Biography

As one of the middle children of Edward “Ned” and Susan Leggroan, Ida Belle was born into a prominent pioneer Latter-day Saint family.[1] Her mother and father had migrated to Utah from Mississippi in 1870 after being emancipated at the end of the Civil War. The formerly enslaved couple had traveled west, purchased land, converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and became one of the first Black families to settle the Mill Creek area of the Salt Lake Valley.[2] The Leggroan family thus helped to establish a farming enclave of Black residents on the east bench overlooking the valley. Though Ida Belle was very young during the family’s time on “The Hill,” as the Mill Creek region was called, her experiences there no doubt shaped her sense of identity, and may have factored into her decision to relocate back to the area at the end her long life. By the time that she returned to Salt Lake City as an adult, after spending most of her life in Idaho, she had converted to the Seventh Day Adventist Church, the faith community she called her own when she passed away at age 87.

Ida Belle was born on 13 April 1888, in Mill Creek, at the heart of a Black farming community then developing its roots. Just two months following her birth, her parents took her before their Mill Creek Latter-day Saint congregation where Dan Lum, a white priesthood holder, blessed her.[3] Before she was five years old, however, her family relocated to Milo, in Bonneville County, Idaho, in the eastern region of the state.[4] There, the Leggroans would once again establish a new life for themselves. This is where Ida Belle would spend the remainder of her childhood and adolescence, a young life no doubt shaped by work on the family homestead and sheep ranch. She was one of thirteen children born to her mother, Susan, and one of eight who survived to adulthood.[5]

On 5 May 1900, Ida Belle followed family tradition and formally joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She had recently turned twelve years old when W. R. Huffaker baptized her in the Milo, Idaho ward. The next day R.L. Bybee confirmed her in front of the Milo congregation, along with her sister Mary Susan.[6] Despite her parents remaining Latter-day Saints for the duration of their lives, Ida Belle and her sister would be the last of their children to have their baptisms recorded on Church membership rolls.[7] The remaining children likely joined the faith, but surviving sources from eastern Idaho do not offer clues as to the family’s involvement with the local congregation.

When Ida Belle was fourteen, she lost her older brother, David. He was the first of her siblings to die while she was alive to witness. David was just sixteen at his passing.[8] Though Ida Belle kept no written record of her feelings regarding David’s death, it must have been difficult to experience the loss of a family member who was so young and so close in age.

When she was nineteen years old, Ida Belle married Sylvester D. Dixon, in nearby Rigby, with her parents serving as witnesses to the event.[9] Sylvester was a Black man and Kansas native who had relocated to Idaho Falls in 1902 in order to find work.[10] At the time of their union he was thirty-four years old, fifteen years older than Ida Belle, but it was a marriage that would last for the remainder of Sylvester’s life.[11] By 1910, the two shared a home and began their life together as newlyweds in Willow Creek, another rural farming community in eastern Idaho, close to Milo. There, Sylvester worked as a farmer while Ida Belle worked at home.[12]

The young couple moved to Rigby later that same year. There, on 14 November 1910, Ida Belle gave birth to their first child, Cleo Bell. Unfortunately, Ida Belle faced the tragic experience of losing a child to early death. Cleo died less than a year later on March 27, 1911.[13] The Leggroans were a close-knit family and Ida Belle’s mother, Susan, no doubt offered support and comfort. A few years later Ida Belle and Sylvester welcomed their son Curtis into the family on 31 March 1913. Although Curtis lived to adulthood, he nonetheless died relatively young. He passed away at age 46 and Ida Belle thus buried her second and only surviving child.[14] 

 When Curtis was four years old, the small family moved to Idaho Falls, where they rented a home for themselves and Sylvester worked as a general laborer. Curtis attended school and Ida Belle stayed home to manage the household.[15] Sylvester, along with men of his age, registered for the World War I draft, although he was never called into active duty.[16]

This way of life continued for Ida Belle and her family over the course of the following decade. In 1930, the family continued to live in Idaho Falls as a single-income household. The stable home life that they had achieved allowed their son Curtis to attend school without having to work outside the home, even as a teenager.[17] It was a mark of Ida Belle and Sylvester’s work that allowed their child the opportunity to focus on his education, especially considering that neither Sylvester nor Ida Belle had received a formal education themselves. 

By 1950, Curtis had moved out on his own while Ida Belle and Sylvester remained in Idaho Falls. Sylvester transitioned to work as a janitor as well as home repair and yard work. Ida Belle continued to work as a housewife, the circumstances that prevailed until Sylvester’s death in 1955 when he passed away at the age of 81.[18]

Sylvester’s funeral was held at Buck Chapel in Idaho Falls, a Seventh Day Adventist congregation.[19] It is not clear if Sylvester grew up in the Adventist tradition or if he converted with Ida Belle at some point in their life together but evidence indicates that both were practicing Adventists as adults. Sylvester was buried in Rose Cemetery in Idaho Falls, the town where he and Ida Belle had spent the majority of their forty-eight years together.[20]

Unfortunately, Sylvester was only one in a line of family deaths that Ida Belle would experience over the coming years. From 1941 to 1966 she lost eight of her siblings, as well as Curtis, her only son.[21] Perhaps it was her grief and longing for her loved ones that led her to move from her longtime home in Idaho back to where her family had first settled over a century before. Seven years before her own passing, she returned to Salt Lake City. She died there on 27 February 1976, the daughter of formerly enslaved parents; she was 87 years old. Instead of being buried alongside her husband and son, she was laid to rest in Elysian Cemetery in Mill Creek, near the land that her family had helped to pioneer.[22] Her obituary described her, like her husband Sylvester, as a Seventh Day Adventist.[23]

By Wesley Acastre

[1] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, Mill Creek Ward, Microfilm 26,147, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[2] Tonya Reiter, “Life on the Hill: The Black Farming Families of Mill Creek,” Journal of Mormon History 44, no. 4 (October 2018): 68-89.

[3] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, Mill Creek Ward, Microfilm 26,147, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[4] Tonya S. Reiter, “Edward ‘Ned’ Leggroan,” Century of Black Mormons.

[5] United States, 1910 Census, Idaho, Bonneville County, Idaho Falls. 

[6] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, Bingham Idaho Stake, CR 375 8, box 4224, folder 1, image 14, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[7] Tonya S. Reiter, “Edward ‘Ned’ Leggroan,” Century of Black Mormons.

[8] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, Mill Creek Stake, Microfilm 26,147, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah; Tonya S. Reiter, “Edward ‘Ned’ Leggroan,” Century of Black Mormons.

[9] Idaho, Fremont County, Marriages, 1864-1962, Sylvester Dixon and Ida Belle Leggroan, 26 December 1907.

[10] Idaho, Southeast Counties Obituaries, 1864-2007, Sylvester Derious Dixon, 19 June 1955.

[11] Idaho, Fremont County, Marriages, 1864-1962, Sylvester Dixon and Ida Belle Leggroan, 26 December 1907.

[12] United States, 1910 Census, Idaho, Bonneville County, Idaho Falls. 

[13] Idaho, Fremont County, Birth and Death Records 1883-1929, Cleo Belle Dixon, 27 March 1911.

[14] Curtis Dixon, Findagrave.com.

[15] United States, 1920 Census, Idaho, Bonneville County, Idaho Falls.

[16] United States, Idaho, Idaho Falls, World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918, Sylvester Dixon, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC.

[17] United States, 1930 Census, Idaho, Bonneville County, Idaho Falls.

[18] United States, 1950 Census, Idaho, Bonneville County, Idaho Falls. 

[19] Idaho, Southeast Counties Obituaries, 1864-2007, Sylvester Derious Dixon, 19 June 1955.

[20] Idaho, Southeast Counties Obituaries, 1864-2007, Sylvester Derious Dixon, 19 June 1955.

[21] Curtis Dixon, Findagrave.com.

[22] Ida Belle Leggroan Dixon, Findagrave.com.

[23] “Ida L. Dixon,” Salt Lake Tribune, 29 February 1976, 57.

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