Thursday – 28 October 1897 Previous to today we had received a letter from President [James Ellingham] Hart inviting us to go to Blaunt Co[unty] (sic) to meet Elders [Frederick Gilbert] Warnick and [Joseph Rowland] Morrell and help them hold conference with the Saints, but we thought we were too busy. We didn’t like to break into our week’s work, and so continued our work this morning visiting families and holding meetings with them. On walking up to a Mr. Lutteral’s house, Elder [Adams Wesley] Ensign knocked and the door came open. He started to tell our business but was interrupted by, “Well you can’t come in here! I don’t want anything to do with such trash!! Get right out of here, the sooner the better. Your absence is better than you’re (sic) a-a-a-absence!” We wondered, for a moment what to do, but he was so mad there was no use trying to reason with him. “Hurry up,” he continued, still abusing us. We walked out slowly (he still urging us to hurry). When we got out in the road, he commanded us to go down the road and not up. We thought this was a little too much, so Elder [Adams Wesley] Ensign answered him in rather an independent way, “Well, I guess this is public property,” but he soon gave us to understand it belonged to him. Then, Elder [Adams Wesley] Ensign asked whose land that was on the other side of the road, and he told us it belonged to Mr. McMullen. Well, we told him we would get over the fence and go up through the field then. This brought the fire out of his eyes. He rushed in the house and it sounded like he was falling over every chair. We knew what he was after, so we started to walk down the road. He came out with a single barrel shotgun (this convinced us we were doing right by walking down the road), pulled the hammer up and raised the b[arrel]. Seeing we were so submissive (I suppose), he took the compassion on us. Nevertheless, he didn’t shoot. We concluded that this was a good strong hint that we were not doing our duty by not complying with the letter from President [James Ellingham] Hart and right there and then prepared to go. We walked to Knoxville that night, 11 mi[les] and had 27 mi[les] before us the next day.

“I guess my first memories were of my three kittens and Dad and me taking walks down through the meadow and corn fields. My three kittens were named after missionaries who had visited us: Lincoln; Shumway; and La Shemlet. I would take turns carrying the cats…”

Two of the three kittens likely were named after Elder Quentin Shumway and Elder Edmond LeCheminant

“On Dec[ember] 25, 1919 (Christmas evening) Daddy left us. The day before my daddy died, he saw his little sister, 12-y[ear]-old Julia, and Joseph F. Smith. He kept asking those in the room with him if they couldn’t see them too. “They are right up there,” he said, and pointed up about halfway between the ceiling and the floor over near the corner of the room.

My dear daddy never had the privilege of going to church or being in contact, maybe once a year, with any members other than the elders. He sure had a strong testimony that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was indeed the true Restored Church of Jesus Christ. If he had not had a strong belief in the truthfulness of the restored gospel, he would never have seen Joseph F. Smith. He had all the Standard Works and studied a lot, Mother said.”

“The elders had come through our community tracting and holding meetings, if they were fortunate enough to find anyone who would listen. Daddy was baptized in 1909 and Mother was baptized in 1911. I guess that it took poor ‘ole Mother that long to get up courage enough to defy Aunt Marth. She hated the Latter-day Saints more than anybody. I’ve often wondered if she ever accepted the gospel.”

[Saturday] – 30 March [1895] Finished West K[nox]ville [at] about noon. Got onto an old preacher who tried about an hour to convert me on being “saved by grace” alone and that our works availeth nothing. We lead it up and down for all that we were worth but came to no understanding. On reaching home, [we] found Elders [George Barlow] Wintle and [John William] Webster had arrived, so we spent the PM in social chat. [At] about 9:30 PM, in came Bro[ther Joseph John Calvin (JC)] Garland who spent the night with us and made us promise to return with him.

[Sunday] – 31 March [1895] Being Sunday, Eld[er John Roland] Halliday and I went out to the Red Cross Methodist Church to S[unday] S[chool] and stayed until [the] meeting. [We] had the pleasure of seeing the minister baptize a child from a glass of water. This is the first sprinkling we ever saw performed. The preacher made a hit on us in his remarks, in fact, they all tended in that direction. Returning home [in] the PM, [we] spent [it] in writing letters and reading. Bro[ther Joseph John Calvin (JC)] Garland called in. Total miles 4,010

[Monday] – 1 April [1895] This being April fool day, after laying a plot for Elders [George Barlow] Wintle and [John William] Webster, we concluded to rusticate for a week and see if the house air of the country would not [em]brace us why a little. Accordingly, we met Bro[ther Joseph John Calvin (JC)] Garland at the stables, and, at 8 AM, [we] were headed for Blount Co[unty]. [We] had a very pleasant journey as the trees just begin to put forth their leaves and the gentle zephyrs of heaven sends forth sweet fragrance over hill and dell. Arriving at our destiny, we found Sister [Sarah Margaret Cauble] Garland quite sick, being laid up of fever, though some better than the day before now. Elder [John Roland] H[alliday] and I sat up the greater part of the night with her to administer to her wants.

[Tuesday] – 2 April [1895] Weather turned off cooler, we helped put in some garden stuff and went after water cress and feaster in country style.

[Wednesday] – 3 April [1895] [We] helped Brother [Joseph John Calvin (JC)] G[arland] kill a couple of hogs this AM. Did some writing in the PM.

[Thursday] – 4 April [1895] [We] thought our Saints needed a practical lesson on cleanliness, so we pitched in and turned things upside down from porch to kitchen, renovating the whole plantation, and wound up by trimming the bushes and cleaning the yard. It looks like unto another place. I intend to giving Sister [Sarah Margaret Cauble] Garland her medicine.

[Friday] – 5 April [1895] After planting a field of potatoes, we went to spend the day with [Nathan] Dempsey Harris and [his] wife, [Sarah Margaret Woody]. On our way, our dog treed a squirrel. We got the gun and, after spending about 3 hours and shooting 8 shots, succeeded in killing it. Bro[ther Joseph John Calvin (JC)] Garland fired some brush heaps and the wind came up and scattered the fire which got into the woods and fences, and we had an awful time to get it cut off by creating a pathway through the leaves in head of it. Brother J[ohn] R[oland Halliday is] not feeling well. His pulses (sic) are 112.

[Saturday] – 6 April [1895] This is a day of rejoicing among the Saints as home brings general conference. We shall look with longing even for some of the conference sermons. We built a step today. Hired our shoes preparatory for our journey Monday morning. Trees are now in bloom and nature once more seems to smile. It seems almost wonderful to think of the rapid growth made by our Church during its short life. 65 years have passed since its birth. Then only six members and now numbered by the hundreds of thousands.

[Sunday] – 7 April [1895] Sunday again. [We] spent [the] AM in quiet, but in the PM, having been requested so to do, I had the pleasure of initiating another person into the fold of Christ. It was Samuel [Patterson] Harmon, a young married man who has heard our elders speak many times for several years past. Elder [John Roland] Halliday confirmed him and would have done the baptizing but that he was not feeling quite well and the water was quite cool. After performing the ordinance, [with] some desiring to hear us preach, we concluded to hold a short service on the porch of Bro[ther Joseph John Calvin (JC)] Garland‘s house, which we did. Sister [Sarah Margaret Cauble] G[arland] is some better than she has been though unable to sit up as yet. I wrote to the Saints on the Pigeon River from who[m] I received letters some weeks ago. They are very anxious to have us make them a visit in the near future, which we will try to do, where we hope to do some more baptizing, thus adding to our flock.

William Ricks (1839-1900) served in the Southern States Mission from 1893 to 1894. In his mission acceptance letter to George Reynolds, he wrote: “I am pleased to answer you in the affirmative.” He was nine years old when he traveled by wagon with the pioneers from Nauvoo to Utah in the Heber C. Kimball Company. At age 24, he returned to assist another group of pioneers traveling by wagon to Utah. He served as a Minute Man to defend the early pioneers against the indians. He returned to Wyoming multiple times to rescue pioneers needing assistance and suffered from exposure to the elements during these ventures. His ongoing physical ailments from this exposure are documented during his mission in the 1893 journal of his companion, Robert Young. William Ricks married early pioneer, Margaret Gordon, in 1865. When he was called to serve in East Tennessee, he and Margaret had 12 children, 10 would live to adulthood. His brother, Thomas E. Ricks, founded Ricks College, now known as BYU Idaho. Martin Harris, one of the transcribers of the Book of Mormon and one of The Three Witnesses of the gold plates, was William Ricks’ neighbor in Clarkston, Utah. He entered a second marriage with Mary Clark, with whom he had one child. He served nine months in the East Tennessee Conference and was forced to return home due to his health. William Ricks died six years after his mission “directly related to his exposure to extreme weather on his many trips to help his fellow saints.” At the time of William Ricks’ wife’s death, they had 138 living descendants. A record of his short time in Blount County is found in the transcribed mission journal of Elder Robert Young. Elder Ricks confirmed Alexander Harrison Garland and Joseph John Calvin (JC) Garland as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Millers Cove, in 1893.

Leroy Russell and Eva Smartt were married on April 21, 1946. They traveled to Salt Lake City together and were sealed on August 16, 1948.

The irony: In this photo taken in 1909, Elder William Hunter is standing near Lyman Smartt whose future daughter, Eva Smartt, would marry, in 1946, the future son, Leroy Russell, of the man, Charles Russell, whom Elder William Hunter had baptized a few weeks before this photo was taken.