Biography

Henry Geboyle Church was around seven years old when he and his family crossed the United States from Tennessee to Utah Territory to join with other Latter-day Saints in their Rocky Mountain home. His name reflects his parents’ commitment to their faith and the respect they had for a Southern States missionary of the nineteenth century, Henry G. Boyle. After arriving in central Utah, unlike his brothers, Henry never left farming to mine or pursue other ventures. He instead lived the rest of his life in Millard County where he worked as a farmer.

Henry’s mother, Harriet Elnora Burchard Church had been enslaved to his father, Thomas Holiday Church before they married and raised a large family. Harriet was biracial while Thomas was white. The Church family lived in central Tennessee, in Maury County, when Henry was born on May 28, 1873.[1] Soon after his younger sister Arizona’s birth, in 1877, Thomas and Harriet brought their eight children to Deseret, in far off Utah Territory where Thomas began farming.[2]

On June 1, 1882, shortly after Henry turned nine, he was baptized in the Deseret Ward by Samuel W. Western. He was confirmed as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on the same day under the hands of Mahonri M Moriancumer Bishop, a counselor in the ward bishopric (an assistant to the local congregation’s leader). On December 3, 1883 about eighteen months after Henry’s baptism, Mahonri M. Bishop also conferred the lay priesthood upon Henry and ordained him to the office of deacon in the Aaronic or lower priesthood, this despite the fact that he had Black African ancestry through his mother. Henry was ten years of age at the time.[3] Henry’s race or color was always designated as white and although his mother’s racial make-up was known in Latter-day Saint circles by at least 1900, local leaders may have understood Henry to be white before that date.[4]

Henry still lived with his parents in 1900 and worked as a farm laborer, likely on his family’s farm.[5] His father, Thomas, had homesteaded a farm in Oasis by that time, another small farming community close to Deseret. Ten years later, Thomas had taken a job as a mail carrier, and thirty-seven-year-old Henry, still single and still at home with his parents, worked at odd jobs.[6]

1911 brought major changes to Henry’s life when, on February 1 he married twenty-two-year-old Adelia Brunson. Adelia was also a member of the Church. As an elder in the Church, Adelia’s uncle, Peter L. Brunson, had the authority to marry the couple in Fillmore, Utah, the Millard County seat.[7]

After his marriage, Henry and Adelia stayed in Oasis and farmed next door to his mother, Harriet. After his father’s death in 1917, Henry, undoubtedly, helped his mother and his single sister who remained at home in her mother’s care.[8] Blue-eyed, black- haired Henry registered for the WWI draft on September 12, 1918, and reported working on a farm that he owned.[9]

After growing up in a large family, it must have been quite a change for Henry to spend a good part of his married life with only his wife in the home with him. He and Adelia never had children of their own. Henry had many nieces and nephews who enjoyed his musical talent. He played the cornet while his youngest sister played the piano and harmonica at family gatherings.[10]

Evidently, Henry and Adelia continued affiliating with the Church, as they were listed as members in the church wide censuses taken in 1920 and 1925. In 1920, Adelia was noted as a member of the Church women’s organization, the Relief Society. In 1925, after Harriet Church died, Henry’s disabled older sister moved into his home. Henry was still listed as a deacon on this census, so he likely never received the Melchizedek or higher priesthood during his lifetime.[11]

In 1930, Henry still maintained his own farm.[12] However, by the summer of 1931, after suffering from illness for a year, his chronic myocarditis and nephritis got the better of him and he died at the age of fifty-eight, on July 7, 1931.[13] He is buried in the Oasis Cemetery near to the graves of his parents.[14]

Henry was posthumously endowed in a vicarious temple ritual in the Logan Utah Temple on July 25, 1935. It would have been necessary to also posthumously confer the Melchizedek priesthood on him before the endowment could be performed in his behalf. Henry was also sealed in a familial sealing to his deceased parents on the same date. Henry’s wife, Adelia, never remarried although she lived more than two decades after his demise, dying on September 12, 1956. On September 17, 1959, after her death, the couple was sealed in a proxy ceremony in the Salt Lake Temple.[15] Henry, thus received temple blessings at the same time that Latter-day Saints with Black ancestry were prohibited from entering the temple. He also received the higher lay priesthood, albeit vicariously, at a time when it was withheld from Church members with his racial lineage.

By Tonya S. Reiter

[1] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, Deseret Ward (Utah), microfilm 25,885, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[2] United States, 1880 Census, Territory of Utah, Millard County, Deseret Precinct.

[3] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, Deseret Ward (Utah), microfilm 25,885, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah. Unlike today, at that time, there was no minimum age at which boys were allowed to hold the Aaronic priesthood.

[4] See Tonya S. Reiter, “John Taylor Church,” Century of Black Mormons.

[5] United States, 1900 Census, Utah, Millard County, Oasis Precinct.

[6] United States, 1910 Census, Utah, Millard County, Oasis Precinct.

[7] Utah, County Marriages, 1871-1941, Entry for Henry Church and Adelia Brunson, 01 Feb 1911.

[8] United States, 1920 Census, Utah, Millard County, Oasis Precinct.

[9] United States, World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington DC.

[10] Ella Lorraine Petty, “Thomas Holiday and Harriet Church,” Harriet Elnora Burchard (KWJ6-Z9), FamilySearch, Family Tree Memories Page (accessed 12 September 2025).

[11] “Church,” Presiding Bishopric, stake and mission census, 1914-1960, Family History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[12] United States, 1930 Census, Utah, Millard County, Delta Precinct.

[13] Utah, state Board of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Certificate of Death, File No. 36, Henry G. Church, Utah State Archives, Salt Lake City, Utah; “Henry Church Dies,” Millard County Chronicle Progress (Delta, Utah), 9 July 1931, 1.

[14] Henery [sic] Geboyle Church, Findagrave.com, (accessed 12 September 2025).

[15] Henry Geboyle Church (KWVP-6RP), FamilySearch, Family Tree Ordinance Page (accessed 12 September 2025).

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