RHODA RICHARDS
Rhoda was born and
raised in Boston, the second of eleven children. Her brother, Willard
Richards, would later become an apostle in the church. Rhoda’s niece
Lula Richards Greene remembers Rhoda: “When grown she was a little below
medium height, possessed a small trim figure and a face usually expressive
of innocent fun and merriment. Her eyes were dark and brilliant...she was
a girl and a women of rare beauty.”
In her twenties, Rhoda
fell in love with and became engaged to Ebenezer Damon. Ebenezer
had a three-and-a-half-year old daughter, Susan, to whom Rhoda became attached.
Lula wrote, “Ebenezer Damon was a man of sterling worth and integrity
whom Aunt Rhoda loved as such a woman loves but once in a life time.”
In December 1813 Ebenezer fell ill and was sick for several weeks.
Rhoda and her mother cared for him while he hovered near death and finally
passed away. Rhoda wrote, “As he was so comfortable the evening
before we thought he would soon be up with us, it was the more suddin and
dreadful. My fond hopes were then blasted. For what. God only knows.”
On New Year’s Day Rhoda wrote in her diary, “Mr. Damons remains were
deposited near the meeting house...Farewell to all joys, my comforts are
fled. The friend of my choice is now numbered with the dead.”
Rhoda first heard about
the Mormon church many years later when her cousin, and recent convert,
Joseph Young visited her in 1835. Joseph was a brother with future
church leader Brigham Young. Rhoda wrote, “My cousin...stood and
preached to us...for about half an hour, finishing his discourse with,
‘There, Cousin Rhoda, I don’t know but I have tired you out!’”
Rhoda suggested they end with a prayer. “In an instant [Joseph] was
on his knees, offering up a prayer. That was the first Mormon sermon and
the first Mormon prayer I ever listened to.” A year later Rhoda
was baptized.
In the fall of 1842,
Rhoda moved to Nauvoo and soon met Joseph Smith. Her brother, Apostle
Willard Richards, was a close associate of Joseph Smith and perhaps introduced
Rhoda to Joseph. In the spring of 1843, Rhoda made her home in “the
Prophets store.” The following month, on June 12, Rhoda married
Joseph Smith. Her brother Willard performed the marriage. Rhoda
wrote, “In my young days I buried my first and only love, and true to
that affiance [pledge], I have passed companionless through life; but am
sure of having my proper place and standing in the resurrection, having
been sealed to the prophet Joseph, according to the celestial law, by his
own request, under the inspiration of divine revelation.”
Rhoda immigrated to
Utah and lived in Salt Lake City for the remainder of her life. On
January 1, 1879, the sixty-fifth anniversary of Ebenezer Damon’s passing,
Rhoda remembered, “it was the first ‘Happy New Year’ she had known for
sixty-six years. She said the snow looked exactly as it did the day ‘Mr.
Damon’ was buried.”
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