Our Favorite Mormons: Freda Lucretia Magee

Most of us learned history from books written by authors who subscribed to Great Man history, the idea that history is made by prime ministers and generals. But there is another approach to historiography which holds that the real history is made when ordinary, obscure people push progress forward an inch at a time by the way they live their ordinary, obscure lives. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich does this sort of history very well, as her “A Midwife’s Tale” demonstrates. This entry in My Favorite Mormons is about a woman you’ve probably never heard of, but who was every bit as much a pioneer as Brigham Young.

Freda Lucretia Magee was born in 1899 in Lexie, Mississippi, a descendant of African slaves. She was the fourth of eight children born to Samuel and Emma Ardelia Magee. The Magee family was unique in that time and place because they heard and believed the message of the Restoration and became LDS. Freda was baptized by the missionaries at age nine in Magee’s creek which ran behind the family home. Her first memory of church was when her father would take the family on a horse-drawn, flatbed trailer to the nearest meetinghouse in Darden, MS. People of African descent were not welcome in the chapel, so Samuel Magee would drive his trailer up next to one of the open windows and his family would listen to the sermons and songs of the Restoration as best they could from outside. Welcome to Zion.

She had a disastrous and unhappy first marriage, followed by a divorce. She eventually moved to New Orleans and lost track of the church for a while. Or, it might be more accurate to say that the church lost her. There are tithing records which show she sent her tithing faithfully to the mission office in Atlanta every year. (She must not have known that although Mississippi was in the Atlanta mission, Louisiana was part of the Texas mission.) While living in New Orleans she met and married the love of her life, a jazz musician named Rudolph Beaulieu. Rudy was not LDS but he supported and encouraged his wife in her religious observances because he saw that her religion was meaningful to her.

One incident from the late 1940s is especially telling. It is recorded in the history of the Texas mission, as told by the elders who experienced it. Freda had become very ill and wanted a priesthood blessing. She wrote to the mission in Atlanta, asking them to send someone, and by the time the Atlanta mission had forwarded her request to the Texas mission, and by the time that mission got word of her request to the elders in her area, she had become sicker and sicker. It was after dark when the missionaries finally found her address and knocked on the door. They report that the door was opened by a black man who greeted them warmly, then escorted them upstairs to Freda’s bedroom. They saw a very frail and sick black woman in the bed. On the nightstand was a copy of the Book of Mormon and an envelope containing her tithing, which she insisted they accept before anointing her with oil and blessing her. Her recovery was long and difficult, but she eventually regained her health.

Freda became an active, contributing member of the New Orleans ward. She especially enjoyed her calling as a visiting teacher, going into the homes of sisters in the ward, many of whom had physical, emotional or financial struggles, and bringing hope and comfort and good cheer. Her companion reported that when Freda knew the sister or family was struggling financially, she would give them some of her own money. Her companion told her she didn’t need to do that, that the bishop would take care of their needs. But Sister Beaulieu felt a personal obligation to do all she could to provide relief to the poor. She also enjoyed tying quilts while chatting with the other women from Relief Society. The words often used to describe her character were “loving” and “dignified”.

She was bothered greatly by the church’s temple and priesthood exclusion on people of her race and did not accept any of the excuses or rationalizations which were offered as justifications for it. She saw it as another challenge she had to face. Consequently, she was overjoyed with President Kimball’s announcement in June 1978. She immediately got a recommend and just a month later, in July 1978, she rode a bus to the temple in Washington, D.C., where she received her endowment and was sealed by proxy to Rudy, who had died years before.

She died at 91 years of age, in May, 1991. This is the text of her obituary, as it appeared in the New Orleans Times-Picayune:

Died:

BEAULIEU

Mrs. Freda Magee Beaulieu at Mercy Hospital on Sunday evening, May 5, 1991 at 8:30 o’clock.   Wife of the late Rudolf Beaulieu, sister of the late Cleveland F. Magee, Rebecca M. Walker, Percy T. Magee, Wllie Mae M. Evans, John E. Magee, Ernest M. Magee, James Magee, and Emma Ardelia Magee.   Daughter of the late Emma Ardelia Magee and Samuel Magee.   Also survived by many nieces, nephews, and cousins.   Age 91 years, a resident of New Orleans for many years.

 Relatives and friends are invited to attend funeral services from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 70001 Canal Blvd. on Thursday, May 9, 1991 at 11 o’clock.   Interment in Resthaven cemetery.   Visitation at the church on Thursday morning after 10 o’clock.   Information:   482-2141.

So here’s to you, Freda Lucretia Magee Beaulieu. We lost you once, and I don’t want to lose you again. I hope that wherever heaven is, you’re there with Rudy, and I hope there’s jazz. (Because if there isn’t, who wants to go anyway, right?) You were the little girl who had to stay outside the church and listen through an open window, but I have a lotta faith that when we all get to the Lord’s banquet, you’ll be seated at the head table.

“A pioneer is not someone who makes her own soap. She is one who takes up her burdens and walks toward the future.” ~ Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

-By Mark Brown