Biography

In 1893, when Sarah Ann Leggroan was born, she became the second child of Henry Alexander and Esther Jane James Leggroan. On her mother's side, she was a great-granddaughter of 1847 pioneer Jane Elizabeth Manning James, who would pass away in 1908 when Sarah was fifteen. Sarah grew up on her parent’s farm in Mill Creek, Utah a rural community where many of her relatives lived and farmed. She was baptized and confirmed in the Wilford Ward on July 7, 1901. [1]

Sarah attended school with the neighborhood children and completed the eighth grade. Annie Dexter Clayton moved to Mill Creek soon after her marriage in 1916. She lived near the Leggroans and remembered Sarah coming to her house to help when her children were ill. [2] Clayton thought the Leggroan children were “so well disciplined” and “well mannered.” [3] Nevertheless, they and the other black families in the ward were very conscious of their secondary social position and took care to “never push themselves into any situation—like in Church, they’d sit by themselves; . . . they never forced themselves upon anyone.” [4] She believed the black children “felt ostracized,” and so did not go to church as often as their parents did. [5] When asked if Sarah Leggroan attended the ward as an adult, Clayton explained that she was never very active “because she was a marvelous cook and she worked in hotels and homes where wealthy people lived . . . so she wasn’t free to go on Sunday to participate in the Sacrament.” [6]

While still living with her parents in Mill Creek, Sarah worked downtown. She went to work and back home on the streetcar. Her father, Henry, often met her after work at the stop near their house and walked her home. On March 24, 1921, he did not meet her. Instead, Sarah was forced into the car of a young man, driven to a deserted canyon and raped. The attacker left her in the canyon and from there she had to make her way home, walking and crawling, many blocks away. [7] Sarah was able to provide a description of the man who abducted her, but no one was ever arrested for the crime. A notice published in the Salt Lake Telegram on April 9, 1921, announced a reward of $100 raised by the Utah Federation of Colored Clubs for information about the identity of Sarah’s attacker, but to no avail. [8]

Sarah Leggroan never married, and after working as a school janitor, she used her cooking skills to find employment. Clayton’s remembrance of Sarah was correct. In 1940, she was a “live in” domestic at the John Bamberger home on Walker Lane. [9] In 1957, a Salt Lake City directory listed Sarah as a maid for a family in Federal Heights, another prestigious neighborhood in the Salt Lake Valley.

After the death of their parents, each of Henry and Jane Leggroan’s children inherited one-sixth of the Mill Creek farm where they spent their childhood. [10] Sarah sold her land, and moved to downtown Salt Lake City. On Christmas Eve 1969, she went to a nearby store to buy a few last minute gifts for her nieces and nephews before joining the family for a Christmas celebration. As she began to cross the street, she was struck by a car and dragged over 300 hundred feet before the car sped away. On impact, the presents she carried scattered over the snowy street. According to news reports the driver of the car was drag racing when he hit and killed Sarah. [11] He was never found and brought to justice.

Sarah Ann Leggroan is buried in Millcreek, Utah in the Elysian Burial Garden cemetery. [12] She rests near the graves of her parents and many of her family.

Primary Sources

Clayton, Annie D. Oral interview by William G. Hartley. Salt Lake City, Utah, 1972. Transcript. OH 1. 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. Wilford Ward. CR 375 8, box 7640, folder 1, image 241. Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

Fleming, Frances [Leggroan]. Oral interview by Leslie Kellen. Salt Lake City, Utah, 1983. Transcript. “Interviews with Blacks in Utah, 1982-1988.” Ms 0453. Special Collections. J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah.

Idaho State Journal (Pocatello, Idaho).

“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.” Presiding Bishopric stake census, 1940. CR 4 313. Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

Leggroan, Sarah Ann. Mss C 239. Photo no. 80, Box 2. Peoples of Utah Photograph Collection. Utah State Historical Society. Salt Lake City, Utah.

Ogden Standard Examiner (Ogden, Utah).

Salt Lake Telegram (Salt Lake City, Utah).

United States. 1900 Census. Utah, Salt Lake County, Mill Creek.

United States. 1910 Census. Utah, Salt Lake County, Precinct 3.

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, Holladay.

Secondary Sources

Leggroan, Sarah Ann. FindAGrave.com.

Reiter, Tonya S. “Life on the Hill: Black Farmers and Their Families in Mill Creek, Utah.” Journal of Mormon History 44, no. 4 (October 2018): forthcoming.

Documents

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