May his health be preserved and his life be lengthened out. There is much work yet to be done, and men do not frequently rise to the fulness of his measure! At the beginning of his eighty-first year, the people give loving greetings and good wishes and heartfelt gratitude to Joseph F. Smith, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.—Dr. John A. Widtsoe, 1918; also in Improvement Era, Vol. 18, November, 1914, pp. 38-45.
REMINISCENCES
The Era has asked me to write a few remembrances of incidents connected with my personal association with the late President Joseph F. Smith, while they are yet fresh in memory, and it is a pleasure to comply.
The first time I ever remember seeing Joseph F. Smith was in the then little village of Wellsville, in the year 1867. He was twenty-eight years of age, and had recently been chosen one of the twelve apostles. President Brigham Young and company were making a tour of the northern settlements, and the new apostle, Joseph F. Smith, was among the number. I heard him preach in the old meetinghouse at Wellsville, and I remarked at the time what a fine specimen of young manhood he was—strong, powerful, with a beautiful voice, so full of sympathy and affection, so appealing in its tone, that he impressed me, although I was a youth of but eighteen. He was a handsome man.
At that time I was clerking in a little store owned by Father Ira Ames, one of the old Kirtland veterans of the Church. Apostle George A. Smith was one of that company and he was entertained at Brother Ames' home, where I also lived. I recall that at the dinner table, Father Ames asked George A. who of the Smiths this young man Joseph F. was.
George A. replied that he was Hyrum's son; his mother, Mary Fielding Smith.
Brother Ames remarked that he looked like a likely young fellow, and George A. replied in about these words:
"Yes, I think he will be all right. His father and mother left him when he was a child, and we have been looking after him to try and help him along. We first sent him to school, but it was not long before he licked the schoolmaster, and could not go to school. Then we sent him on a mission, and he did pretty well at that. I think he will make good as an apostle."