Jane Elizabeth Manning James
| Jane Elizabeth Manning James | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Personal details | |
| Born |
May 11, 1813 Wilton, Connecticut, United States |
| Died | April 16, 1908 (aged 94) Salt Lake City, Utah |
| Resting place |
Salt Lake City Cemetery 40°46′37″N 111°51′29″W / 40.777°N 111.858°W |
| Spouse(s) | Isaac James |
| Children | 8 |
| Parents | Isaac Manning Eliza Mead |
Jane Elizabeth Manning James (May 11, 1813 – April 16, 1908) fondly known as "Aunt Jane" was one of the first recorded African-American women to enter Utah. She was member of the Latter Day Saint Church and lived with Joseph Smith and his family for a time in Nauvoo, Illinois. She traveled with her husband to Utah, spending the winter of 1846–1847 at Winter Quarters. She petitioned the First Presidency to be endowed and sealed; as a result of her requests she was adopted as a servant into the Joseph Smith family through a specially created temple ceremony. Not satisfied to be an eternal servant in the Smith family, she continued to petition to receive her own temple endowment but was denied these rites during her lifetime. She was posthumously endowed by proxy in 1979.
Jane Elizabeth Manning James was born in Wilton, Connecticut, to Isaac and Eliza Manning. Although, late in James' life her brother Isaac gave her birthday as 1813, there are source discrepancies that place her birthday anywhere from September 22, 1812, to the year 1820. The Mannings were a free family living in rural Connecticut, and Jane had at least four siblings including Isaac, Lewis, Peter, Sarah, and Angeline. At the age of six, Jane was sent away to live with the Fitches, a wealthy Caucasian family. She was raised by the Fitches' daughter and lived with them for the next thirty years. Little is known about Jane's life with the Fitches other than she worked as a servant: cooking, cleaning, and ironing, etc. While with the Fitches, Jane was also brought up as a Christian. She was baptized into the Presbyterian Church when she was about 14 years old. On March 1, 1835, Jane gave birth to a son, Sylvester.
In the fall of 1842, two LDS missionaries, one of whom was Charles Wesley Wandell, were preaching in the area. Although forbidden by her Presbyterian preacher, Jane recorded that she "had a desire to hear them. I went on a Sunday and was fully convinced that it was the true Gospel." Jane was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints the following Sunday, and later acquainted many friends and family members with her new beliefs as well. A year later, Jane and eight other members of her family, including her mother, three brothers, two sisters, and a brother and sister-in-law- decided to move from their home in Wilton to Nauvoo, Illinois, in order to live among other members of their new faith. The group of nine began their journey with other Latter Day Saints under the direction of Wandell, but got separated from the group at Buffalo, New York, when they couldn't afford to pay the train fare from New York to Ohio. Jane and her family traveled the remainder of their journey (approximately 800 miles) on foot. In her Life Sketch, recorded in 1893, Jane recalled that "We walked until our shoes were worn out, and our feet became sore and cracked open and bled until you could see the whole print of our feet with blood on the ground." When Jane and her family arrived in Nauvoo, they were welcomed by Joseph Smith himself. Over the next year, her mother and siblings would establish their own homes. Jane, however, lived with the Joseph Smith family in Nauvoo until Smith's assassination in 1846.
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