By Greg Clark
Communications
The man, wearing a pith helmet and dressed in a purple, pink, and white Tahitian shirt, cuts an incongruous figure as he strides across the lush green grass behind Liberty Hall.
But make no mistake, Paul DeBarthe, named site director at the historic property in Lamoni, Iowa, USA, is right where he belongs.
His clothes honor two passions in his life: his late wife, a native of Tahiti, and archaeology. Both play roles in the way he is approaching the job he began in January, 2024, just a few miles from the farm where he grew up.
“I came here believing I was being called back—the invitation to come back and be with my old community,” he said.
That formal invitation came from Apostle Lach Mackay, Community of Christ’s director of historic properties. But perhaps the most compelling invitation came from his wife, Rina, a couple of months after her death February 28, 2023.
Her message came as DeBarthe fretted over a speech he would have to give later that day. He explained:
“At 6 o’clock that morning she woke me up, and spoke into my right ear and said, ‘Tell them: Don’t forget to love each other!’
“She also told me that…I would open a new chapter in my life.”
Tell them: Don’t forget to love each other!
And so he has. But though the setting has changed, he’s still drawing heavily from earlier experiences as a minister, educator, and archaeologist.
The ministry part stems from decades spent in service with Rina. They met at Graceland College, shared their first kiss there, married, and raised a family. They were together “almost fifty-three years.” She was instrumental in bringing the voices of women to the pulpit in Tahiti, becoming possibly the first woman there to be ordained.
The message of peace she preached fits in perfectly with Liberty Hall, where Joseph Smith III lived in the 1800s and worked to put the church on a path of peace.
“I’m here to tell the story of the Smith family,” DeBarthe said. “To appreciate the spiritual as well the physical legacy, the social legacy, we have through the Smith family is such a blessing.”
That legacy also extends to the nearby Spurrier Schoolhouse, which sits on Community of Christ property. In part because of DeBarthe’s four-decade career as a teacher, the one-room country school holds special significance to him.
“I think there is a certain amount of spiritual DNA in the teacher-minister careers that I’ve inherited,” said DeBarthe, a seventh-generation teacher.
I’m here to tell the story of the Smith family.
“I want to use the school for replaying some historical events. It offers us a marvelous opportunity, and so I’m inviting local teachers. We have forty-eight fifth-graders coming in…and they’ll have a chance to spend time in the school and house, playing nineteenth-century games, and learning about the dig.”
Ahh, the dig.
It was inevitable that he would start one at Liberty Hall, wasn’t it?
After all, he began a lengthy series of digs at the Joseph Smith Historic Site in Nauvoo, Illinois, in 1971. He planned to go again in 2024, but the sale of the property to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints derailed it.
But, as DeBarthe said, “My hands like to be in the dirt.”
So he marked some one-meter squares behind Liberty Hall and put out a call for volunteers. With time, he believes they might find artifacts from a root cellar, an outhouse, and a carriage road.
“I’m still teaching here. I recognize for people to become learners for life is such an important element for being vital and being alive. I want (the volunteers) to get that hands-on experience with history. We would be using the educational benefits as the first priority and the artifacts as the second.”
The importance isn’t lost on Barbara Walden, executive director of the Community of Christ Historic Sites Foundation.
“The story of Liberty Hall is a powerful one, and I believe the materials Paul and his team will discover in their archaeological dig will help historians better understand the people who once called Liberty Hall home. I’m thrilled that Paul is welcoming others to join him on this hands-on church history adventure.”
Mackay agrees. “Paul is an especially good fit for the position at Joseph Smith's III's Liberty Hall because of his infectious passion for our past, his expertise at turning history into a hands-on experience through archaeology, and his deep Lamoni roots.
The story of Liberty Hall is a powerful one, and I believe the materials Paul and his team will discover in their archaeological dig will help historians better understand the people who once called Liberty Hall home.
“I am excited that through the archaeology program, we will be able to supplement the documentary history of Liberty Hall with a record of the materials that were used, discarded, buried, and recovered onsite. Our understanding of the place and the people who inhabited it will be greatly improved.”
So visitors shouldn’t be surprised if they see a 78-year-old man with a helmet and a Tahitian shirt getting his hands dirty. As he digs, he knows that Rina’s spirit won’t be far away.
“My sweetheart, the angel that lived with me for fifty years, was a bridge-builder, and the idea of us being able to build bridges across the chasms that our histories have created is an important lesson for me,” DeBarthe said.
“This is called Liberty Hall because Joseph wanted it to be a place where people would be free to come and go. It would be a place with a free exchange of ideas.
So the heritage of the home is a bridge-building heritage.
“It’s a heritage of a family whose transformation from a somewhat-militarized Joseph Smith Jr. to a peace-loving Joseph Smith III is building a bridge to the future,” DeBarthe said.
“It’s to say we can be, we are, we shall be, a peace people.”
This story originally appeared in the 2024 fall issue of The Forum, a publication of the Community of Christ Historic Sites Foundation.