Rhoda Lucene Smith

Rhoda Lucene Smith is the third of fourteen children born to Daniel Smith from Tennessee and Elizabeth Jane Bybee from Kentucky. Daniel and Elizabeth met and were married in 1844 in Nauvoo, Illinois.

As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Smith’s Family left on June 21, 1850 to journey to the Salt Lake Valley with the William Snow/Joseph Young Company.

Exhaustive travel conditions, disease, injury, lack of food and medicine, premature birth, and extreme weather were some of the greatest threats to pioneers. One week after leaving Iowa, 17-month-old Rhoda passed away of undocumented causes and is buried along the Mormon Trail.

Elizabeth (Rhoda’s mother) wrote: "Our baby girl took sick and died which was very grievous to us. She was 17 months old. We had to bury her on the desolate plains."