Emma Hale Smith Bidamon (July 10, 1804 – April 30, 1879) was a leader in the early Latter Day Saint movement and a prominent member of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS Church) as well as the first wife of Joseph Smith, the movement's founder.

After the killing of Joseph Smith, Emma remained in Nauvoo rather than following Brigham Young and the Mormon pioneers to the Utah Territory.

[2] Emma Hale was born on July 10, 1804, in Harmony Township, Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, in her family's log cabin.

[16] Rumors about Joseph having a unique ability to find hidden treasure caused Stowell to offer him a high wage.

In December 1827, with financial support from Martin Harris,[1]: 8  the couple accepted an invitation from Emma's parents to move to Harmony.

[31] Later that evening before the confirmation service, Joseph was arrested for being a disorderly person and causing an uproar by preaching the Book of Mormon.

[33] In July 1830, Joseph received a revelation, now known as Doctrine and Covenants Section 25, that highlighted Emma Smith as "an elect lady".

[1]: 12  The couple lived first with the Whitmers in Fayette, then with Newel K. Whitney and his family in Kirtland, Ohio, and then in a cabin on a farm owned by Isaac Morley.

The infant Joseph died of exposure or pneumonia in late March 1832, after a door was left open during a mob attack on Smith.

[39] On November 6, 1832, Emma gave birth to Joseph Smith III in the upper room of Whitney's store in Kirtland.

[41] While in Kirtland, Emma's feelings about temperance and the use of tobacco[11] reportedly influenced her husband's decision to pray about dietary questions.

During the Panic of 1837, the Kirtland Safety Society, the banking venture that Joseph and other church leaders had set up to provide financing for the growing membership, collapsed, as did many financial institutions in the United States at that time.

Of these times, she later wrote: No one but God knows the reflections of my mind and the feelings of my heart when I left our house and home, and almost all of everything that we possessed excepting our little children, and took my journey out of the State of Missouri, leaving [Joseph] shut up in that lonesome prison.

But the reflection is more than human nature ought to bear, and if God does not record our sufferings and avenge our wrongs on them that are guilty, I shall be sadly mistaken.

[42]Emma and her family lived with friendly non-Mormons John and Sarah Cleveland in Quincy, Illinois, until Joseph escaped custody in Missouri.

[11] The Latter-Day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia records that Emma Smith "filled [the position] with marked distinction as long as the society continued to hold meetings in that city [Nauvoo]".

[41] According to the minutes of the founding meeting, the organization was formed to "provoke the brethren to good works in looking to the wants of the poor, [search] after objects of charity [and] to assist by correcting the virtues of the female community".

Shortly before this, Joseph had initiated the Anointed Quorum – a prayer circle of important church members that included Emma.

[citation needed] As she had in Kirtland, Emma Smith led "the work of boarding and clothing the men engaged in building [the Nauvoo temple]".

Emma authorized and was the main signatory of a petition in summer 1842 with a thousand female signatures, denying Joseph Smith was connected with polygamy.

[43] As president of the Ladies' Relief Society, she authorized the publishing of a certificate in October 1842 denouncing polygamy and denying her husband as its creator or participant.

A mob of about 200 armed men stormed the jail in the late afternoon of June 27, 1844, and both Joseph and his brother Hyrum were killed.

[citation needed] When he and the majority of the Latter Day Saints of Nauvoo abandoned the city in early 1846, Emma and her children remained behind in the emptied town.

[41] Nearly two years later, a close friend and non-Mormon,[citation needed] Major Lewis C. Bidamon, proposed marriage and became Emma's second husband on December 23, 1847.

[3] Emma and Bidamon attempted to operate a store and to continue using their large house as a hotel, but Nauvoo had too few residents and visitors to make either venture very profitable.

When he reported receiving a calling from God to take his father's place as head of a "New Organization" of the Latter Day Saint church, she supported his decision.

[45] Historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich argues that "Emma vacillated in her support for plural marriage, sometimes acquiescing to Joseph's sealings, sometimes resisting.

[b] That July, at his brother Hyrum's encouragement, Joseph dictated a revelation directing Emma to accept plural marriage.

[54][e] Many of the Latter Day Saints who joined the RLDS Church in the midwestern United States had broken with Brigham Young and/or James Strang because of opposition to polygamy.

Emma's continuing public denial of the practice seemed to lend strength to their cause, and opposition to polygamy became a tenet of the RLDS Church.