Mercy Rachel Fielding (1807-1893)

Biography
The Fielding family moved to Canada in 1832. Mercy and her brother Joseph and sister Mary joined the Church in May 1836 as a result of the preaching of Parley P. Pratt.

In 1837 she married Robert B. Thompson, who would become one of Joseph Smith's scribes. Robert died in August 1841 leaving Mercy alone.

During the years following the death of her husband, Mercy participated in the organization of the Nauvoo Female Relief Society, which was organized in part to assist in providing temple hands with food and meals.

She and her sister Mary Fielding (1801-1852), now the wife of Hyrum Smith (1800-1844), began immediately to organize their fellow Relief Society sisters in Nauvoo, and collected the donations. Although it began quietly in Nauvoo, the penny subscription quickly spread to the surrounding settlements.

In times of danger, they hid up the bag containing that money in a pile of bricks which Hyrum Smith had intended for building had his life been spared.

Mercy Rachel Fielding Thompson tryed to care for her five-month-old baby alone after the mob drove off her husband, Robert. She also took over the care of her sister, Mary Fielding Smith, who was ill from the birth of her son, Joseph F., and the complications of a severe cold. Mary knew where her husband was—in Liberty Jail—but it was three months before Mercy heard anything from Robert.

Mob activity was so intense around Far West that "at times I feard to lay my Babe down lest they should slay me and leave it to suffer worse than immediate Death," Mercy records. By special permission, the two women were allowed to make the forty-mile trip through February weather to see Mary's husband, Hyrum, and spend a sleepless night with the prisoners in the jail, Mercy caring for both babies. "As long as memory lasts will remain in my recollection the Creeking hinges of that door which clo[s]ed upon the noblest Men on Earth. Who can immagine our feelings as we travaild homeward? But would I sell the honor bestowd upon me of being Locked up in jail with such characters for gold? No."

Mercy was the first woman in this dispensation to be sealed to a deceased husband. In 1843, she was sealed to her beloved Robert, her brother-in-law, Hyrum Smith, acting as his proxy.