Jane Manning James
Jane Elizabeth Manning James | |
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Personal details | |
Born | 1822 Wilton, Connecticut, United States |
Died | April 16, 1908 Salt Lake City, Utah | (aged 94)
Resting place | Salt Lake City Cemetery 40°46′37″N 111°51′29″W / 40.777°N 111.858°W |
Spouse(s) | Isaac James |
Children | 8 |
Parents | Isaac Manning Eliza Mead |
Jane Elizabeth Manning James (1822 – April 16, 1908),[1][2] fondly known as "Aunt Jane",[3] was an early African-American member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and traveled to Utah as a pioneer. She lived with Joseph Smith and his family for a time in Nauvoo, Illinois.[4] She traveled with her family to Utah, spending the winter of 1846–1847 at Winter Quarters, and was among the first of the pioneers to enter the Salt Lake Valley in 1847.[5] As a black woman, James was not allowed to enter the temple during her lifetime and petitioned the First Presidency of the church multiple times to be endowed and sealed;. As a result of her requests she was adopted as a servant into the family of Joseph Smith through a specially-created temple ceremony. She was posthumously endowed by proxy in the Salt Lake Temple in 1979.[6]
Early life in Connecticut
Jane Elizabeth Manning James was born in Wilton, Connecticut, to Isaac Manning and Eliza Phyllis Mead.[4] Although late in Jane's life her brother Isaac gave her birthday as 1813,[7] there are source discrepancies that place her birthday anywhere from September 22, 1812, to the year 1820 or 1822 (the latter being asserted on her gravestone[8]).[5] The Mannings were a free family living in rural Connecticut, and Jane had at least five siblings including Isaac, Lewis, Peter, Sarah, and Angeline.[7] At the age of six, Jane was sent to New Canaan to live with Joseph and Hannah Fitch, a wealthy white family.[5] She was raised by the Fitches' daughter and lived with them for the next thirty years. Little is known about Jane's life with the Fitches other than she worked as a servant: cooking, cleaning, and ironing, etc.[4] While with the Fitches, Jane was also brought up as a Christian.[5] She was baptized into the Presbyterian Church when she was about 14 years old.[4][9] On March 1, 1835, Jane gave birth to a son, Sylvester.[1]
Conversion and relocation to Nauvoo
In the fall of 1842, two LDS missionaries, one of whom was Charles Wesley Wandell, were preaching in the area.[4] James was forbidden by her Presbyterian preacher to listen to the missionaries, but later recorded that she "had a desire to hear them. I went on a Sunday and was fully convinced that it was the true Gospel."[7] James was baptized into the Latter Day Saint Church the following Sunday, and later acquainted many friends and family members with her new beliefs as well.[5][10] A year later, James and eight other members of her family—her mother, three brothers, two sisters, and a brother and sister-in-law—decided to sell their home in Wilton and move to Nauvoo, Illinois, in order to live among other members of their new faith.[7][5] The James family began their journey with other recently converted Latter Day Saints under the direction of Charles Wandell, and traveled from Fairfield, Connecticut, to New York City, then on to Albany and Buffalo.[5] In Buffalo, however, the James family was separated from the rest of the group. There is dispute as to whether the split took place because James and her family could not afford to pay the fare from Buffalo to Ohio, or if the black Saints were denied passage due to their race.[5] Wandell made arrangements to transport their luggage while James and her family traveled the remainder of their journey (approximately 800 miles) on foot, arriving in late fall of 1843.[5] James later recalled that the group "walked until our shoes were worn out, and our feet became sore and cracked open and bled until you could see the whole print of our feet with blood on the ground."[4][11]
Living with the Smith family
When James and her family arrived in Nauvoo, they were welcomed by Joseph Smith himself. Over the next year, her mother and siblings would establish their own homes nearby, while James lived with the Joseph Smith family and worked as a domestic servant in the Mansion House until Smith's assassination in 1844.[12][5][11]
James had several unique experiences while living with the Smith family in Nauvoo. She recorded that often, as she went about doing the washing and cleaning for the Smiths, either Emma (Joseph's wife) or Lucy (Joseph's mother) would stop her and talk with her. One day while James was in Joseph's mother's room, the woman told her to "bring me that bundle from the bureau and sit down here."[4]: 4 According to James, she was on one occasion allowed to handle the Urim and Thummim, the tools used by Joseph Smith to translate the Book of Mormon.[5] Lucy then said to her, "You will live long after I am dead and gone and you can tell the Latter Day Saints that you was permitted to handle the Urim and Thummim".[7] On another occasion, Emma asked James if she would like to be adopted by and sealed to her and Joseph in the Nauvoo Temple as their spiritual child.[5][13] Not understanding at the time, James said nothing, and Emma encouraged her to think about it.[5] Emma asked James again two weeks later, at which time she said "no ma'am".[4] James would say later that she did not understand what the question meant at the time, or she would have taken the couple up on their offer.[7][5][13]
After Joseph Smith's assassination in 1844, James resided in the home of Brigham Young.[14] It was here where she met and married her husband, Isaac James.[15]: 56 [14] Isaac was born a free man and grew up in rural New Jersey; at the time of his baptism he was 19 years old, and was one of the earliest immigrants to Nauvoo.[4]
Journey west and life in Utah
When the Latter Day Saints began to migrate west in 1846, James prepared to move as well. Although many of her immediate family members, including her mother, three brothers, and two sisters, had joined the church, she was the only one who chose to move West with the main body of church members from Nauvoo.[4] At the time of the family's departure, James was pregnant with a second son, Silas James, who was born in Iowa in June 1846.[15][14][5] James, her husband Isaac, and Sylvester were part of the original group of Latter Day Saints to spend the winter of 1846–1847 at Winter Quarters, Nebraska.[15] They were also part of the first Mormon pioneer company to enter the Salt Lake Valley in September 1847.[5] At the time of their settlement in the Salt Lake Valley, they made up a third of the 12 African Americans living in Utah, and were the only ones who were free.[15]
The James family lived north of Temple Square in Salt Lake City on a lot owned by Brigham Young, who employed both Isaac and Jane through the mid-1850s.[5] The family's first years in the valley were difficult: they lived in poverty and often did not even have the barest essentials for survival.[7]: 11 Nevertheless, James exhibited remarkable charity and strength of character. In 1849, James' neighbor Eliza Lyman had sent her husband Amasa on a mission to California and was left with no food to sustain her and her children until the harvest. She records that "Not long after Amasa had gone, Jane James, the colored woman, let me have two pounds of flour, it being half of what she had."[4]
Despite trials, James's life in Utah was punctuated by moments of joy. A daughter, Mary Ann, was born in May 1848—the first black child born in Utah.[15]: 57 Eventually things began to get better for the Mannings: by the mid 1860s they were able to build a comfortable home in the southwest corner of Salt Lake City and had acquired both farmland and animals, including an ox, horses, and a small flock of sheep.[5][16] By the end of 1865 the James family, while not wealthy, were fairly prosperous.[4]: 6 The family was growing quickly as well. Between 1848 and 1860 five children were born: Miriam, Ellen Madora, Jessie Jeroboam, Isaac, and Vilate.[7][5] James's oldest son Sylvester was listed as a member of the Nauvoo Legion in Utah in 1861.[4]
Jane and Isaac James divorced in 1870, and when Isaac left Utah shortly after Jane was given custody of their children and of most of the couple's property and assets.[5] Within four years of the divorce James was remarried to her son Sylvester's father-in-law, Frank Perkins.[17] The marriage lasted less than two years, after which time she reverted to her former married name.[5] Throughout the next few decades, James struggled to care for the remaining children at home as a single parent. She sold the family farm in 1872 and moved closer to the city in order to save money.[5] During these years James both managed a household of children and small grandchildren, and also worked as a domestic servant in order to make ends meet. In addition, she made the family's soap, clothing, and raised vegetables in a small garden.[4] Half of her children had predeceased her by 1875, and two of her grandchildren had passed away as well.[5] After a twenty-year absence, James' first husband Isaac returned to Utah very ill, and lived with Jane until his death in 1891, and though the two never remarried his funeral was held at her home.[17]
James remained active in the church, and participated extensively in the Relief Society and other church-affiliated women's organizations.[5] She also contributed financially to the building of the Logan, Manti, and St. George temples.[16] In her later life, both she and her brother Isaac J. Manning received reserved seats near the front and center of the Salt Lake Tabernacle for church services.[4]: 8 [5] James remained a strong supporter of Joseph Smith throughout her life, calling him "the finest man I ever saw on earth."[7]
Jane Elizabeth Manning James died April 16, 1908, in Salt Lake City.[18] Church President Joseph F. Smith spoke at her funeral, where he declared that she would receive all her temple blessings in the eternities and become a "white and beautiful person," reflecting the theology of the Church on race at the time.[4][19] According to The Deseret News, her funeral was attended by many.[1]: 11
Petitions to be endowed and sealed
Later in life, James became increasingly worried about her eternal welfare.[4] She began to petition the First Presidency to be endowed and to be sealed, along with her children, to Walker Lewis, a prominent African-American Mormon Elder. Lewis, like Elijah Abel, had been ordained to the priesthood during Joseph Smith's lifetime, and James therefore assumed that he would be eligible for temple ordinances. However, her petitions were consistently ignored or refused.[20]
Sealing as a servant in the Smith family
James continued to ask that she and her family be given the ordinance of adoption so that they could be sealed together forever. Her justification for asking to be the exception to the church's rule was Emma Smith's offer in 1844 to have her sealed to the Smith family as a child. James was now reconsidering her decision, and asked to be sealed to the Smiths. Her requests were again refused. Instead, the First Presidency "decided she might be adopted into the family of Joseph Smith as a servant, which was done, a special ceremony having been prepared for the purpose."[21] The ceremony took place on May 18, 1894, with Joseph F. Smith acting as proxy for Joseph Smith, and Bathsheba W. Smith acting as proxy for James (who was not allowed into the temple for the ordinance).[22] In the ceremony, James was "attached as a Servitor for eternity to the prophet Josep[h] Smith and in this capacity . . . connected with his family[, to] be obedient to him in all things in the Lord as a faithful Servitor."[23]
James was dissatisfied with that unique sealing ordinance, and applied again to obtain the sealing that was offered to her by Emma. According to the diary of Franklin Richards, the LDS First Presidency met on August 22, 1895, to consider her appeal, but again turned her down. James would petition the leaders of the church for the rest of her life, but with no success. She continued to have trials: all but two of her eight children (Sylvester & Ellen) preceded her in death, as did 6 of her 14 grandchildren.[7]
Posthumous endowment
In 1979, nearly 72 years after her death, James was endowed by proxy by a group of black and white Latter-day Saints in the Salt Lake Temple.[24][6]: 54
Legacy
A 20-minute documentary based on James's life, Jane Manning James: Your Sister in the Gospel, premiered in 2005, and has been shown at This Is The Place Heritage Park in Salt Lake City, at the 2005 annual conference of the Foundation for Apologetic Information & Research (FAIR), and on public television (PBS).[25] The film was directed by Margaret Blair Young, co-author with Darius Gray of the Standing on the Promises trilogy of historical fiction that draws on the facts of James's life.[25]
In June 1999, a monument to James's life was dedicated near her grave in the Salt Lake City Cemetery by the Genesis Group (an official organization begun under LDS President Joseph Fielding Smith to support Latter Day Saints of African descent) along with the Missouri Mormon Frontier Foundation. The original headstones of Jane and Isaac James were supplemented with a granite monument faced with two bronze plaques.[26] One side of the monument commemorates an incident documented in 1850, by Mormon pioneer Eliza Partridge Lyman, who wrote:
April 13: Brother Lyman [Eliza's husband] started on a mission to California with O. P Rockwell and others. May the Lord bless and prosper them and return them in safety. He left us ... without anything to make bread, it not being in his power to get any. April 25: Jane James, a colored woman, let me have two pounds of flour, it being about half she had.
A second bronze plaque, containing quotations from James and significant dates and events from her life, was placed on the back of the monument. In April 2005, the graves and monument were again cleaned and sealed. The inscription on her grave marker reads:
Jane Elizabeth Manning James
"I try in my feeble way to set an example for all."
Born free in 1882 [The marker incorrectly states her birth year. It should say 1822], Fairfield County, Connecticut
Baptized LDS in 1841, she led a group of family members to Nauvoo, Illinois in 1843
"Our feet cracked open and bled until you could see the whole prints of our feet with blood on the ground."
Jane lived with Joseph, Emma and Mother Smith
"Brother Joseph sat down by me and said, 'God bless you. You are among friends."
Married Isaac James around 1845
Arrived in Salt Lake September 22, 1847
"Oh how I suffered of cold and hunger, but the Lord gave us faith and grace to stand it all."
Shared half her flour with Eliza Partridge Lyman, who was near starving.
Died April 16, 1908, outliving all but two of her eight children.
On October 12th, 2018, a feature-length film was released about James's relationship with Emma Smith, entitled Jane and Emma. The film was directed by Chantelle Squires, with a screenplay by Melissa Leilani Larson and starred Danielle Deadwyler.[27]
Notes
- ^ a b c Carter, Kate B. The Story of the Negro Pioneer. Harold B. Lee Library; Provo, Utah: Utah Printing. p. 9.
- ^ "Death Certificate". State of Utah. April 17, 1908. Archived from the original on August 11, 2011. Retrieved December 14, 2009.
- ^ "Document 7: Minutes of a Meeting of the Council of the Twelve Apostles" (January 2, 1902) [Textual record]. A Test of Faith: Jane Elizabeth Manning James and the Origins of the Utah Black Community, Series: MSS SC 1069. Provo, Utah: L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Wolfinger, Henry J. "A Test of Faith: Jane Elizabeth Manning James and the Origins of the Utah Black Community" (1893) [textual record]. A Test of Faith: Jane Elizabeth Manning James and the Origins of the Utah Black Community, Series: MSS SC 1069, pp. 2–3. Provo, Utah: L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y "Century of Black Mormons · James, Jane Elizabeth Manning · J. Willard Marriott Library Exhibits". exhibits.lib.utah.edu. Retrieved December 8, 2022.
- ^ a b Black and Mormon. Newell G. Bringhurst, Darron T. Smith. Urbana. 2004. ISBN 978-0-252-09060-8. OCLC 785782170.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: others (link) - ^ a b c d e f g h i j Roundy, Elizabeth J.D. "Document 9: Life Sketch of Jane James" (1893) [textual record]. A Test of Faith: Jane Elizabeth Manning James and the Origins of the Utah Black Community, Series: MSS SC 1069, p. 4. Provo, Utah: L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University.
- ^ "Jane Elizabeth "Aunt Jane" Manning James". Find A Grave. Retrieved August 31, 2020.
- ^ Turley 2011, p. 122.
- ^ Turley 2011, p. 123.
- ^ a b Turley 2011, p. 124.
- ^ "Jane Manning James: Black Saint, 1847 Pioneer". Ensign Magazine. August 1979. Retrieved June 2, 2016.
- ^ a b Turley 2011, p. 133.
- ^ a b c Turley 2011, p. 130.
- ^ a b c d e Coleman, Ronald Gerald (March 1980). A History of Blacks in Utah, 1825–1910. L. Tom Perry Special Collections; Harold B. Lee Library; Provo, Utah. p. 32.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ a b Barrett, Ivan J. (2000). Heroic Mormon Women. American Fork, Utah: Covenant Communications. p. 99. ISBN 978-1577346760.
- ^ a b Turley 2011, p. 131.
- ^ Turley 2011, p. 134.
- ^ Cowley, Matthias (1909). Wilford Woodruff: History of His Life and Labors. Salt Lake City, UT. p. 587.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ Woodruff, Wilford. "Document 5: Entry of October 16, 1894, Journals of Wilford Woodruff" (October 16, 1894) [Textual record]. A Test of Faith: Jane Elizabeth Manning James and the Origins of the Utah Black Community, Series: MSS SC 1069. Provo, Utah: L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University.
- ^ "Servant Sealing". wheatandtares.org. Wheat & Tares. February 22, 2016. Retrieved November 16, 2018.
- ^ Quinn, D. Michael (1997). The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power. Salt Lake City: Signature Books. p. 795. ISBN 978-1-56085-060-1. Archived from the original on July 14, 2012. Retrieved September 19, 2011.
- ^ "120 years ago today - May 18, 1894". todayinmormonhistory.com. Today In Mormon History. May 18, 2014. Retrieved June 15, 2020.
- ^ Burch, Alice Faulkner. "Black Women in the LDS Church and the Role of the Genesis Group". www.mormonwomenshistoryinitiative.org. Archived from the original on August 10, 2016. Retrieved June 20, 2016.
- ^ a b Young, Margaret Blair. "The Making of Jane Manning James: Your Sister in the Gospel". Segullah.org. Archived from the original on July 18, 2015. Retrieved July 6, 2016.
- ^ Young, Margaret Blair (July 27, 2004). "Household of Faith: A Monument to Jane Manning James. There was Nothing Feeble in Her". ldsmag.com. Archived from the original on August 15, 2016. Retrieved July 6, 2016.
- ^ Fletcher Stack, Peggy (May 31, 2018). "New film 'Jane & Emma' captures the friendship between a black convert and the beloved wife of Mormonism's founder". www.sltrib.com. The Salt Lake Tribune. Retrieved October 22, 2018.
Sources
- Turley, Richard E. (2011). Women of Faith in the Latter Days. Vol. 1. Brittany Chapman Nash. Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book Company. pp. 120–135. ISBN 978-1-60641-033-2. OCLC 751248881.
- Carter, Kate B. The Story of the Negro Pioneer. Harold B. Lee Library; Provo, Utah: Utah Printing. pp. 11–13.
- Coleman, Ronald Gerald (1980). A History of Blacks in Utah, 1825–1910. Harold B. Lee Library; Provo, Utah.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
Further reading
- Embry, Jessie L. (1994). Black Saints in a White Church: Contemporary African American Mormons. Salt Lake City, Utah: Signature Books. ISBN 978-1-56085-044-1.
- James, Jane E. Manning. "My Life Story". Wilford Woodruff Papers. Transcribed by Elizabeth J. D. Roundy.
- Johnson, Karen A. (2006). "Undaunted Courage and Faith: The Lives of Three Black Women in the West and Hawaii in the Early 19th Century". Journal of African American History. 91 (1): 4–22. doi:10.1086/JAAHv91n1p4. JSTOR 20064044. S2CID 148934939.
- Mueller, Max (Winter–Spring 2011). "Playing Jane: The history of a pioneer black Mormon woman is alive today". Harvard Divinity School Bulletin. 39 (1 & 2). Archived from the original on April 20, 2011.
- Newell, Linda King; Avery, Valeen Tippetts (August 1979). "Jane Manning James: Black Saint, 1847 Pioneer". Ensign.
- Newell, Quincy (2019). Your Sister in the Gospel: The Life of Jane Manning James, a Nineteenth-Century Black Mormon. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0199338665.
- O'Donovan, Connell (2006). "The Mormon Priesthood Ban & Elder Q. Walker Lewis: 'An example for his more whiter brethren to follow'". John Whitmer Historical Association Journal. (Online reprint with author updates)
- Reiter, Tonya (October 2017). "Black Saviors on Mount Zion: Proxy Baptisms and Latter-day Saints of African Descent". Journal of Mormon History. 43 (4).
- Wolfinger, Henry J. A Test of Faith: Jane Elizabeth James and the Origin of the Utah Black Community. L. Tom Perry Special Collections; Harold B. Lee Library; Provo, Utah.
- Jane Manning James at Find a Grave
- Wolfinger, Henry J.; A Test of Faith: Jane Elizabeth James and the origins of the Utah black community; MSS SC 1069; 20th Century Western and Mormon Manuscripts; L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University.
- Jane Manning James: Your Sister in the Gospel
- 1822 births
- 1908 deaths
- African-American Latter Day Saints
- Burials at Salt Lake City Cemetery
- Converts to Mormonism from Presbyterianism
- Latter Day Saints from Connecticut
- Latter Day Saints from Illinois
- Latter Day Saints from Utah
- Mormon pioneers
- People from Wilton, Connecticut
- Harold B. Lee Library-related 19th century articles