Satterwhite, Susan Jackson Jett Strong

Biography

Susan Jackson Jett Strong Satterwhite

Susan Jackson was a pioneering Black Saint in eastern Kentucky. She joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1899, soon after her first husband, George. The evangelical message of the couple’s new faith had an influence in their lives, and they lived by it. Both of their daughters, Katie and Sarah, received baptism when they were children. Although Susan and George divorced and she moved to Ohio where she lost contact with the Church, she later rekindled a connection after she returned to Kentucky. The full dimensions of her religious life are obscured by a lack of sources but at documented times in her life Susan identified as a Black Latter-day Saint in a predominantly white Church during the height of racial segregation in the United States, remarkable considerations all their own.

Susan was born on 18 May 1879, in Hazard, Perry County, Kentucky, a region in the southeast section of the state dominated by coal mining and logging.[1] Most records suggest that William Campbell and Mary Jackson were Susan's parents, while others list a woman named Sarah Porter as her mother.[2] It is possible that Sarah Porter was Susan’s aunt who may have adopted Susan and her brother, David.[3] Regardless of the circumstances, Sarah Porter seems to have raised Susan on her grandfather, Porter Jackson’s farm. Jackson identified as Native American in the 1860 and 1870 censuses, suggesting that the Jackson family may have had Native American ancestry.[4]

If so, Susan lived in between several racial identities and may have not had a clear sense of her own racial ancestry. The first time Susan appears on a census record, in 1880, she and the entire Jackson family were listed as “mulatto” (of mixed-racial ancestry). Her grandfather’s claim to Native American heritage had disappeared, an indication that he may have not been recognized as a member of a tribe or that he may have identified as such in earlier census records to avoid anti-Black racism. It is also possible that he had Native American and African American ancestry.[5] Susan, however, was never identified as Native American. Her racial identity in census records varied over time from mulatto to Black to white and then negro. On the 1900 census, the enumerator initially recorded her as white but corrected the entry to Black, suggesting that she may have had a skin tone lighter than some African Americans.[6] In 1910 and 1920 she was listed as “mulatto,” in 1930 as “white,” and in 1940 and 1950 as “negro,” all indications of shifting racial categories in census records and perhaps of Susan’s own racial understandings.[7] 

There is no indication how Susan met her first husband George Jett but when the young couple married on 26 July 1894, Susan was sixteen and George was twenty-three. They married and made their home in Breathitt County, Kentucky, just north of Perry County where Susan grew up.[8] Susan and George soon had two daughters together, Katie and Sarah.[9]

Four years into their marriage George converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Surviving sources do not indicate how George first met Latter-day Saint missionaries or what attracted him to their message, but his conversion likely influenced Susan to also listen to missionaries preach a restorationist gospel. Susan embraced their message and then received baptism into the faith just four months after George. Latter-day Saint missionary J. Warren Johnson baptized her on 15 January 1899.[10] George A. Lyman, the President of the LDS East Kentucky Conference then confirmed Susan as a member of the Church on the same day.[11]

Susan and George divorced for unknown reasons sometime thereafter, when their daughters were still young. They both went their separate ways and in 1907, Susan married Harry Strong, a Kentucky born farmer.[12] Susan moved with Harry to Middletown, Ohio, sometime between 1910 and 1920, where they lived with Harry’s brother and family and Harry worked for the Ralston Coal Company.[13]

In 1931, when the LDS Church conducted its membership census it could not locate Susan and marked her as “lost.” Church census takers were instructed to report those they could not locate as “Lost or Unknown.” Confusingly, church census directions also allowed information takers to mark members they could not find as “canceled” which is also how they marked Susan. Despite such a designation, Susan remained a member whose address local leaders could not locate and therefore she was canceled from the membership rolls of her prior congregation. “Canceled” did not mean that she had been excommunicated or that she had requested her name to be removed from church records.[14]

At some point Susan and Harry’s marriage dissolved and Susan returned to Kentucky. In 1931, when she was 51 years old, Susan gave birth to a daughter, Christine Satterwhite, in Ravenna, Kentucky where her first husband George and her daughter Sarah lived.[15] It is not clear how or when Susan’s relationship with Christine’s father, William Clifford Satterwhite began, but Susan married him in 1932, a little more than a year after their daughter’s birth.[16] A Baptist minister performed the marriage and the middle-age couple settled into life in eastern Kentucky where William worked for the railroad and Susan worked at home raising their daughter, Christine, and a foster-daughter named Loretta Smith.[17]

By 1950, William had retired from the railroad and he and Susan lived in Irvine, Kentucky, close to Ravenna where they had married two decades before. It was there, in Irvine, that Susan must have reconnected with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Perhaps her first husband George, or her daughter Sarah, both of whom lived nearby, reacquainted her. In any case, she was counted as a member in the 1950 Latter-day Saint census. Her husband William and daughter Christine were both listed as “non-members" on the same census. The clerk who created Susan’s census scrawled the word “Negro” in the margin of the document, a common notation on records for Black Latter-day Saints. It is a clear indication that, at least in 1950, Susan still considered herself a Latter-day Saint and that she was in contact with the local branch.[18]

Susan’s husband William passed away in October 1951.[19] Susan lived another seventeen years as a widow before she died on 2 June 1967 in Irvine. She is buried in the Maple Grove Cemetery in Richmond, Kentucky. She was 88 years old at the time of her passing.[20]

By Serena Juhasz

With research assistance from Megan Eddington


[1] 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.

[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.; Kentucky, County Marriages, 1797-1954, Breathitt County, Kentucky, Susie Jackson and Harry Strong, 10 May 1907.; Kentucky, County Marriages, 1797-1954, Ravenna, Estill, Kentucky, Susie Strong and Clifford Satterwhite, 16 May 1932.; "Kentucky Death Records, 1911-1967," database FamilSearch, entry for Susie J. Satterwhite, 2 June 1967, Irvine, Estill, Kentucky.

[3] United States, 1880 Census, Perry County, Kentucky.

[4] "Geneanet Profile," database Geneanet, entry for Mary Jackson, 1853-1900 or 1924.; United States, 1860 Census, Breathitt County, Kentucky, United States.; United States, 1870 Census, Hazard, Perry County, Kentucky, United States.

[5] United States, 1880 Census, Perry County, Kentucky. See “Mulatto and the American Indian.” NAGA Guardians. Accessed June 28, 2024. https://www.nagaeducation.org/mulatto-and-the-american-indian.The Jackson family was listed as “Indn” in the 1860 census. See United States, 1860 Census, Breathitt County, Kentucky.; The Jackson family was listed as “I” in the 1870 Census. See United States, 1870 Census, Hazard, Perry County, Kentucky. The 1880 census was an attempt of the United States in acknowledging Native Americans. A Special Census of Indians was formulated, with the idea of listing the majority of Native Americans that resided on reservations; this list ensured that those on the list were not taxed. See “American Indians in Bureau of the Census Records.” National Archives and Records Administration. Accessed June 28, 2024. https://www.archives.gov/.

[6] United States, 1900 Census, Jackson, Breathitt County, Kentucky.

[7] United States, 1910 Census, Jackson, Breathitt County, Kentucky; United States, 1920 Census, Middletown, Butler County, Ohio; United States, 1920 Census, Middletown, Butler County, Ohio; United States, 1930 Census, Middletown, Butler County, Ohio; United States, 1940 Census, Ravenna, Estill County, Kentucky; United States, 1950 Census, Irvine, Estill County, Kentucky.

[8] Kentucky, U.S., County Marriage Records, 1783-1965, Breathitt County, George Jett and Susan Jackson, 26 July 1894.

[9] United States, 1900 Census, Jackson, Breathitt County, Kentucky; Katie was born on 16 September 1896 while Sarah was born on 9 October 1898; both were born in Jackson, Breathitt, Kentucky. See Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection,-Kentucky (State), CR 375 8, box 3337, folder 2, image 14, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[10] 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.

[11] 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.

[12] Kentucky, U.S., County Marriage Records, 1783-1965, Breathitt County, George Jett and Alwilda Jackson, 15 June 1905.; Kentucky, County Marriages, 1797-1954, Breathitt County, Kentucky, Susie Jackson and Harry Strong, 10 May 1907.

[13] United States, 1920 Census, Middletown, Butler County, Ohio.

[14] Canceled meant that if a member of the Church was not located after five years, they were considered lost and their membership was no longer held in a given ward. See Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, Kentucky (State), CR 375 8, box 3337, folder 1, image 9, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[15] “Satterwhite,” Presiding Bishopric mission census 1950, CR 4 314, Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[16] Kentucky, County Marriages, 1797-1954, Ravenna, Estill, Kentucky, Susie Strong and Clifford Satterwhite, 16 May 1932.

[17] United States, 1940 Census, Estill County, Kentucky; United States, 1950 Census, Irvine, Estill County, Kentucky.

[18] “Satterwhite,” Presiding Bishopric mission census 1950, CR 4 314, Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[19] Kentucky, Department of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Certificate of Death, File No. 11651 19338, Registration District No. 445, William C. Satterwhite, 2 October 1951.

[20] "Kentucky Death Records, 1911-1967," database FamilySearch, entry for Susie J. Satterwhite, 2 June 1967, Irvine, Estill, Kentucky.

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