Biography

Violetta M. Church was born in Tennessee in 1871, but lived most of her life in Millard County, Utah. Her parents were both members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and so was Violetta. According to family accounts, Violetta, as a baby, sustained an injury that paralyzed one side of her body. Never marrying, she lived with her parents until her father’s death, and then continued to live with her widowed mother. After her mother’s death, she spent a short time with a younger brother, but was eventually confined to the Utah State Mental Hospital in Provo, Utah where she spent her final months.

Violetta was a young child when her family, as converts to the LDS Church, left Tennessee to go west and join the main body of Saints in Utah Territory.[1] Violetta, who was born on June 21, 1871 in Maury County, Tennessee was the fifth or sixth child born to Thomas Holiday and Harriet Elnora Burchard Church.[2] Her biracial mother had been enslaved to her white father until the conclusion of the Civil War in 1865. When the Church family arrived in Utah, they did not stay in Salt Lake City, but went south to a little farming settlement called Deseret in Millard County.[3] The family moved a short distance to Oasis, Utah around 1900. Like the rest of her immediate family, after moving to Utah, Violetta’s race was listed as “White” on all census records.

The other young Church children attended school in Millard County, but when Violetta began going to school at the age of six, the students teased her because of her maimed hand. She went home every day in tears, so her parents kept her at home. Her mother taught her some basic skills and she learned to read a little and to write her name.[4]

On September 7, 1882, M. M. Bishop of the Deseret Ward baptized and confirmed eleven-year-old Violetta a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.[5] She remained a member of the church for the rest of her life.

As long as her parents were living, Violetta lived with them. Her father, Thomas, died in 1917, leaving Violetta, as the last single child in the family, in the care of her mother, Harriet. Violetta is listed with Harriet in the LDS Church Census of 1920.[6] When her mother died in 1922, Violetta moved in with her younger brother, Henry G. Church and his wife and lived with them for a short period. She is listed in their household in the 1925 LDS Census.[7]

By 1930, Violetta had been confined to the Utah State Mental Hospital in Provo, Utah where she died on November 30 of that year of a cerebral hemorrhage.[8] She was 59 years old. Her body was brought home to Oasis where she is buried near other family members in the Oasis City Cemetery.[9]

Violetta posthumously received Latter-day Saint temple rituals by proxy on October 5, 1931 and was later sealed to her parents on July 25, 1939. These rituals took place decades before Latter-day Saints of African descent were again allowed to enjoy temple blessings, either in life or by proxy after death.[10] Violetta and her siblings thus demonstrate the uneven application of the Church’s racial restrictions and the impossibilities of enforcing those restrictions.

By Tonya S. Reiter

[1] Violetta is one variation of her name. Her name is spelled in various ways on various documents, Vilate, Violette, Viletta, Villetter, and Violet. A middle initial “M” appears on the 1880 US Census.

[2] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, Deseret Ward, microfilm no. 25,885, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah. The number of children in the family is an open question based on the presence of a daughter only mentioned on the 1870 US Census.

[3] United States, 1880 Census, Utah Territory, Millard County, Deseret.

[4] Ella Lorraine Petty, “Thomas Holiday and Harriet Church,” FamilySearch, Family Tree Memories Page under Harriet Elnora Burchard(KW16-Z9G), (accessed 6 February 2024). According to this source, Violetta had been accidently dropped when someone playfully threw her into the air as a baby. Her physical disability may have been coupled with an intellectual disability. She seems to have been unable to live on her own.

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

[6] “Church,” Presiding Bishopric stake and mission census, 1914-1960, microfilm 25.741, 1920 Census, Family History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[7] “Church,” Presiding Bishopric stake and mission census, 1914-1960, microfilm 25.741,1925 Census, Family History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[8] United States, 1930 Census, Utah, Utah, Provo [Utah State Hospital]; Utah, State Board of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Certificate of Death, File No. 546, Registered No. 620, Villitter Church, Utah State Archives, Salt Lake City, Utah. Violetta’s niece, Elpha Cahoon, was also living in the state hospital at that time.

[9] Violette M. “Violet” Church, Findagrave.com.

[10] Devery S. Anderson, ed. The Development of LDS Temple Worship, 1846-2000: A Documentary History (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2011), 82, 101-2, 361.

Documents

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