Item Detail
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Carter, Lucy Mack Smith
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1890-1933
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MSS SC 2129
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Diaries, 1913-1914
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Lucy Mack Smith was born on April 14, 1890 in Salt Lake City, Utah to Alice Ann Kimball and Joseph Fielding Smith, the prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. She was the daughter of Joseph F. Smith's fifth wife in polygamy. She married Ralph Charles Carter, also a native of Salt Lake City, on March 18, 1915 in the Salt Lake City LDS Temple. Lucy lived in Salt Lake City for the rest of her life and died there on November 24, 1933. She was the mother of eleven children.
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This collection consists of three 'Pocket Notes' notebooks. They are approximately four inches by seven inches with about one hundred lined pages in each one. The entries in these little diaries are handwritten in pencil. The first notebook has the title written by Lucy '1913 Lucy M. Smith Sunday School Primary Dept.' This notebook has several entries that appear to be outlines of lessons that she prepared for her classes. Lucy assigns a title to each lesson, an aim for the lesson, and a 'memory gem' something that she wants the students to take from the lesson. The first lesson is about the creation and is dated January 12, 1913. It is entitled 'The Beginning' and the aim is 'To show due reverence to God we must learn to revere God's creations' and the memory gem is 'In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth.' The lessons are simplified so that young children can easily understand. After these lessons it then goes on to a notation of meals eaten for a few days. Then a lesson is sketched out on the purposes of God, trials, and hardships that she indicates she gave to a group of Mexican refugees. In this first notebook she started writing beginning on one side of the notebook working toward the middle, but halfway through filling up this notebook she started from the backside working in with a set of journal entries centered on something entirely different. Beginning with November 24, 1913 she writes about a trip she took with her father, Joseph F. Smith, and some other family members. She indicates that her father spoke to many groups while visiting places in Arizona such as Tempe, Snowflake, Phoenix, Tucson, and Mesa. The last entry is dated December 14, 1913. The second notebook talks more about the day to day occurrences in her life. In an entry dated June 11, 1914 she indicates that her mother returned from France on that day where she had been to get her brother Andrew from a mission. Before her mother returned, Lucy was left to look after her two younger brothers and run the household, and she tells of the tasks left to her with this responsibility. She is left alone a lot due to the fact that her father did not live with them all of the time, and she tells of the trial of being lonely. In this notebook she also talks about her budding relationship with Ralph Carter. She explains happenings between the two of them and her thoughts and feelings on all of it. The last entry for this notebook is June 29, 1914. The third notebook starts with June 30, 1914 while she is on a trip with some friends to a canyon (probably Emigration Canyon in Utah). She talks about attending recitals in the Tabernacle on Temple Square in Salt Lake City and taking trips with friends to Salt Air [SLC] off of the Great Salt Lake. This notebook also has a lot of thoughts and feelings on her relationship with Ralph questions of whether or not to continue on with him. Eventually she tells of Ralph asking her to marry him and the arrangements that they made afterward.
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1839-1924