Who were the original RLDS Church Members?

When Joseph Smith was killed in 1844. the LDS Church members scattered in many directions. Nauvoo. Illinois became a ghost town.

But there were church members still active in Plano, Illinois. They decided to reorganize the LDS church and called themselves the RLDS church. They employed the sons of Joseph Smith who were living with their mother, Emma, in Nauvoo.

These sons originally assumed they could continue to live in Nauvoo. but this did not work out and they had to move to Plano, with their Nauvoo wives and children.

The members in Plano bought farmland in Southern Iowa, built a town on it, and called the town Lamoni. The Smith sons (especially Joseph Smith III), moved with them.

The Church at that time had two kinds of members: the original members, who were farmers. and new members that JSIII was rapidly adding. The Church remained in Lamoni for a long time and soon the new members outnumbered the old ones.

No one was keeping track of the church membership, and how the church was changing.

Eventually, it moved to Independence, Missouri.  where it has remained. The original members from Plano have been forgotten.

It gradually merged with the Kansas City metro area and farming has been forgotten.