I can’t tell you how excited I was when I learned about the history videos Taylor Ricks @ToCheerAndToBless was creating. I texted out my family, shared on my stories and started telling all my friends about her. In her videos, Taylor mixes up fun recipes and treats while she teaches us about the first Black members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that lived in the Restoration times (mid to late 1800’s). I have loved hearing these stories and learning about people and their struggles that I have never heard before.

She also shares her thoughts and testimony about the scriptures and Come Follow Me, a Sunday School curriculum by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Instagram and Facebook. Her goal with To Cheer and To Bless is to uplift, inspire and share her testimony of the Savior and His restored gospel.

Not only is Taylor creating all this amazing, uplifting content for all of us, but she is also a mom to children with special needs (including one with down syndrome who she adopted). She tells us her story of being a foster mom and also an adoptive mom. Incredible!!!!

Listen below or through your favorite podcast app!

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Show Notes:

”Only the gospel of Jesus Christ can unite and bring peace to people of all races and nationalities. We who believe in that gospel- whatever our origins- must unite in love of each other and of our Savior Jesus Christ.” - Dallin H. Oaks

On the podcast Taylor and I talked about her account “To Cheer and To Bless” as well as the YouTubes she airs every week: “Mix it Up:Black History and the Restoration.” She gives us a sneak peek of one of the stories she’s been researching about Susan Gray Reed Leggroon. More about her below:

Susan Gray Reed Leggroon

Susan was a slave from Mississippi until the Emancipation.

She married Mr. Reed (we don’t know his first name) and they had 2 sons. He died and she was a widow. Even though the slaves were now considered “free”, a lot of people still lived like slaved as they worked on the plantations.

Susan married again to a widower named Ned. He had a son from his previous marriage.

Susan had a sister named Amanda. Amanda and her husband had joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They were headed West and invited Ned and Susan to go with them. Ned and Susan joined them and crossed the plains to Utah with their 3 little boys.

After 3 years in Utah, Ned and Susan were baptized members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Susan was a mother to 13 children. Only 8 of those children lived to adulthood. (She was so brave to keep going after she had lost 5 of her sweet kids!)

Sept 3, 1875 Susan was able to go to the temple (at that time it was still under construction, so they used the Endowment House). At the temple she was able to make covenants with God and do proxy work for her mother Margaret, Ned’s first wife, and her first mother in law. Ned did the work for her first husband. (Soon after, black sisters were note allowed to receive their endowment. - Just so sad!!)

Susan and Ned moved to Idaho and farmed. They planted trees that are still there! Ned died 2 years before Susan. At their funerals, their lives were celebrated by both black and white people who all said they were “well known, well loved, and were always held in the highest regard to all who knew them”.

Make sure you watch the video below! It is all about Ned, Susan’s husband.