw the room into which the mobbers shot, killing Joseph Smith and his brother, Hyrum.

And we saw the second story window through which Joseph Smith fell, after he was shot.

We drove on to beautiful Nauvoo, where LDS Church members lived and built a city between 1839 and 1844.  Nauvoo has now been restored, with many historical buildings to visit.

Talented young dancers and singers audition to serve three months as missionaries in Nauvoo during the summer, giving performances at the Visitors Center and throughout the restored area.  This presentation focused on the life of Joseph Smith in Nauvoo.

This spring the Church bought several historical sites from the Community of Christ, a breakoff church which is losing interest in its historical roots.  One of those buildings is the Red Brick Store which Joseph Smith managed, and in which he held many religious meetings.

The entertainment missionaries reenacted an early meeting of the Relief Society, which has now become the largest organized women's group in the world.

We saw the tombs of Joseph and Hyrum Smith.  My great-grandfather, Thomas Cottam, was in Nauvoo when their bodies were brought back from Carthage.  Grandfather Cottam later said that he thought that the Church would fall apart after the death of Joseph Smith and that he would return to England.  Instead, the Church has now grown to 17 million members and Grandfather Cottam lived a productive life as a furniture maker in St George, Utah.  He created chairs for the St. George Temple and Brigham Young's winter home in St. George.

One moving statue was that of Joseph Smith and Hyrum, preparing to leave Nauvoo for the last time, as they rode to Carthage.

We visited many restored homes of Nauvoo residents, prominent and not.  I especially enjoyed visiting the home of Orson Hyde, who baptized my ancestors in England.  He later traveled to Jerusalem to bless that land and predict that there would someday be missionary work there.  That time has not yet arrived, but, as a college student, my daughter Camille spent a semester at the BYU Jerusalem Center, built on the Mount of Olives.

Another interesting home was that of the architect of the Nauvoo Temple. It included many of his drawings.  The Nauvoo Temple was burned and abandoned when LDS Church members left Nauvoo in 1845 and 1846, but it was rebuilt in ____.  

I am interested in Victorian interior decoration.  It is definitely "fussy", with lots of color and many contrasting patterns.  Adult missionaries, as well as young people, serve in Nauvoo.  Dave's sister, Nancy Moench, and her husband, Darrell, were missionaries in Nauvoo.

We also visited the Heber C. Kimball house, where the Nauvoo restoration began.  LeGrand Kimball, the father of our longtime neighbor, Bill Kimball, bought this house and renovated it for his family as a summer home.  He then had the dream of renovating all of Nauvoo, so not just his family, but anyone else who was interested could enjoy it.

We drove to the banks of the Mississippi, where another statue of Joseph and Hyrum gestured out across the water.  Several of my ancestors crossed from Nauvoo across the Mississippi into Iowa, and then on to Salt Lake City.  They included the Romneys, Cottams, Hamiltons, Bennions, and Hills.  Each family has left us wonderful pioneer stories.

The spire of the Nauvoo Temple, with its statue of Moroni, from the Book of Mormon, on top, is a symbol to me of faith and hope.