Jett, George

Biography

George Jett grew up in the Reconstruction South where he came of age as the nation attempted to reunify in the aftermath of the Civil War. As federal troops withdrew from the South, former Confederate leaders reasserted white supremacy and implemented Jim Crow laws and segregationist policies that denied civil rights to Black people. Despite such challenges, George managed to provide for his family and find meaning for himself. He no doubt found a sense of otherworldly purpose when at age 27 he converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He then shared his new faith with both of his subsequent wives who converted and he ensured that his two daughters were also baptized. The Jett family thus became Black Latter-day Saint pioneers in eastern Kentucky. George remained committed to his faith for the rest of his life, a Black trailblazer in a predominately white church.

George Jett was born on 29 December 1870 to Richard Johnson and Hannah Jett in eastern Kentucky, in the heart of Appalachia country.[1] George may have grown up without a father in his life and it is possible that his mother did not marry his father. When he was a child he lived with his mother, Hannah, and a younger sister named Anna. The 1880 census lists George’s mother as “single,” which might indicate that she was never married to George’s father and could explain why George took his mother’s last name as his own.[2]

Hannah worked as a housekeeper when George was young, a difficult occupation for a single mother who struggled to provide for her children. In many instances, those who employed Black domestic workers underpaid them and otherwise treated them poorly. It was especially hard for Black women to make enough money to support themselves, let alone two young children.[3] .

Apart from the meager circumstances of his youth, little is known about George’s childhood. He worked as a day laborer in Breathitt County, in the eastern portion of Kentucky, where he grew to adulthood. He was twenty-three-years-old in 1894 when he married Susan Jackson, a young woman who listed her age as sixteen on their marriage record. There is no indication how George and Susan met but the young couple had two daughters together, Katie and Sarah, and made their home in Jackson, the county seat of Breathitt County. Their marriage, however, did not last.[4] Sometime after 1900, George and Sarah divorced and then in 1905 George married Alwilda Jackson, a woman to whom he would remain married for the rest of his life.[5]

There is no indication how George first encountered Latter-day Saint missionaries or what it was about their message that attracted his attention, but evidence suggests that he quickly became a committed member of his new faith. He was likely influential in both of his wives' subsequent conversions as well as the baptisms of both of his daughters. Latter-day Saint missionary George D. Morrill from Teasdale, Utah, baptized George on 20 September 1898. John A. Winegar from Bountiful, Utah, confirmed him on the same day.

Less than four months later George’s first wife, Susan, followed George into the waters of baptism.[6] Then, in 1909, his daughters Katie and Sarah also received baptism; they did so on the same day that their stepmother, Alwilda, converted.[7] George must have played a prominent role in sharing his new faith with both of his wives and ensuring that his two daughters also received baptism. George remained devoted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for the rest of his life even though surviving sources offer only a limited view of what his religious life might have looked like. He and Alwilda appeared on a 1926 Latter-day Saint census record, an indication that he continued to maintain contact with his congregation. Clerks or missionaries consistently copied his name into new membership books as they were created, a further indication of his ongoing affiliation.[8]

By 1920, George and Alwilda, had moved to Ravenna, in Estill County, Kentucky, where he became a boiler washer in a railway shop owned by the Louiville and Nashville Railroad, or L&N as it was known. Railroad jobs were some of the most sought-after positions in Black communities because they paid well, were often unionized, and allowed workers to travel.[9] This did not mean that railroad jobs were immune from racism; Black workers were often passed over for advancements and faced other discriminatory practices.[10] As the boiler washer, or boilermaker, George would have been responsible for cleaning and maintaining a functional engine. The job was difficult and physically demanding and included dangerous tasks.[11]

George eventually retired from L&N Railroad and stayed in Estill County until he died on 28 July 1939, from liver disease (hypercirrhosis).[12] He passed away at his home in what the local newspaper described as "the colored section" of town, near Ravenna. His body was taken back to Jackson, in Breathitt County, where mourners gathered for his funeral. He was then laid to rest in the Kings Branch Cemetery in Jackson; Alwilda was burried next to him when she subsequently passed away. At some point thereafter a clerk or missionary in the local Latter-day Saint congregation scrawled the word “died” in the remarks column of George’s membership record. It was an indication that he had remained connected to his faith community up through his death, a commitment that he maintained for over fourty years.[13]

By Serena Juhasz

With research assistance by Joseph Tuimauga

[1] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, Kentucky (State), CR 375 8, box 3337, folder 1, image 354, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah; Kentucky, State Board of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Certificates of Death, File No. 17012, Registered No. 87, George Jett, Kentucky Department of Libraries and Frankfort, Franklin County, Kentucky.

[2] United States, 1880 Census, Jett's Creek, Breathitt County, Kentucky.

[3] Wright, George C. A History of Blacks in Kentucky: In Pursuit of Equality, 1890-1980, vol 2. Frankfurt: Kentucky Historical Society, 1992; United States, 1880 Census, Jett's Creek, Breathitt County, Kentucky. 

[4] Kentucky, U.S., County Marriage Records, 1783-1965, Breathitt County, George Jett and Susan Jackson, 26 July 1894; United States, 1900 Census, Jackson, Breathitt County, Kentucky.

[5] Kentucky, U.S., County Marriage Records, 1783-1965, Breathitt County, George Jett and Alwilda Jackson, 15 June 1905.

[6] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, Kentucky (State), CR 375 8, box 3337, folder 2, image 132, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.; "Sentiments in a Nutshell," Latter Day Saints Southern Star (Chattanooga, Tennessee), 3 December 1898, 2.; Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, Kentucky (State), CR 375 8, box 3337, folder 2, image 132, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[7] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, Kentucky (State), CR 375 8, box 3338, folder 1, image 192, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[8] “Jett,” 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; Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, Kentucky (State), Part 2, Segment 1, CR 375 8, box 3338, folder 1, image 192, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[9] Eric Arnesen, Brotherhoods of Color: Black Railroad workers and the Struggle for Equality (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), 44; Blair L. M.Kelley, Right to Ride: Streetcar Boycotts and African American Citizenship in the Era of Plessy v. Ferguson (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010); "Colored L. & N. Shopman Dies," The Estill Herald (Irvine, Kentucky) 3 August 1939, 2.

[10] Theodore Kornweibel Jr., Railroads in the African American Experience (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010). 

[11] Kornweibel, Railroads in the African American Experience, 307.

[12] Kentucky, State Board of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Certificates of Death, File No. 17012, Registered No. 87, George Jett, Kentucky Department of Libraries and Frankfort, Franklin County, Kentucky; Hypercirrhosis is a condition when cells in the liver are damaged and cannot be repaired. Scar tissue then is formed, which can cause problems with blood flow, and the proper function of the liver is limited. See Staff, Familydoctor.org, Editorial, “Cirrhosis and Portal Hypertension.”

[13] George Jett, Findagrave.com; Alwilda Jackson Jett, Findagrave.com; "Colored L. & N. Shopman Dies," The Estill Herald (Irvine, Kentucky) 3 August 1939, 2.

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