Ellis, Mildred Bernice Leggroan

Biography

Mildred was the eldest child of Hyrum and Nancy Caroline (Carrie) Bankhead Leggroan. She was born in 1913 in Salt Lake City. Her father was LDS, but her mother was not. On April 1, 1917, when she was three years old Charles W. Fagg blessed her in the Wilford Ward in Mill Creek, where her father had grown up. Mildred’s brother, Douglas, was blessed on the same day. [1]  

At some point the Leggroan family moved to the Miller Ward in Salt Lake County where Mildred was raised. Her baptism on January 26, 1924 is listed in that ward’s record book. She thus became a fifth generation descendant of Isaac and Jane Elizabeth Manning James baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Sometime around 1929, Mildred’s mother joined the Seventh-day Adventist Church, but Hyrum and Mildred did not. Mildred continued to attend the LDS Church into adulthood. Her mother later said that Mildred’s Mormon grandparents, Henry and Esther Jane James Leggroan, insisted on her baptism and she had not objected, not having a religious affiliation at the time. [2]

Mildred graduated from Granite High School in 1931.[3] She married Frank Lincoln Ellis eight years later on June 1, 1938. [4] Frank came to Utah from Texas with his family. He was not Mormon, and in fact, his aunt helped to found the black Seventh-day Adventist Church in Salt Lake. [5]

Mildred and Frank lived with Mildred’s parents after they married. Hyrum and Mildred’s church records were transferred from the Miller Ward to the 26^th Ward at the end of 1939 when the household moved closer to town. [6] Frank and Mildred had two daughters and lived in Salt Lake City all their married life. Mildred attended LDS Relief Society meetings late in her life and invited her elderly mother to events which the organization hosted. [7]

Frank died at the age of forty-six in 1958, but Mildred lived until 1998. When she died, she was buried near many of her relatives in Elysian Burial Gardens in Millcreek, Utah. [8] Her obituary described her as a member of the LDS church. [9]

By Tonya S. Reiter

Primary Sources

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection. Miller Ward, Part 2. CR 375 8, box 4219, folder 2, image 514. Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection. Wilford Ward, Part 1. CR 375 8, box 7640, folder 1, image 146. Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

“Leggroan.” Presiding Bishopric stake and mission census, 1914-1935. CR 4 311. Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

Leggroan, Celia Bankhead and Carrie Bankhead Leggroan. Oral Interview by Ronald Coleman. Salt Lake City, Utah, 1977. Transcript. “Helen Zeese Papanikolas Papers, 1954-2001.” Ms 0471, box 2, folder 8. Special Collections. J. Willard Marriott Library. University of Utah. Salt Lake City, Utah.

United States. 1920 Census. Utah, Salt Lake County, Precinct 3.

United States. 1930 Census. Utah, Salt Lake County, Precinct 3.

United States. 1940 Census. Utah, Salt Lake County, Salt Lake City.

Secondary Sources

"Death: Mildred Bernice Leggroan Ellis," Deseret News, (Salt Lake City, Utah) 17 April 1998.

Ellis, Mildred Bernice Leggroan. FindAGrave.com.

Goins, Maxine. “History of the Salt Lake Central SDA Church.” (2008).

"Granite High Has Graduating Class of 112", Salt Lake Telegram, (Salt Lake City, Utah) 23 May 1931.

Utah. Select Marriage Index, 1887-1985. Frank Lynton Ellis and Mildred Bernice Leggroan. 1 Jun 1938. Certificate No. A079361. Database at Ancestry.com.

Documents

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