Jennifer Reeder

Jenny Reeder is passionate about her work in women's history at the Church History Library in Salt Lake City. Some of her faves are Emma Smith, Eliza R. Snow, Amanda Barnes Smith, Zina Young, Jane Neyman, Drusilla Hendricks... never mind. There are way too many. She is the favorite aunt to 13 nephews and nieces, loves to quilt, read, watch movies, and travel, and used to run marathons but now is just content to be alive. Her new book about Emma Smith, First: The Life and Faith of Emma Smith, is available on deseretbook.com.

Latter-day Saint Life

Five lesser-known women from throughout Latter-day Saint history you’ll wish you knew

By Jennifer Reeder

March 29, 2023 05:00 AM MDT

“I have loved researching and writing about my ladies—Lucy Mack Smith, Emma Smith, Eliza R. Snow, Zina D. H. Young, and Emmeline B. Wells. But these women are just five of so many more. I invite you to learn about some whose names you may have never heard. They are worth it—you want these ladies on your team.”

7 Min Read

Latter-day Saint Life

5 powerful statements from Emma Smith that show the strength of Relief Society and sisterhood

By Jennifer Reeder

March 16, 2022 10:11 AM MDT

As the first president of the Relief Society, Emma's words, recorded in Relief Society meeting minutes, continue to inspire and encourage us to increase our faith and charity.

5 Min Read

Latter-day Saint Life

The relationship between Relief Society, priesthood, and the temple

By Jennifer Reeder

March 11, 2022 01:02 PM MST

“You, my sisters, if you are faithful will become Queens of Queens, and Priestesses unto the Most High God. These are your callings.” —Eliza R. Snow

8 Min Read

Feature Stories

Realizing ‘the privileges and blessings and gifts of the priesthood’

By Jennifer Reeder

April 13, 2021 07:54 PM MDT

On June 9, 1842, Joseph visited the Relief Society and spoke again of their purpose: “The Society is not only to relieve the poor, but to save souls.”

5 Min Read

Why Emma Smith didn’t let the destruction of her first hymn book stop her

By Jennifer Reeder

March 10, 2021 02:47 PM MST

Gathering, selecting, and editing hymns was not a typical project for women in the nineteenth century. That did not stop Emma, a visionary woman in her own sense of the word.1 She had been promised in her 1830 revelation: “Thy time shall be given to writing, and to learning much.”2 She probably gathered hymns from her hometown newspaper as well as other papers and denominational hymnals.3 The process, like so many other endeavors in her life, would ebb and flow with loss and compensation, requiring more than five years to produce.

11 Min Read

Latter-day Saint Life

How women of the early Relief Society served nationally and globally

By Jennifer Reeder

March 10, 2019 10:56 PM MDT

Throughout the 19th century, Relief Society members became involved in national and international women’s associations to give women a public forum and to improve humanity at large.

5 Min Read

Latter-day Saint Life

What Joseph Smith Taught Women About Gifts of the Spirit

By Janiece Johnson

March 03, 2019 10:00 PM MST

“Here let thy holy Spirit rest

10 Min Read

Women's Charge to Expound and Exhort

By Jennifer Reeder

February 24, 2019 10:00 PM MST

“To give instruction, where instruction’s voice

8 Min Read

Latter-day Saint Life

The First Time a Woman Spoke in General Conference: Lucy Mack Smith's Powerful Talk from 1845

By Kate Holbrook

March 28, 2017 11:32 AM MDT

Several months after the deaths of her sons Joseph, Hyrum, and Samuel Smith, Lucy Mack Smith (1775–1856) began writing her history. At age 69, she was in poor health and felt “it a privilege as well as my duty . . . to give (as my last testimony to a world from whence I must soon take my departure) an account.” . . .

22 Min Read

Latter-day Saint Life

Lucy Mack Smith's Faith-Filled Speech That Parted the Ice on the Erie Canal

By Jennifer Reeder

March 02, 2017 10:38 PM MST

Lucy Mack Smith (1775–1856) was the mother of Joseph and Hyrum Smith and nine other children, and she was a strong voice in the early Church. She gave this speech to a gathering of emigrating Saints at Lake Erie in Buffalo, New York in May 1831.

3 Min Read

Latter-day Saint Life

9 Women Who Knew and Bore Powerful Testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith

By Jennifer Reeder

January 26, 2017 09:43 AM MST

The following is an excerpt from the book The Witness of Women: Firsthand Experiences and Testimonies from the Restoration, by Janiece Johnson and Jennifer Reeder:

14 Min Read