“From the first he was marked for a great man and a prophet ….
“A chubby barefooted boy, padding through the hot dust of a country town’s Main street, just such an unimportant little Middle West town as has known the boyhood of many a man whose name is now listed among the nation’s greatest men ….
“A husky, athletic little fellow he was, a leader even then, with the genius to organized all sorts of small deviltries, and ready to take the blame for the whole gang if the occasion demand ….
“Often he stopped in the quiet street to let the soft dust work up comfortingly between his toes. Sometimes an old man accosted him as he passed, a gentle old man with a flowing beard and a kind bright voice, or perhaps it was a gentleman who was not so old, stern and soldierly, but with a saving sense of humor in his eyes, or a tall and stooping figure with a voice of keen righteousness.
“’You will not forget, Freddie,’ admonished the old gentleman –oh, so many times a hand passed over the curly, sweaty head as one of them pointed out to him his destiny…’You will remember, Freddie, that you will some day have a great work to perform….
“And the boy would raise his wide brown eyes respectfully, for these men were his father’s friends, and with no trace of personal feeling in his manner he would answer simply, ‘No, sir I shall not forget.’ And he would trudge off sturdily ….”
Concerning the Prophet
FREDERICK MADISON SMITH
By
His Wife
RUTH LYMAN SMITH
REVISED EDITION
Kansas City, Missouri
Burton Publishing Company
Publishers
Copyright 1924 by
RUTH LYMAN SMITH
Kansas City, Missouri
PUBLISHED IN U.S.A.
On one occasion my husband paid me, among his rather infrequent compliments, one which has been partly responsible for the telling of this tale.
He told me that he considered quite remarkable the way in which I have always dissociated the fact that my daughters were of my own blood, and deeply beloved, from my study of their natures as I watched and aided their development since their babyhood, fitting them for their parts as units of society.
Do you suppose that a woman who has been able to do this with her children has not quietly done the same with her husband?
It has, therefore, afforded me a peculiar pleasure to set down certain incidents which reveal the characteristics of Frederick Madison Smith, president and prophet of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and which have largely been written as result of the analysis which I have made of him as he stands in his unique position.
As he may survey himself in this portrait I have drawn, I who know him best and am so dear to him – I wonder will he frown or smile?
To him, my husband, this book is dedicated.
THE CHAPTERS
1. At Sister Marietta’s Party
2. State University of Iowa
3. The Class of 1898
4. Our Engagement
5. The Wedding
6. A Cross Country Idyl
7. The Fourth Generation
8. Last Years in Lamoni
9. Another Sheepskin
10. Our Ecclesiastical Cousins
11. The Man at Home
12. Ph.D.
13. Publicity
14. Ordination
15. His Message