Quincy sent in this delightful post a full month ago when I wasn’t paying much attention to Keepa, and it got buried in my inbox where I have just discovered it. It’s wonderful enough that I’m posting it today anyway — um, does it count that today is Christmas in the Eastern Orthodox (Russian) tradition? — with my apologies to Quincy, and to all of you who would have enjoyed this during the Christmas season. — AEP

As we barrel toward Christmas, it’s hard not to think of Christmas in Nauvoo. The party the Smiths threw in 1843 is legendary. Linda King Newell and Valeen Tippetts Avery put it nicely in their biography of Emma Smith, Mormon Enigma:

At two o’clock on Christmas afternoon Emma in a new red velvet dress, with Joseph resplendent in his Legion uniform, hosted a dinner for fifty couples. The quadrille band played for dancing. Inspired by the music, one man danced a hornpipe with such dexterity that Emma and Joseph and the guests broke into applause. (Newell and Avery, 165)

Most historians discuss this party because there was an unexpected interloper among the one hundred invited guests. Here are Newell and Avery again:

Abruptly the door of the Mansion House burst open. The crowd looked in shock at an unkempt, ragged intruder whose hair fell around his shoulders: a Missouri “puke.” The man entered in a drunken swagger and threatened the life of anyone who touched him. Joseph ordered him thrown out. As the men scuffled, the specter’s sunken eyes caught his own in a full-face glance. The “Missourian” was Porter Rockwell! Joseph joyfully welcomed his friend home and the music in the Mansion reached out again to the dark streets. (Newell and Avery, 165-66)

Richard Bushman, who also narrates this party in Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling, notes that Rockwell had been released from prison in Missouri, where he was being held on suspicion of having shot Governor Lilburn Boggs. He had walked for twelve days to reach Nauvoo, and arrived in time to join the party. (Bushman, 499)

The party that Joseph and Emma Smith threw on Christmas day, 1843, is interesting to most people because of the story about Rockwell’s arrival. But I’m interested in it because of someone who doesn’t appear in any of the historical records about the event: Jane Elizabeth Manning.

Anyone who has been involved in planning an event of this size knows that there are innumerable details involved, tasks that must be seen to by someone: Decide on a menu. Cook and serve the food. Engage a band. Decide on a guest list, send out invitations, and keep track of RSVPs. Spaces must be cleaned before and after the party. Furniture might need rearranging to make space and provide seating. Plates and silverware and napkins have to be washed. Outfits must be selected and prepared.

Jane Manning was working as a servant in the Mansion House when the Smiths threw that party—and when they threw a party for New Year’s not even a week later, and another party to celebrate their anniversary a few weeks after that. Manning had arrived earlier that fall and, according to her autobiography, she and her family stayed in the Mansion House until all of them had gotten jobs except her. Joseph and Emma Smith took her on as a domestic servant for their family and for the Mansion House, which they were running at the time. Manning was the laundress for the household, so she was the one who made sure that Joseph’s Nauvoo Legion dress uniform was starched, pressed, and ready for wearing on Christmas day. She may also have helped sew Emma’s new red velvet dress and otherwise get it ready for wearing. She certainly washed and pressed any table linens that were used for the party.

As the manager of her home’s day-to-day operations, Emma Smith probably worked alongside Manning and other domestic servants, as well as other members of the Smith family, to prepare for the party and to clean up afterward. Much of this was considered women’s work, and even the relatively new settlement of Nauvoo, it likely fell to the women of the household to handle these tasks.

Manning’s labor, and the labor of other employees in the Mansion House, was absolutely crucial to Joseph and Emma Smiths’ performance of their role as community leaders in Nauvoo. That Christmas party in 1843 is memorable because of Rockwell’s sudden, frightening appearance. His impersonation of a drunk Missourian was all the more threatening because it was performed in a crowded house in confrontation with the community’s leader. The story is pleasing because of the way it resolves: the apparent threat turns out to be a beloved friend, confrontation turns to camaraderie, and the joyous celebration can continue.

Without the party—the convivial scene that Rockwell’s appearance threatened to derail—the story wouldn’t work. The contrasts between Rockwell’s disheveled appearance and the Smiths’ finery, Rockwell’s drunkenness and the party’s skillful dancing, Rockwell’s shouting and the band’s harmonious music, all heighten the tension. Manning’s labor, and the labor of other employees in the Mansion House, was absolutely crucial to the setting of this scene. That labor is invisible in the historical record, because the people who were there took it for granted. Sometimes doing history well requires a little imagination to fill in the gaps.