Filmmakers hope to capture Emma Smith's untold legacy

While Brigham Young and others took the bulk of LDS Church founder Joseph Smith's papers west during the great migration of Latter-day Saints to the Salt Lake Valley in 1847, Emma Smith stayed behind, a widow with her own memories and her own papers. She left a largely untold legacy to her children that is now being told by her descendants.

Producers of a new full-length, narrative film called "Emma Smith: My Story" have been filming at the LDS Motion Picture Studio in Provo for about 10 days. They told reporters during a press conference Thursday that the woman known by many members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as an "elect lady" will finally have the chance to tell her own story.

Michael Kennedy, a third great-grandson of Joseph and Emma Smith through their son, Alexander, said reaction to the project among hundreds of the couple's descendants has been a relieved "it's about time."

Disputes with Young and others over the disposition of property and papers that her husband had overseen as founder and president of the LDS Church helped influence Emma Smith to remain in Nauvoo, Ill., caring for a family of young children and eventually remarrying after most Latter-day Saints followed Young to the Rocky Mountains.

Because virtually none of Smith's descendants were affiliated with the LDS Church for more than 100 years after his death, Emma's papers and artifacts were passed down through her children, one of whom became president of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, now known as the Community of Christ.

Kennedy said he and others have spent years tracking and meeting those descendants, many of whom knew nothing about their famous ancestor. Some of them have records Emma Smith left behind that shed new light on the details of her life.

In a move to separate the historical records from the continuing attempt to contact descendants, Kennedy and others formed the Joseph Smith Jr. and Emma Hale Smith Historical Society earlier this year to preserve family records that aren't held either by the LDS Church or the Community of Christ. As they do so, Kennedy said, the society will open the records to the public in a variety of ways, including production of the film.

He said it will chronicle Emma's childhood, her marriage to Joseph and their life together through his murder in June 1844. "You'll get a retrospect from the older Emma with some glimpses into the post-Joseph period." The film won't depict details about how Joseph Smith's practice of polygamy affected her or address questions about her decision to remain in Nauvoo, but those topics will be dealt with in a "special features" section of the DVD when it is released.