Biography

John Taylor Church’s mother was formerly enslaved to his father before the family moved to Utah Territory. Early in life John was promised priesthood ordination in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints but was subsequently denied. He spent decades outside of the faith before he eventually returned and claimed the priesthood that had been assured to him in his youth. He was ordained an elder in 1952, long before Church leaders lifted racial restrictions churchwide. His life thus demonstrates the uneven application of those restrictions across time and space and indicates the challenges that those on the racial margins faced in their chosen faith.

John was the first of Thomas Holiday and Harriet Elnora Burchard Church’s children to be born in Utah Territory. Harriet, his mother, was biracial and had been enslaved to his white father, Thomas, until the end of the Civil War. Thomas, Harriet (the woman he formerly enslaved who was now his wife) and their eight children left Maury County, Tennessee to resettle in Utah Territory about 1878. John Taylor Church was thus born in the rural farming community of Deseret in Millard County, on January 28, 1879, where his family chose to make their new home. A few months after his birth, on June 5, 1879, his parents took him to the Deseret Ward where Hyrum Dewsnup gave him a name and a priesthood blessing.[1]

Throughout the 1880s, John and his family continued to live in Deseret where they participated in church activities. John turned eight years old early in 1887. That spring, on May 28, Joshua Bennett, a local leader, baptized him into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He was confirmed on the same day under the hands of Joseph S. Black.[2]

Early in 1900, after the Church family had relocated a short distance from Deseret to Oasis, also in Millard County, John received a patriarchal blessing under the hand of the Oasis Stake patriarch, John Ashman, Jr. Latter-day Saints believe that such blessings are given under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to provide personal direction and reveal divine promises intended for the recipient. They frequently include a pronouncement of an Israelite heritage. In John’s case, the patriarch declared him to be a member of the House of Ephraim and promised that he would be ordained to the lay priesthood and serve a mission for the Church. Many of the residents of the little towns of Deseret and Oasis knew that John’s mother, Harriet, was biracial and that John therefore had African ancestry. At the time, Black African ancestry was thought to preclude descent from Israelite lineage, especially that of Joseph and his son, Ephraim. In addition, Latter-day Saints with Black African ancestors were barred from ordination to the priesthood and from temple rituals preparatory to serving a mission. Given John’s patriarchal blessing, Latter-day Saints in the region began to question whether or not John had a right to hold the priesthood and whether he could indeed fulfill a mission despite having African ancestry.[3]

Ira N. Hinkley, the Millard Stake president (a regional ecclesiastical leader) appealed to the Church’s highest governing body, the First Presidency, to decide what should be done about John Taylor Church and the promises of his blessing. On March 11, 1900, members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Francis M. Lyman, John Henry Smith, John W. Taylor, Anthon H. Lund, and Abraham O. Woodruff met with Church President Lorenzo Snow and his counselors, George Q. Cannon and Joseph F. Smith and took up the question. Ira Hinkley conveyed to the Council the belief held by some members of his stake, that John could hold the priesthood, “provided the white blood predominates.”[4]

Lorenzo Snow commented that he had asked Brigham Young why “millions and millions of people were cursed with a black skin, and when, if ever, this curse would be removed.” Snow reported that Young answered his question, but Snow did not know whether the answer Young gave him had been revealed to Young or whether it was “his own personal view of what had been told him by the Prophet Joseph.” According to Snow’s recollection of what Young said, people were organized in the spirit world like they are on earth. “There were patriarchs standing at the head of certain classes of spirits and there were certain relationships existing which affected their coming into the world.” Both Cain and Abel stood at the head of groups of pre-mortal spirits. When Cain slew Abel, Cain fully understood the effect it would have on Abel’s followers. This act would prevent their coming into the world for “perhaps thousands and thousands of years; hence the sin was immense because the effects were immense.” In addition, “there was this understanding when the Lord executed judgment upon Cain; the spirits under his leadership still looked up to him, and rather than forsake him they were willing to bear his burdens and share the penalty imposed upon him.” The curse would remain in effect until the spirits Abel presided over “should have the privilege of coming into the world.”[5]

George Q. Cannon then added something he believed Joseph Smith to have said during his lifetime, “that there would be a great wrong perpetrated if the seed of Cain were allowed to have the Priesthood before Abel should have posterity to receive it, and this curse therefore was to remain upon the seed of Cain until the time should come that Abel should have posterity. He understood that that time could not come until Abel should beget spirits in the eternal worlds and those spirits obtain tabernacles; if it were otherwise the slayer would have advantage over the slain.” Cannon went on to say, “It would seem that there was a class of spirits who had to take such bodies [with black skin] for the reason that Ham had introduced this blood through the ark by marrying a woman of the accursed seed named Egyptus.”[6] Cannon likely drew on the Book of Abraham for some of these ideas, a book of scripture in the Latter-day Saint canon that Joseph Smith produced. Yet there is no evidence from Joseph Smith’s lifetime that he implemented a racial priesthood restriction.[7]

The response of the church’s general leaders to Ira Hinkley is not available to researchers, but the notes of the discussion by the General Authorities make it clear that they were not in favor of making an exception for John Taylor Church.[8] He was not ordained to the priesthood in 1900 and he never served a mission for the Church. However, in the autumn of 1900, he became the first counselor in the Oasis Ward Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Association, the church’s auxiliary for teenage boys.[9]

Sometime soon after 1900, John moved north to Eureka in neighboring Juab County, which was part of the then booming Tintic mining district. He worked in a quartz mine located there. Two of his brothers, Robert and Major, lived and worked in mining there as well.[10]

It was in Eureka that John met his first wife, Mary Ann Downey, a Roman Catholic. She and her family had come to Utah from Michigan, but both her parents had been born in Ireland. On June 21, 1905, she and John married in St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Eureka. They were married by Father Donahoe according to the Roman Catholic rites and John’s brother, Henry, served as one of the witnesses.[11]

While living in Eureka, John and Mary had two daughters, Gertrude and LaVerne. Mary and her family were committed Catholics. Both of the girls were baptized in St. Patrick’s Catholic Church with members of Mary’s family acting as godparents to the babies.[12] LaVerne was christened with the name “Margaret” a name that she sometimes used, but often called herself LaVonne.[13]

There is no record that John converted to the Catholic Church or was baptized into that faith. He was, nonetheless, excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on September 3, 1916. There is no reason given on John’s membership record for such action taken against him.[14]

Besides working in the mining industry, John was successful in several business ventures in Eureka and he was active in local government. Even before going into business for himself, John supported organized labor.[15] He was president of the miners’ union in 1909, for example, and then he moved on to city government when he ran for a position on the city council on the Socialist Party ticket.[16] He was successful in his bid, but resigned in 1913, to obtain a retail license to sell liquor.[17] The license was granted, launching John into a new career as a tavern keeper. A small item in the Eureka newspaper in 1916 mentions a jury trial set for the next day to try John on the charge of selling liquor after hours at his eponymous business, the Church Bar.[18]

Despite this minor offense, John seems to have done well in business. He bought a Buick in the spring of 1916, and that fall took a road trip north to Salt Lake City, Park City, and Heber City. These events were enough of a novelty that The Eureka Reporter took notice of them.[19]

Next, John Church expanded his interests into “amusement parlors.” He owned a pool hall and in 1918, moved the tables into a newly renovated large building he had rented.[20] He then made a very substantial investment of $12,000 to open an ice plant, something Eureka had never had.[21] Five years later he bought a local milk business reasoning that he already owned an ice plant that could easily serve as a milk storage facility as well.[22] He eventually branched out into soft drinks and operated the Gatley Soft Drink Parlor.[23]

In 1921, John turned back to politics and ran for mayor on the Socialist ticket. The Socialist platform called “for the careful use of public money and enforcement of city law.” John contended that his business experience would allow him, “to run Eureka City on business principals.” Socialist party members declared themselves to be “a party of taxpayers, for the taxpayers and by the taxpayers.”[24] John won the election and ran again in 1923, but lost. He contested the result of the latter election but it was not overturned. After losing the mayoral election John served on the Eureka City Council for two more terms before becoming mayor for a second time in 1931.[25]

During his last mayoral term, John dealt with high unemployment and other difficulties brought on by the Great Depression. He actively sought ways to bring more fuel into his community by making a deal with coalmine owners near Schofield, Utah to allow men from Eureka to come in, mine coal, and transport it 110 miles to Eureka. He personally bought a five-ton truck for that purpose.[26] Near the end of his term, John headed an effort to assemble a history of Eureka. It included maps, financial tables, and the outline of a project to develop the city’s water supply by means of a loan through the federal Emergency Act.[27]

John ran one more time for the position of mayor in Eureka, but was unsuccessful in 1933. The mining town had seen its most productive years in the first three decades of the twentieth century. By the 1930s the town’s population was falling.[28] In the spring of 1935, John also left the town where he had served for so many years and moved to Salt Lake City. He separated from his wife, Mary, who remained in Eureka, living near her brothers and their families. John and Mary’s daughters were adults by the time John left, but the Churches had taken in Mary’s niece, whose mother died a few days after her birth. This niece, Lila, was about nine years of age when John moved to Salt Lake. Mary raised her to maturity and essentially took the place of the girl’s mother.[29]

When John relocated to Salt Lake, he boarded with a woman whom he must have known from Eureka, Sarah Jane Hilton Jack, known as “Janie.” Janie’s first husband had been in the mining business in Eureka. The Jack family moved to Salt Lake in about 1931, but Janie’s husband died very soon afterward.[30] Janie’s children were still young, so renting a room to a boarder may have been a financial boon for the widow.

John continued to board with Janie and her children for the next fifteen years.[31] During those years John and Janie’s relationship developed into one of a more personal nature than that of landlady and tenant. After living in Salt Lake for over a decade, John divorced Mary Ann Downey Church in June 1949. Then, on September 21, 1950, he was rebaptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.[32] One week later, on September 28, 1950, at the age of seventy-one, he married Janie.[33]

After being barred from the priesthood and missionary service in 1900 and being excommunicated from the LDS church sixteen years later, John’s life took a remarkable turn when he moved to Salt Lake and began boarding with Janie. Janie’s first husband had been an alcoholic and their marriage had not been sealed in a Latter-day Saint temple. She had raised their children in the Church and had remained committed to its principles. On June 17, 1952, two years after John and Janie’s civil marriage, they entered the Salt Lake temple where they received the endowment ritual and were sealed for eternity.[34] John had previously received the Melchizedek Priesthood and by 1955, local leaders ordained him to the office of High Priest. More than fifty years after receiving a patriarchal blessing that brought him to the attention of the Church’s First Presidency, John was finally granted the priesthood ordination promised in his patriarchal blessing and was given access to higher temple ordinances despite his mixed racial ancestry.[35]

There is no indication that John’s racial identity was a part of the decision-making process in the 1950s or that local leaders in the Liberty Park Ward were aware of the prior controversy surrounding John’s blessing. He had moved away from Millard County where people knew of his mother’s biracial status and had long since passed as white. His story thus illustrates the challenges of enforcing racial policies, especially over time and space.

John Taylor Church participated in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints until he died on June 12, 1965, at the age of eighty-six.[36] John is buried in the Salt Lake City cemetery near his second wife, Janie, who died just three months after his death.[37]

By Tonya S. Reiter

[1] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, Deseret Ward [1877]-1945, microfilm 25,885, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[2] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, Deseret Ward [1877]-1945, microfilm 25,885, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[3] George A. Smith Family Papers, 1931-1969, MS0036, box 78, folder 8, Council Meeting, 11 March 1900, Special Collections, J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah; Armand L. Mauss, All Abraham’s Children: Changing Mormon Conceptions of Race and Lineage (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2003), chapter 2.

[4] George A. Smith Family Papers, Council Meeting, 11 March 1900.

[5] George A. Smith Family Papers, Council Meeting, 11 March 1900.

[6] George A. Smith Family Papers, Council Meeting, 11 March 1900.

[7] W. Paul Reeve, Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), chapter 7.

[8] George A. Smith Family Papers, Council Meeting, 11 March 1900.

[9] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “Oasis Ward Manuscript History and Historical Reports, 1890-1983,” LR 6370 2, image 9, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[10] United States, 1910 Census, Utah, Juab County, Eureka.

[11] Utah, U.S., Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City, Sacramental Records, 1860-1998, St. Patrick, Eureka, Combination Register, 157, John Church, married, Juab County, 21 June 1905, Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[12] Utah, U.S., Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City, Sacramental Records, 1860-1998, St. Patrick, Eureka, Combination Register, 63, Girtruda Church, baptized 30 June 1907, Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City, Salt Lake City, Utah; Utah, U.S., Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City, Sacramental Records, 1860-1998, St. Patrick, Eureka, Combination Register, 68, Margaritam Church, baptized 26 September 1909, Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[13] United States, 1920 Census, Utah, Juab County, Eureka; California, U.S., Voter Registrations, 1900-1968, San Francisco County, 1938, Roll 061, LaVonne M Church, Great Register of Voters, California State Library, California.

[14] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, Eureka Ward 1900-1948, microfilm 25,938, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[15] “Enjoy Pleasant Evening,” The Eureka Reporter (Eureka, Utah), 28 May 1909, 3.

[16] “Socialist Convention,” The Eureka Reporter (Eureka, Utah), 27 October 1911, 6.

[17] “Regular Meeting of City Council.” The Eureka Reporter (Eureka, Utah), 9 May 1913, 1.

[18] “Police Court Items,” The Eureka Reporter (Eureka, Utah), 28 July 1916, 4.

[19] “John Church Buys Auto,” The Eureka Reporter (Eureka, Utah), 21 April 1916, 4; “Mr. and Mrs. John Church,” The Eureka Reporter (Eureka, Utah) 1 September 1916, 4.

[20] “Will Open Attractive Amusement Parlor Here,” The Eureka Reporter (Eureka, Utah), 1 March 1918, 8.

[21] “Ice Plant Will Soon Be Turning Out Good Product,” The Eureka Reporter (Eureka, Utah), 9 April 1920, 1.

[22] “Milk Business Is Sold to Former Mayor Church,” The Eureka Reporter (Eureka, Utah), 29 May 1925, 4.

[23] “Bonner Named Councilman at Meeting Held on Friday,” The Eureka Reporter (Eureka, Utah), 21 February 1929, 1.

[24] “John Church Heads Socialist Ticket,” The Eureka Reporter (Eureka, Utah), 14 October 1921, 1.

[25] “John T. Church Obituary,” The Salt Lake Tribune (Salt Lake City, Utah), 13 June 1965, 57.

[26] “Mayor Endeavors To Secure Coal For Needy of Eureka,” The Eureka Reporter (Eureka, Utah), 26 August 1932, 2, 1; “Unemployed Are Now Mining Coal,” The Eureka Reporter (Eureka, Utah), 29 September 1932, 1.

[27] “Loan Information Given by Eureka,” The Eureka Reporter (Eureka, Utah), 2 November 1933, 1.

[28] “Eureka, Utah,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eureka,_Utah, (accessed 27 Nov 2023).

[29] Mary’s obituary names Lila (Lela) as a daughter. See, “Eureka Woman Dies At Home,” The Daily Herald (Provo, Utah), 10 August, 1962, 4.

[30] Utah, State Board of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Certificate of Death, File No. 1071, Registered No. 266, William Lee Jack, Utah State Archives, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[31] United States, 1940 Census, Utah, Salt Lake County, Salt Lake City; United States, 1950 Census, Utah, Salt Lake County, Salt Lake City.

[32] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake Temple, “Index Cards to Salt Lake Temple Records no. 5562, book J, 265,” John Taylor Church.

[33] John Church’s obituary gives this date, as does the record (above) of his sealing to Janie. They applied for a marriage license in Nevada on 23 March 1950; Nevada, White Pine County, Vital Records Aug 9, 1947-Oct 1, 1947, Jan 3, 1948-Dec 31, 1950, John Taylor Church and Sarah J. Hilton Jack, 23 March 1950.

[34] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake Temple, “Sealings of living couples, 1893-1956,” microfilm 1,239,573, book E, 546, John Taylor Church and Sarah Jane Syme-Hilton, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

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

[36] “John T. Church,” The Salt Lake Tribune (Salt Lake City, Utah), 13 June 1965, 57.

[37] John Taylor Church, Findagrave.com, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/121540240/john_taylor-church.

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