35. DEATH MASKS - (MORE OF MY STUFF)

My death masks sit on the dresser of our bedroom in the upside-down lid of a cardboard file box. They’ve been there a couple weeks now, while the glue cures. They are part of my collection of stuff that drives Dave crazy. He’s pretty silent about it, generally, but I do think he would be more at peace if he knew what to expect every day when he comes home from work. There are just so many interesting possibilities in this world, and much of it requires collecting stuff.

I come by my propensity for collecting stuff naturally. My uncle Parks had seventeen full size train boxcars lining his property when I was growing up. They were filled with stuff. Organized stuff. I missed out on the organized gene. When we moved to Utah we discovered just a couple towns south of us, between Farmington and Salt Lake, there was a unique private museum at the home of Wilford C Wood, who was my great grandfather’s brother. 

Driving with my mom through North Salt Lake one day, decades ago, we noticed a very large round building tucked into the hillside. “What in the world do you think that is?” I asked. Mom said “I don’t know, maybe a water retainer?” Every time we drove by we made note of it, until our curiosity got the best of us and we aimed the car up the driveway. It was all locked up, with a “keep out” sign. There was  a little old house built near it, and a collection of other out buildings. Sort of a complex, come to think of it. I am recalling all of this with a mix of memory and imagination, surely distorted by time. Over by the house was a little sign indicating that this was the Wood Family Museum. “Hey! We’re Woods!” I said, like I needed to remind my mother. My mom’s great grandfather was Daniel Wood who founded Woods Cross. I think the property sits on the very eastern portion of Woods Cross, where it meets North Salt Lake. Though I carry the Wood blood line in my veins, I am far enough removed from the direct line of Wilford to not know these things. Apologies to my cousins. Looking around the property I noticed, through a cluster of trees, a large statue. Without overstepping my bounds, I got close enough to see it was a full size bronze of Joseph Smith receiving the Gold Plates, plunked down right there in the middle of a non-descript piece of private property. It was so unexpected it felt almost comical. Within a few weeks we had called the number on that sign and made an appointment for a tour. Kindred ghosts accompanied us as we toured the dusty homegrown collection of church memorabilia, sought out, purchased and assembled by one of “ours”. Those same ghosts have travelled with me to many a garage sale and historic site through the years. I know them, and I like them. They like stuff, too. The kind of stuff that triggers emotion. The kind of stuff that connects us with the past.

Entrance to the massive old furrier building that houses the Wood Museum

My ghosts understand me better than most humans, though I am blessed to have good natured humans in my circle. I, too, like my stuff. This is why our garage is a fun place to visit, if you have the right attitude. And the basement, too. 

A couple weeks ago I brought my death masks into the kitchen to do a little repair work. My brother, George, a kindred soul in the stuff department, made me a plaster copy of the death masks of Joseph and Hyrum Smith. He was working with the sculptor, Stan Watts, who cast the headstones on my mother’s grave and George’s wife and son’s graves. Stan casts a lot of bronze pieces, and is a sculptor himself. He and George think alike, which can be kind of interesting and maybe a little scary. There had been a time, decades ago, when my mom had discovered Stan’s work. Stan was struggling to stay afloat. Mom would purchase bronzes from Stan regularly. I’m pretty sure it kept him afloat through some rough patches, financially She had this way of making an art purchase and then saying “I’ll sell another house.” And she usually did. We kids called it Gram’s Bronze Era. We all have multiple bronzes in our homes from that era, and we love them all. So Stan had the molds from those face masks, and George used them to make a couple copies. He gave me a set for my birthday. In the hubbub of work making Sacrament sets in my garage last summer, the tip of Joseph Smiths nose chipped off. So I took some of our grandkids sidewalk chalk and grated it down to a heavy powder. I mixed it with some epoxy and reattached the nose as best I could, which with my ADD mind was not that good, I’m sorry to say. But at least the nose was not lost, or used in a drawing of a rainbow on the driveway.

I am not sure what to do with my death masks. Our house isn’t exactly museum display space. They are sitting in the lid of a cardboard box in my bedroom right now. But I do love them. 

the original death masks, owned by the LDS church

My death masks, at least a generation removed from the originals, evoke an interesting recipe of emotions in me: a mixture of reverence and kinship and belief that once was only an idea. A story given form. A whisper turned to song. Physical evidence from a trusted source, a knot tied in the middle of my thread of faith. I run my finger over the place to the side of Hyram’s nose, where the fatal bullet entered his head at his martyrdom. I imagine his wife, Mary, knowing the flesh of him before that wound pierced her life, as it did his.  I touch the arc of Joseph’s nose, imagining it centered above a smile. I think he was a joyful soul, made sober by necessity, but of a pleasant nature to begin with. I trace his lips, then draw away because they belong to him and God, and Emma. I imagine those lips speaking every single word in the Book of Mormon, line upon line, slow enough for Emma, or Martin, or Oliver to transcribe. The physicality of these life size faces, likely altered by injury, and by swelling in the heat of a Nauvoo summer before they were able to make the frame and pour the plaster over their lifeless faces. The making of face masks is an old tradition, now basically lost. They would sit the body up in a chair and build a frame around the head atop the shoulders. Plaster would take roughly 24 hours to set up, then another 24 hours to dry before a positive could be cast. Then the form would be destroyed by the removal of the piece. That we have these two face masks is quite a gift. 

George Cannon was a cabinet maker in Nauvoo, who also made caskets. The bodies of the martyrs were brought to him. He and others cleaned and dressed the brothers before their families saw them. George had the foresight to take the time and effort to make face masks for posterity. Face masks were most often made of famous people. This is the kind of reverence the people of Nauvoo had for these brothers who were martyred by a mob in Carthage Jail.

I was raised in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I had been told the stories of Joseph Smith all my life. I sang “Oh how lovely was the morning…” with the rest of the kids in Primary. I have knelt in the grove of trees outside the Smith farm in Palmyra New York, and walked the Hill Cumorah. When I was 18 and a cast member in the Hill Cumorah Pageant, I hosted tours for hundreds of summertime visitors to the Smith farm in Palmyra. Though I have mixed emotions about all of what I know of Joseph Smith, just as I have mixed emotions about myself, I have faith that he was indeed the vehicle used to restore the complete gospel of Christ to the earth.The physicality of these white plaster masks reaffirms in a most unique way that the man existed, and while it required the whole package of his earthly existence to fulfill  his calling, he did it. He actually did it. This human being, with a face, remained true to what he had been called to do. And he had a brother who loved him and served beside him to his death.

Gary E Smith's depiction of the Martyrdom at Carthage Jail.

When I was small, and I could not resist touching everything within reach on a shopping trip, my mom used to tell me to hold my finger. I’d walk behind my mother as she shopped, my right hand gripping the index finger of my left hand. I’ve always been a touchy girl.

I’ve had to overcome a goodly portion of shame for my collection of miscellany. Sadly, because we opened our gate and allowed the whole world to take their evening walks through our driveway, everyone around here knows this about me. Sadly, no one thought to leave a pathway between the two neighborhoods straddling our house, so we have abandoned our privacy to allow passage. I’ve had to come to the point of allowing people to think what they will. But if I were a stranger walking past my garage, I would be sorely tempted to walk in and touch everything! And what a dandy surprise it would have been to see this random box top with two faces peering into space, one of them with a broken nose. 

So when we discovered the property that was once the Wilford C Wood home and furrier factory (that was the big round building. A foxy abode), we felt right at home. 

WC Wood made his living as a furrier.
He is pictured here with fox pelts.

Wilford C Wood, by all accounts, was a quirky guy. It takes a hefty amount of quirky to do amazing things. The most notable people I know of are quirky, including Joseph Smith. After serving a mission in the Eastern US, he got it in his head to try to collect historic things that had to do with the relatively new church founded on US soil. Among the things he found and purchased, were the original Joseph and Hyrum death masks, from which the more lasting molds for my masks were made. Those original death masks were donated by the Wood family to the Church and are on display at the Church History Museum in Salt Lake City. Way to be, Wood clan! They have also donated many more treasures collected by Wilford, at a time when they were not necessarily considered treasures. Hooray for quirky micro-focused folks! Many of our treasured historic sites would have been plowed under and made into houseing developments by now if not for quirky old Wilford.

Wilford travelled often to New York to sell his furs.
He always stopped at historic church sites to see what he might find.

Wilford Wood died unexpectedly at the age of 74, in 1968. He hadn’t planned on dying. It was said of him that his was an energetic life interrupted. I wonder what he’s up to these days.

Thomas S Monson said of Wilford: 

"He was one of a kind. But what a man. What a man was Wilford Wood! I think God threw away the mold from which Wilford C Wood was made.”

I don’t know, Pres. Monson, sometimes those molds are hidden in the dark corner of a foundry all dusty and quiet. Until someone just as quirky finds them and decides to cast a positive of it just once. And maybe one more time, for good measure.

_____________

Here is a list of historical sites and artifacts personally purchased by Wilford C. Wood during his lifetime:

·     Liberty Jail in Liberty, Mo.

·     The tower hill area of Adam-ondi-Ahman in Missouri

·     Aaronic Priesthood restoration site in Harmony (now Oakland), Pa.

·     The Newel K. Whitney Store in Kirtland, Ohio

·     John Johnson home and farm property in Hiram, Ohio

·     Martin Harris farm property in Palmyra, N.Y.

·     Times and Seasons building in Nauvoo, Ill.

·     John Taylor home in Nauvoo, Ill.

·     Erastus Snow property in Nauvoo, Ill.

·     Most of the temple block in Nauvoo, Ill. 

 Artifacts

·     The original "Nauvoo clay" casts of the death masks of Joseph and Hyrum Smith

·     Original uncut sheets of the 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon (he traded a fur coat for these)

·     Salt Lake Tabernacle pulpits

·     Original Tabernacle organ pipes

·     A Book of Abraham manuscript

... and so much more, including that life size bronze of Joseph receiving the plates.

Photo from a duerregeotype of Joseph Smith

earliest known tin photo of Joseph Smith

Comparison of face masks with photograph