Biography

Alberta Mae Roberts is a third-generation member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Her grandparents, Ned and Susan Leggroan, were formerly enslaved in the South and moved west after the Civil War in search of a new life and better opportunities. Three years after arriving in Utah Territory, Ned and Susan joined the Latter-day Saints who they had settled among. Alberta thus grew up with grandparents who had pioneer roots in the faith. Over time, however, Alberta, her mother, and her siblings would find greater meaning and community in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. 

Alberta was born on 27 May 1893 to Martha Ann Leggroan Roberts and William Roberts in Milo, Idaho, a remote farming community near Idaho Falls. By 1890, Alberta’s parents, along with her brother William Archibald, had moved to a homestead in Milo. The family lived in Idaho for almost twenty years. Alberta thus grew up with her brothers and sisters in a rural setting, no doubt doing assigned chores and otherwise working on the family farm.[i]

While Alberta’s father, William, was likely not a member of the LDS Church, her mother, Martha Ann, was and ensured that most of her children went to Sunday services and were baptized. On 3 May 1894, nearly one year after she was born, Martha took Alberta to her local congregation in Idaho Falls, then called the Eagle Rock Ward, and there a man named Thomas Hockley blessed Alberta in front of the gathered Saints. At the time, Martha Ann and two of her other children, William Archibald and Martha Ruth (along with Alberta, who is recorded as “Albertie”), were entered as members of the LDS Church in Eagle Rock.[ii] When Alberta was eight years old, she joined with her brother William to be baptized on 3 August 1901, in Idaho Falls.[iii]

Between 1907 and 1910 the Roberts family moved back to Utah, settling with other Black LDS families in Butler, which today includes parts of Mill Creek, Murray, and Holladay. This is where Alberta’s grandparents eventually settled after they arrived in Utah. William, Sr. and “Archie,” her brother, worked as laborers while Alberta entered the workforce as a servant.[iv] 

In 1911, Alberta’s brother, Archie, tragically died of Typhoid fever when he was just 22 years old. Alberta was 18 at the time and the family had already relocated back to Idaho Falls.[v] The death of her brother and the family relocations where no doubt difficult disruptions for Alberta. She gave birth to her first and only child the same year that Archie died. She named her daughter Winona. The birth certificate lists Alberta as Winona’s mother, but question marks populate the lines meant for the father, except for the fact that in the “color” category, the father is identified as “white.”[vi]

While the identity of Winona’s father remains unclear, two years later in Idaho Falls, in April 1913, Alberta married Frank Lewis, a janitor at a local bank.[vii] It was a marriage that did not last. Five years later, in 1918, Alberta married again, this time to John W. Lewis of Jefferson City, Missouri.[viii] There is no known relation between Frank Lewis and John W. Lewis. This second marriage also failed. The 1920 census lists Alberta as divorced, working as a servant, and renting a room in Idaho Falls with her daughter.

Alberta married her third husband, Harold Walker, in January 1926, in Pocatello, Idaho.[ix] It was also in Pocatello that Alberta likely joined the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME). Her mother and sister worshiped at the AME church in Pocatello and her mother’s funeral was held there. The AME church no doubt offered the family a sense of community among fellow African Americans as well as a sense of dignity. In contrast, a biblical curse dominated Latter-day Saint teachings about race at the time and barred Alberta from full access to the highest rituals of the faith.[x] Whether the conversion to the AME church happened before or after her marriage to Harold Walker, Alberta and members of her family switched from the LDS faith to the AME church sometime in the 1920s while living in Pocatello. Alberta would continue to attend the AME church after she moved to Reno, Nevada. Her sister, Mary, who joined Alberta in Reno sometime later also attended AME.[xi]

Reno, along with Las Vegas, was becoming a competitive social and political rival to the historic mining towns which had initially produced massive wealth for Nevada but were losing their sway in the state in the twentieth century. Once a hardscrabble stopping point before travelers crossed the Truckee River and continued through the treacherous Donner Pass of the Sierra Nevada range, Reno had grown economically in the twentieth century, especially after the new interstate highway system connected formerly remote urban areas of the West to the outside world and brought new investors and a ready workforce to the area.[xii] Additionally, Nevada was already known for its liberal divorce laws. Whereas other states maintained high thresholds for couples to have their marriages ended, Nevada had very few requirements. The state even lowered its residency requirement from six months to six weeks in 1927.[xiii]

Ironically, Alberta did not avail herself of these divorce laws, but evidence suggests that she and Harold Walker did not stay together for long even though they remained married. In 1930 Alberta was 29 years old and had moved to Reno where she lived with Harold who was 31; Harold washed cars for a living and Alberta was a home maker.[xiv] By 1940 Alberta had moved back to Idaho, where she rented a “cabin” in Nampa. She did not list an occupation and described her marital status as “widowed.”[xv] Meanwhile, Harold Walker filled out his World War II draft registration in the mid-1940s and listed a Seattle address for himself.[xvi]

By the 1950 U.S. Census, Alberta had returned to Reno where she described herself as separated from Harold. She lived with her daughter Winona who also described herself as separated from her husband. Winona worked as a maid in a casino. Alberta probably returned to Nevada to help her daughter who was now a single parent. She also, no doubt, helped to care for her grandson, James Henderson.[xvii] Harold likely continued to move around the west, from one low-paying job to another and remained separated from Alberta. As fraught as Alberta’s marriage to Harold Walker seems on paper—for whatever reason, they never took advantage of Nevada’s divorce laws.

Alberta died on 6 October 1951 at the Washoe Medical Center in Reno not far from her home.[xviii] Still listed as separated, Alberta died of a rare variety of sarcoma at the age of 58. She was survived by her daughter Winona, two grandchildren, and two sisters. Her multiple obituaries state that she was a member of the Bethel African Methodist Episcopalian Church of Reno, an historic AME Church there.[xix] Alberta is buried in Reno’s Mountain View Cemetery.[xx]

By Randell Hoffman

[i] United States, 1920 Census, Idaho, Bonneville County, Idaho Falls.

[ii] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, Eagle Rock/Idaho Falls Ward, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[iii] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, Eagle Rock/Idaho Falls Ward, CR 375 8, box 3041, folder 1, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[iv] United States, 1910 Census, Utah, Salt Lake County, Mill Creek.

[v] Idaho, State Board of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Certificates of Death, File No. 298, Registered No. 15, William A. Roberts, Idaho State Archives, Idaho Falls, Idaho.

[vi] Idaho Birth Index, 1861-1919, Idaho State, Department of Health, Boise, Idaho.

[vii] Idaho, Marriages, 1864-1950, Alberta Roberts and Frank Lewis, 29 April 1913; R. L. Polk & Co.'s Idaho Falls and Bonneville, Bingham and Fremont Counties Directory, 1912–13. Boise, Seattle, and Salt Lake City: R. L. Polk & Co., 1912.

[viii] Idaho, Marriages, 1878-1898; 1903-1942, Alberta Roberts and John W. Lewis, 5 October 1918.

[ix] Idaho, Bannock County, Clerk’s Office, Marriages, 1920-1929, Albertie Lewis and Harold Walker, 21 January 1926.

[x] “Martha Ann Stevens,” Pocatello Tribune (Pocatello, Idaho) 12 June 1934, 8.

[xi] “Walker,” Nevada State Journal (Reno, Nevada), 7 October 1951, 24.

[xii] Barbara and Myrick Land, A Short History of Reno (Reno, Nevada: University of Nevada Press, 1995).

[xiii] Henry Brean, “The Rise and Fall of Reno’s Quickie Divorce Industry,” Reno Gazette Journal (Reno, Nevada), 18 September 2017.

[xiv] United States, 1930 Census, Nevada, Washoe County, Reno.

[xv] United States, 1940 Census, Idaho, Canyon County, Nampa.

[xvi] United States, Washington, World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1940-1947, Harold Walker, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC.

[xvii] United States, 1950 Census, Nevada, Washoe County, Reno.

[xviii] Nevada, Department of Health, Death Records, File No. 51-1486, Registrar’s No. 495, Alberta Mae Walker, Reno, Nevada.

[xix] The Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church was founded in 1907 and was listed by the congregation on the National Register of Historic Places in 1992.

[xx] “Vital Statistics,” Reno Gazette-Journal (Reno, Nevada), 6 October 1951, 14; “Walker,” Nevada State Journal (Reno, Nevada), 7 October 1951, 24; “Alberta Walker Rites Conducted,” Reno Gazette-Journal (Reno, Nevada), 11 October 1951, 26.

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