Langston, Elsie Virginia Ritchie Olson
Biography
Elsie Virginia Ritchie was the youngest of twelve children born to Annie Cowan Russell and Nelson Holder Ritchie. Elsie’s mother was white and her father was of mixed racial ancestry. In 1909, when Elsie was six years old, the family’s bishop in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints denied her father and mother admission to the Salt Lake City temple because he said that Nelson “had negro blood in him.”[1] Despite this restriction against her father, Elsie and her siblings all received priesthood or temple rituals before June 1978, either in life or by proxy after death. The Ritchie family thus illustrates the challenges of policing racial boundaries and the sometimes fluid nature of racial identity, especially as the Ritchie children passed as white.
Elsie was born in Salt Lake City in 1903 and first appeared on a U.S. census in 1910 when she was seven years old. The census taker that year listed her racial identity as “Indian,” along with that of her father and siblings.[2] Her father, Nelson, did have Native American ancestry, but African ancestry is more prevalent among descendants in the twenty-first century. In fact, DNA studies of seventy-two of Nelson’s descendants indicate that he was the son of an enslaved woman and a white man. Nelson was born into slavery in Missouri and at some point escaped into freedom on the underground railroad.[3] Elsie was thus the descendent of at least two and possibly three generations of mixed-racial ancestors. All known public records after the 1910 census describe Elsie as white.[4] Even though her father and mother were denied temple admission, Elsie did not face the same racial prohibition, a reminder of the power of whiteness in American and Latter-day Saint history.
Elsie was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1911, shortly after she turned eight years old, the age at which Latter-day Saints first baptize.[5] Her father passed away when Elsie was nine, leaving her mother a widow with several children still at home. Elsie no doubt grew up quickly and assumed increasing responsibility in the Ritchie home.
At some point Elsie fell in love with Angus Leroy Olson, a World War I veteran and the son of Swedish born immigrants. The young couple married on Elsie’s seventeenth birthday after Elsie’s mother, Annie, signed a parental release form. Annie then served as a witness for the couple’s wedding.[6] Elsie and Angus established a home in Salt Lake City but moved frequently. LDS census records indicate that Elsie and Angus lived in the Miller Ward, Sixteenth Ward, Fourth Ward, and the Southgate Ward between 1920 and 1935.[7] Elsie gave birth to six children over the same time period, four boys and two girls. Sadly the couple’s daughter, Betty Joy, died in infancy and their other daughter was stillborn, but the four boys lived to adulthood.[8]
In 1936, when Elsie was 33 years old, Angus passed away from Bright’s Disease. Angus had long hoped for war veteran bonus bonds, especially as his health deteriorated. Congress voted the appropriation and the local postman delivered the bonus to Angus just minutes before he passed away. As one newspaper reported it, Elsie, “with tears streaming down her face, explained how her ill husband rallied when congress voted to pay the bonus, how he early filed an application and waited for the payment—which came too late.” Elsie was assured that she would receive her deceased husband’s payment once the paperwork was complete.[9]
After Angus passed away Elsie took a job working at Paramount Laundry in Salt Lake City where, in 1937, she met Fredrick Paul Buckles. Elsie and Fredrick had a daughter together in 1938 who they then placed for adoption shortly after her birth. As an adult, that daughter learned that Elsie was her biological mother on the day that Elsie died and was then able to attend Elsie's funeral. In 2020, that daughter is pleased to be remembered as a member of Elsie's family.
In 1939, Elsie married William Robert Langston, a divorced father of four from southern Utah. The blended family moved to Layton sometime after 1940 where William worked as a civil engineer at Hill Air Force Base while Elsie managed a growing household. In addition to Elsie’s four boys, the new couple had five boys together. Elsie thus gave birth to a total of twelve children. If William’s children from his first marriage visited, it must have been even busier than normal for Elsie.[10]
Elsie and Robert raised their family as Latter-day Saints. Their sons were ordained to the priesthood with no hint of racial suspicion over their grandfather’s identity.[11] Elsie’s son Rex from her first marriage, in fact, attended Brigham Young University where he played quarterback for the football team in 1946 and 1947. He ranked tenth in the nation among college passers and was drafted by the Baltimore Colts but was cut before making the team. He then returned to Utah where he coached high school football.[12] Rex was likely unaware of his grandfather’s racial identify and Elsie’s children likely knew nothing of the prior restriction against their grandfather whom they had never met.
In 1950, Elsie received her own temple rituals in the Salt Lake Temple after which she and William had their love for each other sealed for eternity. Elsie returned the following year with her mother Annie where the two women participated in an additional sealing ritual in which Elsie was sealed to her mother and her father, with someone serving as proxy for Nelson.[13] Nelson had been dead for nearly forty years by that point and his former bishop’s racial prohibition from 1909 was likely a distant memory, if Elsie knew of it at all.
Elsie led a life of service. She was active in the Layton Sixth Ward Relief Society and served as its president from 1955 to 1957. At the first work meeting after Elsie became president, those who gathered participated in quilting, painting dish towels, and “general sewing.” In October 1955, Elsie presided at the Relief Society’s “theology and testimony meeting” with twenty-two women present. She expressed her appreciation for the support of the women in her congregation and shared two poems with them, “A Visiting Teacher,” and “Only a Visiting Teacher,” after which she “stressed [the] importance of the visiting teachers’ work.”[14] Over the next two years Elsie led the women of her congregation in similar monthly gatherings and weekly worship. She was also active in the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers and director of several Singing Mother groups. She served as a temple worker and eventually worked as a seamstress at Deseret Industries.[15]
Elsie also delivered newspapers in Davis County, a job which turned tragic in January 1958. At around five o’clock one evening Elsie turned into the Anchorage apartment complex, a former government housing project in Clearfield, Utah. As she did so, four-year-old Kelly Martinez was playing cowboy with a stick horse and ran through the gate into the path of the oncoming car. Elsie explained to investigating officers that “she applied her brakes immediately” when she saw the boy, but she “felt a bump on the right rear wheel” of the car before she came to a stop. She drove Martinez and his mother to a Layton clinic where he was pronounced dead on arrival. It was a heartbreaking accident for the Martinez family and no doubt for Elsie too.[16]
Elsie’s second husband, William, passed away in 1974 and she died two years later at age 73. She was buried at Bountiful Memorial Park in Bountiful, Utah.[17]
By W. Paul Reeve
Primary Sources
“2 Utah Children Killed.” Salt Lake Daily Herald. 16 January 1958, 2.
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Record of Members Collection. Parley’s Ward. CR 375 8, box 5238, folder 1, image 38. Church History Library. Salt Lake City, Utah.
“Death Comes with Bonus.” Ogden Standard Examiner. 17 June 1936, 5.
“Deaths.” Salt Lake Telegram. 22 November 1928, 10.
“Elsie R. Langston.” Deseret News. 7 July 1976, E2.
“Elsie R. Langston.” Ogden Standard Examiner. 6 July 1976, 22.
“Elsie R. Langston.” Salt Lake Tribune. 17 July 1976, 26.
“Langston.” Presiding Bishopric stake and mission census, 1950-1960. CR 4 316. Church History Library. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City, Utah.
Layton 6th Ward. Aaronic Priesthood Records. LR 4763 12. Church History Library. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City, Utah.
“Layton 6th Ward Names New Auxiliary Heads.” The Weekly Reflex (Bountiful, Utah). 14 February 1957, 12.
Layton 6th Ward. Relief Society Minutes. 21 June 1955, 4 October 1955, 19 February 1957. LR 4763 14. Church History Library. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City, Utah.
“Layton DUPs Hold Outing.” Ogden Standard Examiner. 27 June 1954, 21.
“Motor Vehicle Mishaps Kill Two More Children in Utah.” Deseret News. 16 January 1958, B1, B9.
“Olson.” 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.
“Rex Olson, Granite Coach, Former BYU Grid Great.” Murray Eagle. 15 January 1959, 4.
“Rites Planned Sunday for Angus Leroy Olson.” Deseret News. 18 June 1936, 5.
“The Layton Sixth Ward Relief Society.” The Weekly Reflex (Bountiful, Utah). 24 June 1954, 7.
“Truck, Auto Kill 2 Youngsters, Third Child Dies from Burns.” Salt Lake Tribune. 16 January 1958, 15, 23.
United States. 1910 Census. Utah, Salt Lake County, Sugar House.
United States. 1920 Census. Utah, Salt Lake County, Salt Lake City.
United States. 1930 Census. Utah, Salt Lake County, Salt Lake City.
United States. 1940 Census. Utah, Salt Lake County, Salt Lake City.
Utah. County Marriages, 1887-1940. Salt Lake County. Angus Leroy Olson and Elsie Virginia Ritchie. 14 April 1920. License No. 34357.
Utah. Salt Lake County Birth Records, 1890-1915. Ritchie. 14 April 1903. Microfilm 4,121,046. Family History Library. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City, Utah.
Utah. Wasatch County. William Robert Langston and Elsie Virginia Ritchie. 16 June 1939. Microfilm 482,528. Family History Library. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City, Utah.
“Vet Succumbs Just before Bonds Arrive.” Salt Lake Tribune. 17 June 1936, 24
Whitaker, John Mills. Memorandum from the daily journal of John M. Whitaker (December 1906 to March 1912). Typescript of transcripts from John M. Whitaker journal. J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah.
Secondary Sources
Langston, Elsie Virginia Ritchie Olson. FindAGrave.com.
Reeve, W. Paul. “Nelson Holder Ritchie.”
Ritchie, Elsie Virginia, (KWCG-1R7). Ordinance records on FamilySearch.org (accessed 12 December 2019).
[1] John Mills Whitaker, Memorandum from the daily journal of John M. Whitaker (December 1906 to March 1912), typescript of transcripts from John M. Whitaker journal, 150, J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah.
[2] Utah, Salt Lake County Birth Records, 1890-1915, Ritchie, 14 April 1903, Microfilm 4,121,046, Family History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah; United States, 1910 Census, Utah, Salt Lake County, Sugar House.
[3] See, W. Paul Reeve, “Nelson Holder Ritchie.”
[4] United States, 1920 Census, Utah, Salt Lake County, Salt Lake City; United States, 1930 Census, Utah, Salt Lake County, Salt Lake City; United States, 1940 Census, Utah, Salt Lake County, Salt Lake City.
[5] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, Parley’s Ward, CR 375 8, box 5238, folder 1, image 38, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.
[6] Utah, County Marriages, 1887-1940, Salt Lake County, Angus Leroy Olson and Elsie Virginia Ritchie, 14 April 1920, License No. 34357.
[7] “Olson,” 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. For LDS census records after Elsie married William Robert Langston see “Langston,” Presiding Bishopric stake and mission census, 1950-1960, CR 4 316, Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.
[8] “Deaths,” Salt Lake Telegram, 22 November 1928, 10.
[9] “Death Comes with Bonus,” Ogden Standard Examiner, 17 June 1936, 5; “Vet Succumbs Just before Bonds Arrive,” Salt Lake Tribune, 17 June 1936, 24; “Rites Planned Sunday for Angus Leroy Olson,” Deseret News, 18 June 1936, 5.
[10] Utah, Wasatch County, William Robert Langston and Elsie Virginia Ritchie, 16 June 1939, Microfilm 482,528, Family History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah; “Elsie R. Langston,” Ogden Standard Examiner, 6 July 1976, 22.
[11] For evidence of priesthood ordinations see “Langston,” Presiding Bishopric stake and mission census, 1950-1960, CR 4 316, Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah and Layton 6th Ward, Aaronic Priesthood Records, LR 4763 12, Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.
[12] “Rex Olson, Granite Coach, Former BYU Grid Great,” Murray Eagle, 15 January 1959, 4.
[13] Elsie Virginia Ritchie (KWCG-1R7), ordinance records on FamilySearch.org (accessed 12 December 2019).
[14] Layton 6th Ward, Relief Society Minutes, 21 June 1955, 4 October 1955, 19 February 1957, LR 4763 14, Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah. See also, “Layton 6th Ward Names New Auxiliary Heads,” The Weekly Reflex (Bountiful, Utah),14 February 1957, 12; “The Layton Sixth Ward Relief Society,” The Weekly Reflex (Bountiful, Utah), 24 June 1954, 7.
[15] “Elsie R. Langston,” Ogden Standard Examiner, 6 July 1976, 22; “Layton DUPs Hold Outing,” Ogden Standard Examiner, 27 June 1954, 21.
[16] “Truck, Auto Kill 2 Youngsters, Third Child Dies from Burns,” Salt Lake Tribune, 16 January 1958, 15, 23; “Motor Vehicle Mishaps Kill Two More Children in Utah,” Deseret News, 16 January 1958, B1, B9; “2 Utah Children Killed,” Salt Lake Daily Herald, 16 January 1958, 2.
[17] “Elsie R. Langston,” Ogden Standard Examiner, 6 July 1976, 22; “Elsie R. Langston,” Salt Lake Tribune, 17 July 1976, 26; “Elsie R. Langston,” Deseret News, 7 July 1976, E2; Elsie Virginia Ritchie Olson Langston, FindAGrave.com.
Documents
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