I have found out recently that a woman named Jane Elizabeth James (née Manning) petitioned the LDS leadership to have herself sealed to Joseph Smith in eternity as a "servant" (i.e. slave) in a special ceremony. Why would someone do this? Of all of the bizarre things I've discovered about Mormonism this takes the cake. The only thing that I can think of is that she must have been in some sort of relationship with him--nothing else would make any sense.

She was an Afro-American who came to Utah after Joseph Smith's death...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Elizabeth_Manning_James

>James was the first documented African American woman to come to the Utah Territory as a Mormon pioneer. With her husband Isaac James, she had eight children. Their daughter Mary Ann was the first black child born in Utah. After Isaac left the family in 1869, Jane repeatedly petitioned the First Presidency to be endowed and to be sealed, along with her children, to Walker Lewis, a prominent African American Mormon Elder. Lewis, like Elijah Abel, had been ordained to the priesthood during Joseph Smith's lifetime, and Jane therefore assumed that he would be eligible for temple ordinances. However, her petitions were consistently ignored or refused.

Edit: Better put a "Puke Warning" on this one; this is documented LDS racism at its most foul...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/08/2010 05:06AM by SL Cabbie.

Nice huh?
Totally faithful, walked to SLC on bloody feet and couldn't be sealed because she was Black, so she had to settle for being sealed as a servitor forever.

Something tells me that when she got to Heaven, an angel took her aside, put its arm around her and said "Look, things don't really work that way. Your family is over here."

And she looked and she beheld that there were millions of happily reunited familes, most of whom had never heard of sealing ordinances, living together in blissful family units.

And she beheld further, the looks of amusement as mormons tried to show the angels some tricky handshakes, but the angels did not understand and ushered them in, saying that the mormons were holding up the line.

What's wrong with that? I was taught in Penishood Meeting that ugly, fat women (hey, they said it, not me) who never got married would end up in the Celestial Kingdom as "Ministering Angels"....same concept, right? ROFL!

Maybe "Minstering Angels" just sounded better over time.

Just sayin'...

Ronnie