Biography

At the turn of the twentieth century, through an extraordinary series of events, the Daniels family, in Cape Town, South Africa, joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The family was of mixed racial ancestry, or “coloured” in South African terminology. Soon after the family’s conversion, Philida Daniels, one of the earliest members of her family to join this American-born faith, emigrated to Utah with her husband and infant son. There, she performed key temple rituals, including being married or “sealed” to her husband and then to other family members in the Salt Lake Temple. Later, sadly, Philida had her access to the temple revoked because of her racial ancestry. Despite the turmoil this caused, she remained a practicing Latter-day Saint. Her life stands as a testament to her commitment, tenacity, and the deep yearning in her heart for all the blessings promised to Latter-day Saints. It is also a witness to the pain that Black Saints experienced in their chosen faith because of the racial restrictions that barred people of Black African ancestry from temple admission and priesthood ordination for almost 130 years.[1]

In 1909, thirty-eight-year-old Philida or “Phyllis,” as she was commonly known, became the first member of the Daniels family to be baptized into the Church in Cape Town, South Africa.[2] She was most likely introduced to the Latter-day Saint gospel by her husband David. Little is known about the circumstances of the Daniels family. She and her siblings most likely lived in District Six, a racially mixed and class-segregated suburb of Cape Town near the city center.[3] Most of the extended family was buried in the Maitland Cemetery, suggesting that they lived in the segregated suburb of Ndabeni.

Growing up in the 1870s through the 1890s, Phyllis would have witnessed the slow loss of political and economic rights of Black and colored Cape Town residents due to increasing residential segregation and overt racism. There were also significant health challenges in Ndabeni at the time, including a high infant mortality rate, more than twice that of the white population.[4]

When Phyllis was eleven, her father, Willem Carel “February” Daniels, died at age 47, leaving behind his wife, Alida Johana, and their seven children (William, 19; Carmela, 14; Phyllis, 11; Paul, 8; Alida, 6; Jacoba, 4; and Simon, 1).[5] Records do not report a cause of death, but the timing of his passing coincides with an epidemic of both bubonic plague and smallpox, which spread from the port to Cape Town by rats, resulting in the deaths of nearly 4,000 people. White residents used this outbreak as a pretext for the forced removal of nearly 7,000 Black African residents from the central, mixed-race area of District Six.[6]

Despite these challenges, Phyllis’s mother held the family together. St. Stephen’s, the Dutch Reformed Church at Cape Town, was the spiritual center of the close-knit Daniels’ family. Church rituals no doubt bound the family together and must have offered opportunities for connection across generations. For example, 32-year-old Phyllis served as a witness at her nephew, Willem Karl’s christening, on 4 November 1894, and again at the christening of her niece, and namesake, Philida in 1904.[7]

In December 1903, at the age of 31, Phyllis married David Sampson in a ceremony also at St. Stephen’s Church.[8] David’s father, Thomas Sampson, was Irish, but his mother, Lysa “Eliza” Elsabe Carsten, was the daughter of at least one manumitted African slave.[9] Due to his father’s Irish ancestry, David was likely lighter skinned than Phyllis. Phyllis’s parents, Willem and Alida, were both of Black African descent. At that time in Cape Town, Phyllis would have been placed in the lowest racial classification of “native” by the South African colonial regime, given her family history. For Phyllis, the racial, legal, and economic insecurity in Cape Town from 1908 onward may have influenced her decision to follow her husband to Utah after she met Latter-day Saint missionaries and embraced the message of the restoration.[10]

In 1853, Jesse Haven and William Walker were the first missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sent to South Africa. Within a decade, rising opposition to the Latter-day Saints led to the removal of missionaries from South Africa between 1865 and 1903.[11] However, in 1903, the same year that Phyllis married David, Latter-day Saints established a mission in South Africa again, and by 1908, public opinion had improved. Missionaries C. Perry Rockwood and Fred A. Sheffield from Kaysville, Utah, and Samuel N. Alger Jr. from Roy, Utah, reopened missionary efforts in the Cape Town area and began to teach and baptize those who were receptive to their message.[12] Phyllis’s husband, David, first met these missionaries sometime during the spring of 1908 and was baptized and confirmed by Elder Charles Perry Rockwood in September of the same year.[13] Phyllis was, no doubt, influenced by her husband’s conversion experience. Charles Perry Rockwood, the same missionary who taught David, confirmed Phyllis when she received baptism on 13 January 1909, just a few months after her husband. Samuel N. Alger Jr. performed the baptism and Elder Rockwood confirmed her on the same day.[14]

It is difficult to know what may have prompted Phyllis’s interest in the gospel, but one year earlier, she had given birth to William Thomas Richard Sampson, the couple’s first child, who died ten days after his birth on 10 September 1907.[15] The death of her infant son, from “infantile convulsions,” at the family home on Tylden Street in Queenstown may have been a key factor in Phyllis’s interest in this new religion and its promise of eternal families.

The next year brought momentous change for Phyllis. In June of 1909, David’s father, Thomas, died in Durbanville. Shortly after that, David left Phyllis in South Africa to look for better opportunities in Utah. This decision was no doubt influenced by the South Africa Act of 1909, which denied voting rights to all Black South Africans, closely followed by the political union of South African English and Boer (Afrikaner) settlers in 1910. By 1912, the African National Congress was in place, and the dispossession of the non-white population was well underway. South Africa was no longer a welcoming place for anyone with Black ancestry.[16]

When Phyllis waved farewell to David at the Cape Town docks, early in the Spring of 1910, she was in the first few months of pregnancy. Given the date of her husband’s departure, it’s likely she did not know. Her husband, David, embarked for Utah, from Cape Town, on the Mariposa, bound for San Francisco, with a final destination of Farmington, Utah. He carried with him the contact information of an “M.P. Rockwood.”[17] Moses Perry Rockwood was the father of South African missionary Charles Perry Rockwood, who had baptized David. His father had obviously agreed to host David when he first arrived in Utah.[18] David landed at the Port of San Francisco on 13 May 1910.[19] Phyllis’s 37-year-old, light-complected husband, listed his nationality as “Irish” and his occupation as “blacksmith.” Opportunity was just around the corner.

But back home, Phyllis was dealing with both the sudden death of her mother-in-law, Eliza Carsten, and a new pregnancy following the loss of her first baby boy just two years earlier.[20] It was, no doubt, a challenging time for Phyllis, who was alone in South Africa, pregnant with their son, David Sampson Jr., and trying to support her extended family after the death of her mother-in-law.

Happier times came for Phyllis in 1911 when she gave birth to David Sampson Jr., on 10 October.[21] A little over a month later, Phyllis took David Jr. before her Latter-day Saint congregation in South Africa, where William S. Mack, a fellow congregant, blessed him because his father was still in the United States.[22] Meanwhile, David spent well over a year in Utah, returning to Phyllis and David Jr. early in the Spring of 1913.[23]

Although to date, we know of no correspondence between Phyllis and David during his time in Utah, it is clear that plans were put in place for emigration. Just a few months after arriving back home in Cape Town, Phyllis, David, their infant son, David Jr., and Phyllis’s nephew, Abel Walter Daniels, left Cape Town for Utah. They traveled to New York on the steamship Oceanic, stopping over in Europe along the way. The passenger list for the Oceanic records the Sampson family leaving Southampton, England on 3 April 1913. When they arrived at Ellis Island, the manifest lists their home country and city as “S. Africa” and “Cape Town,” but indicates that the nationality of the entire family was “Ireland, Irish.” Phyllis, David, and David Jr. likely arrived in Utah later that same year.[24]

In Utah, the Sampson family quickly settled in the 33rd ward in the Salt Lake City Liberty Stake, which became their Latter-day Saint congregation for the time being, and within which Phyllis formed lifetime connections.[25] Here, Phyllis immediately began attending the Genealogical Meetings held by the 33rd Ward Relief Society, bearing her “faithful testimony relating instances when hearts had been made glad, burdens lightened, and life made brighter through prayer.”[26] Two months later, Phyllis again bore testimony and was “recommended into the [Relief] society.”[27] Over the next year, Phyllis attended monthly genealogy meetings, where she listened to talks about the “great importance” of the salvation of the dead. In October of 1915, Phyllis “bore testimony to the truth of this glorious work.”[28]

During this same period, David also progressed as a Latter-day-Saint. A fellow congregant, John T. Thorup, gave David the Aaronic priesthood, the first level of Latter-day Saint lay priesthood. Thorup ordained him to the office of Priest within that priesthood on 23 November 1913.[29] Just four months later, on 29 March 1914, another congregant, Wilford A. Haag, ordained David an elder within the higher priesthood.[30] There is no hint of concern over Phyllis’s or David’s racial ancestry as these ordinations played out. In fact, those in the family’s congregation were likely unaware of David’s mixed racial heritage, and it was not uncommon at the time for a family to be assigned the racial category of the father, thus shielding Phyllis and David Jr. from concern over their ancestry. The LDS Church census for 1914 lists the family’s residence in the Salt Lake Liberty Stake and records all their birthplaces as “Europe.”[31] The next year, David’s application for naturalization listed him as a white, 43-year-old blacksmith, with a dark complexion, black hair, and brown eyes.[32] Clearly, the move to the United States was an opportunity to both improve the family’s economic circumstances and to escape the cultural challenges of their African ancestry.[33]

No known photographs or physical descriptions of Phyllis survive but considering that her parents and great-grandparents were native African, she was likely darker than David. Pictures indicate that David was likely light enough to pass as white. Regardless, the entire family was listed as “white” in the 1920 U.S. Census. By that time, they had moved north of Salt Lake City to Layton, in Davis County.[34] Census enumerators at the time had complete discretion in determining race, often basing the race of the entire household on the appearance of the household head, usually the father. This is most likely what happened in the Sampson’s case in 1920.[35]

Phyllis and David continued to communicate with family back in South Africa, particularly Phyllis’s brother, William Daniels, who had also joined the Church. At some point, William became aware of David’s ordination to the priesthood, more than likely because Phyllis wrote to him about it. William then attempted to leverage that fact to his advantage. He longed for priesthood ordination himself and the opportunity to receive the highest rituals available within his new faith, including the blessings promised within Latter-day Saint temples. At the time, the Latter-day Saint mission in Cape Town, South Africa, was overseen by mission president Nicholas G. Smith. In the hope of also being ordained, William wrote a letter to Smith, indicating “that his brother-in-law, David, had been ordained in Utah.” “Evidently,” William wrote, David “appeared to be white enough.”[36] In response, Smith wrote a letter to the Latter-day Saints’ highest governing body, the First Presidency, requesting an exception for William. The policy at the time was that all male members in South Africa had to prove direct descent from European ancestors to be ordained to the priesthood. The Church had further adopted a “one drop” policy in 1907 that attempted to prevent anyone of African descent, “no matter how remote a degree,” from priesthood ordination or temple admission.[37]

Latter-day Saint leaders in Salt Lake City did not grant an exception for William. Unfortunately, their letter to William is not open to research. However, enough of the correspondence is cited in a Church History Department biography of Phyllis’s brother, William, to surmise the outcome (along with the fact that no ordination records are found for William).[38] However, William’s question regarding the ordination of his brother-in-law may have had unintended consequences. It likely focused the attention of leaders at the Salt Lake Temple on the racial ancestry of Phyllis and David.

Despite the challenges that William faced in South Africa, Phyllis and David somehow continued to slip past the racial walls of exclusion in Utah until they decided to go to the Salt Lake Temple. It might seem surprising to some that Phyllis and David did not immediately go to the temple after his ordination as an elder in 1914, since men are technically eligible to take their families to the temple following ordination. At that time, however, temple attendance was much less regular than is customary for Latter-day Saints in the twenty-first century. It was influenced by factors such as distance from the temple, the fact that a single ceremony took half a day, and cultural expectations that did not yet emphasize regular temple attendance.[39]

It appears that Phyllis and David may have been reluctant to draw attention to their racial background. Perhaps this is why they waited nine years to begin performing temple rituals for their families. From 1922 to 1925, after moving back to Salt Lake City from Layton, 33rd Ward Relief Society records show that Phyllis regularly attended, made donations, and bore her testimony.[40]

Phyllis was the first to attend the Salt Lake Temple. In April of 1923, she was ceremonially baptized on behalf of her paternal Aunt Martha A. Daniels.[41] It must have been a deeply meaningful experience for her, as evidenced by the fact that in May 1923, both Phyllis and David attended the Salt Lake Temple to participate in the highest rituals of their faith. During this visit, Phyllis and David received their own endowments (a ritualistic enactment of the biblical creation story and of humankind’s journey back into God’s presence). They were also “sealed” or married for eternity and then Phyllis did the endowment work for her great aunt Martha A. Daniels. Latter-day Saints believe these rituals bind familial connections beyond death.[42]

There may have been some sadness as well because there are no records of Phyllis’s son, David Sampson Jr., being sealed to Phyllis and her husband. David Junior was baptized and confirmed a member of the Church in November 1919, at age 8, but was not sealed to his parents until well after his death (24 January 2014).[43] However, it is also true that during the early 1920s, the ritual sealing of young children to parents was not nearly as common as it is in the twenty-first century.[44]

Phyllis and David returned to the Salt Lake Temple the next month, on 12 June 1923, performing baptisms for Phyllis’s siblings, Simeon John, Jacoba Johanna, and Cornelia Gertrude, as well as her father, William Carl, her mother, Alida Johana, and her mother-in-law, Lysa Elsabe Carsten.[45] Records show that on the same day, the couple performed confirmations for Lysa Elsabe Carsten, Cornelia Gertrude, Jacoba Johana, and Simeon John.[46]

Both Phyllis and David returned two days later (14 June 1923) to perform the initiatory rituals for Lysa Elsabe, William Carl, and Jacoba Johana and endowment rituals for Phyllis’s father, William Carl, her sister Cornelia Gertrude, and David’s mother, Lysa.[47] On 15 June 1923, Phyllis performed the endowment ritual for her sister Jacoba Johanna.[48] Five days later, David performed the initiatory and endowment for Simeon John, another of Phyllis’s siblings.[49]Finally, on 27 June 1923, both Phyllis and David were ritually sealed to their respective parents and Phyllis’s siblings Cornelia, Jacoba, and Simeon John were sealed to their parents William and Alida.[50] The frenetic pace of these temple visits suggests an urgency to get as much accomplished in the shortest possible time. It appears that after this flurry of work was completed, Phyllis and David may have intentionally stopped attending the temple to avoid undue attention.

Then, in March of 1925, Phyllis went back to the temple to perform a proxy baptism and confirmation ritual for her niece, Sophy Daniels.[51] Despite the possible discovery, Phyllis chose to return to the Salt Lake Temple in May 1925 to perform Sophy’s and Cornelia’s initiatory and endowment rituals.[52] At the time, there was no evidence that Phyllis’s racial identity was a point of controversy or discussion. But her attendance pattern suggests that she was hurrying to complete the temple work for her immediate family. It is entirely possible that someone could have raised questions in 1923, and her return in 1925 triggered an official inquiry.

Sometime after May of 1925, the Salt Lake Temple presidency, a group of senior church leaders called to oversee temple operations, called Phyllis’s racial heritage into question. George Franklin Richards was the temple president at the time, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and an outspoken proponent of preventing anyone with Black ancestry from receiving the priesthood or going to the temple.[53] At this time, certain leaders felt that any black ancestry, often referred to as a “one drop policy,” barred temple admission. In 1908, in fact, Richards wrote in his journal that church leaders had already decided that “a man known to have in his veins Negro blood of any degree whatsoever is not entitled to the Priesthood. . . . Neither are they entitled to temple blessings.”[54] This policy almost certainly influenced discussions in the case of the Sampsons.

Rudger Clawson, also a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles overseeing missionary work in South Africa at that time, had written a letter in 1908 to the South Africa Mission President, Ralph A. Badger, directing that, “No work is being done in the Temples at present, neither has any been done in the past for negro saints. Priesthood cannot be given to the negro, and this rule appears to hold good regarding other ordinances of the Temple.” Clawson went on to say that the “progeny of a white man who mingles his seed with that of a negro, are to be regarded as negroes.”[55]

It is not clear how the news that their temple privileges had been revoked was communicated to Phyllis and David. Phyllis wrote a letter to George F. Richards in 1926, no doubt pleading for an exception. On 22 March 1926, Richards recorded in his journal that he “obtained an interview with the First Presidency” at which he “presented to them the question of permitting Sister Sampson to continue going to the Temple, it being a question of whether or not she was of Negro blood.” He then wrote that “the matter was taken under advisement by the Presidency,” but he did not indicate a decision.[56] Other evidence suggests, however, that the decision was to deny Phyllis further temple admission. It is interesting to note that George F. Richards only relayed a question about “Sister Sampson” to the First Presidency, a signal that perhaps David’s racial ancestry was not under the same scrutiny.

One can only imagine how devastated Phyllis was by this turn of events. Records show that Phyllis was in communication with her brother, William Daniels, because he wrote a letter to the First Presidency in defense of Phyllis and David’s temple access. William denied that they had African heritage. Apparently, the First Presidency sent a letter to South African Mission President Nicholas G. Smith in response. The Salt Lake leaders hoped to corroborate William’s denial, but Smith wrote a letter to Heber J. Grant, the president of the Church, declaring Williams’ statement to be “inaccurate.” At this point President Smith more than likely reported on both Phyllis and David’s African heritage.[57]

After 1926, there are no further records of Phyllis or David performing proxy temple rituals. Clearly, the answer from the First Presidency was to deny both Phyllis and David entry into the temple. For two committed members of the Church, this must have been an extremely difficult time. Despite this, the Sampsons are listed as practicing members in the 1925 Church census. They had moved back to the Salt Lake 33rd Ward by that point, after a short stint in Layton, Utah.[58] Relief Society records document that Phyllis continued both her work as a visiting teacher and her attendance at Relief Society meetings, where she bore faithful testimony of the gospel. On 3 June 1930, she bore the final testimony recorded in the 33rd Ward Relief Society minutes. That same year she gave $1.50 to Relief Society charitable causes and $1.00 to the Relief Society general fund.[59]

By 1930, the couple’s racial identity must have become public knowledge. Phyllis and David are both listed that year in the U.S. Census, still living in Salt Lake City, but now racially classified as “negro.”[60] In 1930, the Census Bureau permanently removed the term “mulatto,” meant to designate those of mixed racial ancestry, as an option on the census. Census takers were instructed to list anyone of African ancestry as “negro” instead.[61]

 Two years later, David Jr. married Josephine Borger, a white woman from Box Elder County, in northern Utah, and then took a job as a miner in Rio Tinto, a mining boomtown close to Mountain City, in Elko County, Nevada.[62]Phyllis and David relocated to Nevada along with the newlyweds. It was there that Phyllis Sampson died at age 61, on 12 March 1932, in Rio Tinto, Nevada. Her obituary in the Deseret News states, “Mrs. Phyllis Sampson, wife of David S. Sampson, for many years a resident of the Thirty-third ward and of Layton, died…March 12th, according to word received here by friends. Born in Cape Town, South Africa, 60 years ago, she was converted to the Church in 1909 and came to Utah in 1914 [1913], where she was an active worker in the Church. She went to Mountain City to be with her husband this winter. She is survived by her husband and one son, David. Interment was at Mountain City.”[63]

Phyllis and her husband, David, struggled to build a new life for themselves in the United States, far removed from the increasingly stringent racial designations that they left behind in South Africa. Phyllis dealt courageously with the death of her parents, in-laws, and infant son. Initially, she found solace in her new faith after moving to Utah and the promise of connecting her family through temple worship. She yearned for the blessings of the temple in her life and had a firm testimony of the restored gospel. Regrettably, despite faithful and dedicated service, she was unable to escape the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ exclusionary racial policies, which eventually caught up with her. After 1926, Church leaders denied Phyllis and David any further opportunities for temple worship. The record is abundantly clear. Phyllis was devoted in every respect and met Church standards to attend the temple. She remained committed to her faith despite the pain she must have endured when her temple privileges were revoked. She died in full faith and fellowship.

By James Glenn

[1] W. Paul Reeve, Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness (Oxford University Press, 2015); W. Paul Reeve, Let’s Talk About Race and Priesthood (Deseret Book, 2023); Matthew L. Harris, Second Class Saints: Black Mormons and the Struggle for Racial Equality (Oxford University Press, 2024); W. Paul Reeve, This Abominable Slavery: Race, Religion, and the Battle over Human Bondage in Antebellum Utah (Oxford University Press, 2024).

[2] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Live Member Endowment Records, microfilm 9,034,215, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[3] Fergus Murray, Brief History of Cape Town Townships, fergusmurraysculpture.com, accessed 07 July 2025; “Ndabeni,” South African History Online, accessed 07 July 2025.

[4] “Ndabeni,” South African History Online.

[5] South Africa, Cape, Probate records of the Master of the High Court, 1822-1990, microfilm 7,844,952, image 797, Family History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[6] Alexander I.R. White, “Global Risks, Divergent Pandemics: Contrasting Responses to the Bubonic Plague and Smallpox in 1901 Cape Town,” Social Science History, vol. 42, no. 1 (Spring 2018), 135-158. “February” was a nickname for Phyllis’s father which appears in official records even though Daniels was the family surname.

[7] South Africa, Dutch Reformed Church Registers, Cape Town Archives, 1660-1994, Queenstown, Baptism Records, 1893-1895, microfilm 8,147,538, image 1040, Family History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah; South Africa, Dutch Reformed Church Registers, Cape Town Archives, 1660-1994, Wynberg, Vryburg, Cape Province, South Africa, Baptism Registers, 1904, microfilm 8,150,477, image 526, Family History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[8] South Africa, Civil Marriage Records, 1801-1974, David Samuel Sampson and Philida Jacoba Elizabeth Februari, 1 Dec 1903, Family History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah. Also found in South Africa, Dutch Reformed Church Registers, Cape Town Archives, 1660-1994, David Samuel Sampson and Philida Jacoba Elizabeth February, 1 December 1903, Family History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[9] The families’ ancestries are traceable through FamilySearch.org, with each ancestor ID listed here: David Samuel Sampson (KWJV-886) was the son of Thomas Sampson (KJPR-94Z) and Lysa “Eliza” Elsabe Carsten (M7M1-X6P). Lysa “Eliza” Elsabe Carsten (M7M1-X6P) was the daughter of Hermanus “Manus” Jacobus Carsten (KHG2-XDM) and Florentina Magdelena Jacobse (KHCF-8MC). “Manus” and Florentina are David’s maternal grandparents. Florentina Magdelena Jacobse (KHCF-8MC) is the woman listed in a slave register with five other enslaved individuals belonging to “the late widow of Ary Jacob Joubert” (Maria Margaretha Gildenhuysen Joubert, L4SR-ZKT), including Florentina’s son Adonis (MWNP-T7J). After their manumission, Florentina married “Manus” and Adonis took the surname “Carsten.” Adonis is likely Manus’ stepson. Adonis later married Apollina Susanna Cornelia Apollos (MWNP-TCZ).

[10] Rodney Davenport and Christopher Saunders, South Africa: A Modern History, 5th ed. (St. Martin’s Press, 2000), chapter 10. Padraig O’Malley, The Heart of Hope: South Africa’s Transition from Apartheid to Democracy, The Robben Island Mayibuye Archive at the University of Western Cape, Omalley.nelsonmandela.org, accessed 22 December 2025.

[11] Farrell Ray Monson, “The History of the South Africa Mission (1853-1970),” Master’s Thesis, Brigham Young University, Department of Church History and Doctrine (1971); Jesse Haven, Missionary Journal, 1852-1855, MS 890, Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[12] Monson, “The History of the South Africa Mission,” 38-39.

[13] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, South Africa Mission, CR 375 8, box 2248, folder 1, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[14] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, South Africa Mission, Part 2, CR 375 8, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah; Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Live Member Endowment Records, microfilm 9,034,215, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[15] South Africa, Cape Province, Civil Records, 1840-1972, William Thomas Richard Sampson, 20 September 1907, Family History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah. William Thomas Richard Sampson (M7MB-8XL) FamilySearch.org. Philida Jacoba Elizabeth “Phyllis” February (KPDY-8JG) FamilySearch.org. Information included with Phyllis’s FamilySearch profile suggests she may have had another son, Walter Sampson, out of wedlock in 1898. See Walter Sampson (GD7D-C4L).

[16] South African History Online, 8 November 2011, The Union of South Africa 1910, Sahistory.org.za/article/union-south-africa-1910, accessed 26 December 2025.

[17] California, San Francisco, Passenger Lists, 1893-1934, David Samuel Sampson, 1910, M1389, Roll 16, Family History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[18] Moses Perry Rockwood (K2MQ-435) FamilySearch.org. Moses Perry Rockwood and Mary Ballam were the parents of South African missionary Charles Perry Rockwood. Charles Perry Rockwood is listed as a son in the household of Moses Rockwood in the 1910 census. United States, 1910 Census, Utah, Davis County, Centerville.

[19] California, San Francisco, Index to San Francisco Passenger Lists, 1893-1934, entry for David Samuel Sampson, 1910, Family History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[20] South Africa, Cape Province, Probate Records of the Master of the High Court, 1822-1990, microfilm 7,844,930, Image 1818, Eliza Carsten, Pietermaritzburg Archives (Formerly Natal State Archives), Family History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[21] David Samuel Sampson Jr (KW63-ND2) FamilySearch.org; Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, South Africa Mission, Family History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[22] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, South Africa Mission, Mowbray Branch, CR 375 8, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[23] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, South Africa Mission, CR 375 8, box 2251, folder 1, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[24] United States Commerce Department, New York, N.Y., Ellis Island Immigration Records: Passenger and Crew Lists, 1892-1925, New York City, April 3, 1913, Family History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah. The 1913 Ellis Island ship manifest shows four family members Embarking in Southampton, England on 26 March 1913—David Sr., Mary, Walter, and David M. Ship manifests during this time period often contain inaccuracies with names and ages. It is reasonable to assume that ‘Mary’ is actually Phillys as the manifest records her as David’s wife and all of David’s entries are correct (e.g., age, occupation, Irish ancestry, origin of Cape Town, S.A.), and that ‘David M.’ who is clearly an infant is David Jr. The addition of ‘Walker’ or ‘Walter’ Sampson, male, age 15, is Phyllis’s nephew Abel Walter Daniels, who later returned home to South Africa with his father, William Paul Daniels. Utah, State Archives, Records, 1848-2001, David S. Sampson, Declaration of Intention to Naturalize, 20 May 1915, Family History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[25] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, Salt Lake 33rd Ward, microfilm 25,669, Family History Library, Salt Lake City Utah.

[26] 33rd Ward Relief Society Minutes and Records, 1914-1915, CR 9120 14 V2, p.207, Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[27] 33rd Ward Relief Society Minutes and Records, 1913-1914. CR 9120 14 V1, p.141, Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[28] 33rd Ward Relief Society Minutes and Records, 1914-1915. CR 9120 14 V2, pp.218-220, Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[29] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, Salt Lake 33^rd Ward, Form E, CR 375 8, Box 2233, Folder 1, Item 91, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[30] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, Salt Lake 33rd Ward, Form E, 1914, CR 375 8, box 2233, folder 1, item 509, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[31] “Sampson, Phillis Elizabeth,” Presiding Bishopric stake and mission census, 1914, Family History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[32] Utah, State Archives, Records, 1848-2001, David S. Sampson, Declaration of Intention to Naturalize, 20 May 1915, Family History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[33] South Africa, Register of Slaves, 1762-1838, Entry for Manus, 14 May 1816, Family History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah; South Africa, Register of Slaves 1762-1838, 27 June 1828, Entry for Manus and Lea; Hermanus “Manus” Jacobus Carsten (KHG2-XDM) FamilySearch.org; December 26, 1839 Slave Transfer Records Recorded June 27, 1878, to widow of R. Perryn, 74, Widow of the late Reynhard Perryn (Maria Sophia Petronella Riel), record of manumission, entry 113, Florentina Carsten, Female 25 years old; entry 114, Adonis, Male, Born 20 December 1828. David Samuel Sampson (KWJV-886) FamilySearch.org was the son of Thomas Sampson (KJPR-94Z) FamilySearch.org and Lysa “Eliza” Elsabe Carsten (M7M1-X6P) FamilySearch.org. Lysa “Eliza” Elsabe Carsten (M7M1-X6P) FamilySearch.org was the daughter of Hermanus “Manus” Jacobus Carsten (KHG2-XDM) FamilySearch.org and Florentina Magdelena Jacobse (KHCF-8MC) FamilySearch.org. “Manus” and Florentina are David’s maternal grandparents. Florentina Magdelena Jacobse (KHCF-8MC) FamilySearch.org is the woman listed on the slave register with five other enslaved individuals belonging to “the late widow of Ary Jacob Joubert” (Maria Margaretha Gildenhuysen Joubert, (L4SR-ZKT) FamilySearch.org), including Florentina’s son Adonis (MWNP-T7J) FamilySearch.org. After their manumission, Florentina married “Manus” and Adonis took the surname “Carsten.” Adonis is likely Manus’ stepson. Adonis later married Apollina Susanna Cornelia Apollos (MWNP-TCZ) FamilySearch.org.

[34] United States, 1920 Census, Utah, Davis County, Layton; “Sampson, David S.,” Presiding Bishopric stake and mission census, 1920, Family History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[35] Anna Brown and Ziyao Tian, “The changing categories the U.S. Census has used to measure race,” Pew Research Centers, 3 November 2025, , Accessed 20 November 2025.

[36] “William Paul Daniels,” ChurchofJesusChrist.org, Accessed 8 September 2025. See footnote 20, Nicholas G. Smith to the First Presidency, June 17, 1920, First Presidency mission files, 1908, 1915-1949, Church History Library, Salt Lake City. See also footnote 22, Nicholas G. Smith to Heber J. Grant, March 17, 1926; Phyllis Sampson to George F. Richards, August 18, 1926; William Paul Daniels to Heber J. Grant, February 11, 1926; First Presidency mission files, 1908, 1915-1949, Church History Library, Salt Lake City.

[37] W. Paul Reeve, Let’s Talk About Race and Priesthood (Deseret Book, 2023), chapter 13; Extract from George F. Richards, Record of Decisions by the Council of the First Presidency and the Twelve Apostles (no date given but the next decision in order is dated 8 February 1907), in George A. Smith Family Papers, MS 36, J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[38] “William Paul Daniels,” ChurchofJesusChrist.org.

[39] Thomas G. Alexander, “Church Administrative Change in the Progressive Period 1898-1930,” in A Firm Foundation: Church Organization and Administration, ed. David J. Whittaker and Arnold K. Garr (Religious Studies Center and Deseret Book, 2011), 295-317. Here Alexander highlights that attendance rates for Church were “very low by present standards, generally under 15 percent. As late as 1900, most members seemed to perceive their primary community to be the general Church.” It was only in 1901, according to Alexander, that Church leaders urged local priesthood quorums to hold regular meetings. The year 1907 was the beginning of the “new priesthood movement.” These same attitudes also influenced temple attendance, which was seen as a special experience with no socially determined frequency for attendance. In general, temple attendance was much less regular than in the twenty-first century. Data provided by scholar Greg Prince shows that lower frequency attendance in Utah may also, no doubt, have been influenced by the fact that a single session in 1920 took over four hours. Greg Prince, “Prince’s Research Excerpts: Temples and Mormonism – 1920,” Mormon Studies, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, (Accessed 14 November 2025). John A. Widtsoe authored an address in the Utah Genealogical and Historical Magazine, in the April 1921 issue, titled “Temple Worship,” where he observed, “There is at present an unusual increased interest in temple activity. Our temples are crowded. The last time that I attended the Salt Lake Temple I was a member of the third company. One started early in the morning, one late in the forenoon, and my company started about 2 o’clock in the afternoon. It was about 6 p.m. before we had completed the day’s work.”

[40] 33rd Ward Relief Society minutes and records, 1903-1970, LR 9120 14, Reel 1, February 1914. Attendance records for 1922 show she regularly attended. On 24 October 1922, she was readmitted into the 33^rd Ward Relief Society after living in Layton for several years. Attendance records for 1923 also show she was fully engaged and participating.

[41] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Live Member Endowment Records, microfilm 9,034,215, image 7072, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[42] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Live Member Endowment Records, microfilm 9,034,215, images 7072-7073, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah. Records of Sealings of Couples, microfilm 170,580, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah. David Simeon Sampson (KWJV-886) FamilySearch.org.

[43] David Samual Sampson Jr. (KW63-ND2) FamilySearch.org.

[44] The work of Johnathan Stapley argues that the path to modern sealing practices was not linear, that the 1920s was a time of standardization of LDS temple practices, and that the process of sealing children to parents was one of several different ways of creating eternal connections. See Johnathan A. Stapley, The Power of Godliness: Mormon Liturgy and Cosmology, (Oxford University Press, 2018), chapter 2.

[45] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Proxy Member Endowment Records, microfilm 9,034,215, images 7074, 7071. 7070, 7076, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah. Lysa Elsabe Carsten (M7M1-X6P),

Alida Johana Daniels (GZXM-1DT), FamilySearch.org.

[46] Lysa Elsabe Carsten (M7M1-X6P), Cornelia Gertrude (GZX9-SGX), Jacoba Johana Daniels (KCXC-RR9)

Simeon John Daniels (KCL4-8RV), FamilySearch.org.

[47] Lysa Elsabe Carsten (M7M1-X6P), William Carl Daniels (GZX9-C3V), Jacoba Johana Daniels (KCXC-RR9), FamilySearch.org Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Proxy Member Endowment Records, microfilm 9,034,215, images 7076, 7070, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah. Lysa Elsabe Carsten (M7M1-X6P) FamilySearch.org.

[48] Jacoba Johana Daniels (KCXC-RR9) FamilySearch.org.

[49] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Proxy Member Endowment Records, microfilm 9,034,215, image 7074, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah. Simeon John Danials (KCL4-8RV) FamilySearch.org.

[50] Lysa Elsabe Carsten (M7M1-X6P) to spouse Thomas Sampson (KPJR-94Z); David Samuel Sampson (KWJV-886) to his parents Thomas Sampson (KPJR-94Z) and Lysa Elsabe Carsten (M7M1-X6P); Cornelia Gertrude February (GZX9-SGX) to her parents William Carl February (GZX9-C3V) and Alida Johanna February (GZXM-1DT); Jacoba Johana Daniels (KCXC-RR9) to her parents William Carl February (GZX9-C3V) and Alida Johanna February (GZXM-1DT); Simeon John Daniels (KCL4-8RV) to his parents William Carl February (GZX9-C3V) and Alida Johanna February (GZXM-1DT), FamlySearch.org.

[51] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Proxy Member Endowment Records, microfilm 9,034,215, image 7075, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah. Sophia Johanna February (PS29-2S3) FamilySearch.org. Sophia was born to Phyllis’s younger brother Paul on 9 June 1898 and died at age 14 on 6 February 1913. The cause of death listed on her death certificate is “Tubercular Kidneys.” She was buried in the Somerset West, Weslyan Grounds, in Stellenbosch, Cape Province, South Africa. National Archives of South Africa, Cape Province Civil Records 1840-1972, Death Entry for Sophia Johanna February, 6 February 1913, Digital Folder 004874578-005, M968-599, Image 99, FamilySearch.org.

[52] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Proxy Member Endowment Records, microfilm 9,034,215, image 7075, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah. Cornelia Gertrude February (GZX9-SGX) FamilySearch.org.

[53] George Franklin Richards, as an apostle, was one of the highest-ranking leaders in the hierarchy of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. One of his assignments from 1921-1937 was to oversee the operation of the Salt Lake Temple. See “About George F. Richards and his Journals,” The Journal of George F. Richards, Church Historian’s Press, accessed 1 January 2026. In the April 7, 1939, General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Richards stated clearly his reasons for why Black people could not have the priesthood: “The negro is an unfortunate man. He has been given a black skin. But that is as nothing compared with that greater handicap that he is not permitted to receive the Priesthood and the ordinances of the temple, necessary to prepare men and women to enter into and enjoy a fulness of glory in the celestial kingdom. What is the reason for this condition, we ask, and I find it to my satisfaction to think that as spirit children of our Eternal Father they were not valiant in the fight.” He goes on to posit that, “Somewhere along the line were these spirits, indifferent perhaps, and possibly neutral in the war.” See, Elder George F. Richards, 7 April 1939, General Conference, Conference Reports of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1939), 58-59.

[54] George F. Richards, Journal, 26 August 1908, The Journal of George F. Richards, Church Historian’s Press, accessed 1 January 2026.

[55] Letters of Ralph A. Badger, August 17, 1908, Church Historian’s Office, Mission Letters and Papers, October 4, 1910 and October 25, 1910, as cited in Monson, “History of the South Africa Mission,”43-44.

[56] George F. Richards, Journal, 22 March 1926, The Journal of George F. Richards, Church Historian’s Press, accessed 1 January 2026.

[57] “William Paul Daniels,” ChurchofJesusChrist.org, footnote 22. President Nicholas Smith wrote to Heber J. Grant, February 11 and March 17, 1926; Phyllis Sampson wrote to George F. Richards, August 18, 1926. All of these letters are in the First Presidency mission files, 1908, 1915-1949. As noted above, it is clear that George F. Richards would not have been supportive of either William’s plea for the priesthood or the Sampsons’ continued participation in temple ordinances.

[58] “Sampson, David S.,” Presiding Bishopric stake and mission census, 1925, Family History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[59] 33rd Ward Relief Society minutes and records, 1903-1970, LR 9120 14, Reel 1, Visiting Teaching, Attendance, and Testimonies (1927-1928), Reel 2, Visiting Teaching, Attendance, and Testimonies (1929-1930), Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[60] United States, 1930 Census, Utah, Salt Lake County, Salt Lake City.

[61] Paul Schor, Counting Americans: How the US Census Classified the Nation (Oxford University Press, English translation, 2017), 155, 166-168.

[62] Box Elder County, Utah, County Marriages, 1871-1941, David S. Sampson Junior and Josephine Borger, 2 August 1932, Image 108, Family History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah; United States, 1940 Census, Nevada, Elko County, Mountain City.

[63] “Mrs. Phyllis Sampson,” Deseret News (Salt Lake City, Utah) 19 March 1932, 10.

Documents

Click the index tab in the viewer above to view all primary source documents available for this person.