At one of the [district] conferences, I was introduced to a black man by the name of Hesteras. This man was investigating the gospel and was being taught by two missionaries who were laboring in San Juan. He lived in the Virgin Islands but would go to Puerto Rico about once a month to visit his mother. He was about fifty years old and a Catholic. He asked about his chances of fully participating in the Church, and he was told that he would not be able to hold the priesthood. [The district president] went out of his way to explain the situation. We didn’t want Hesteras to be baptized and then fall away because he couldn’t hold positions of leadership in the Church. He assured all of us that it didn’t make any difference, so he was baptized.

About six months later on another visit, [the district president] said to me, “Would you please interview Brother Hesteras as he is becoming a little bit discouraged since we can’t use him very much in the Church because of his Negro blood and not being able to hold the priesthood.” I told [the district president] there wasn’t any more I could tell him than had already been said, but I agreed that maybe I could make him feel a little better.

So between sessions of [quarterly district] conference, he and I had a good talk. I asked him to tell me of his boyhood and about his mother and father. During the course of the conversation, I stopped him and said, “Brother Hesteras, you do not have any Negro blood in you.” He said, “Oh yes I do, look at me.” His hair looked a little bit curly and he was dark, but there were a lot of dark people who were not Negro. He then told me about his father who was jet black and about his old Negro grandmother who used to hold him on her knees and sing to him when he was a child. He had shown pictures of him and his family one night to most everyone in the branch. It was pretty well believed by all the Saints that he was a black man. For some reason or other, I was impressed to tell him he had no Negro blood. He asked for an explanation and I told him I didn’t have the faintest idea. I told him to go talk to his mother. He said she was bitter about him joining the Church and refused to discuss the Church. So I said, “The next time you come to Puerto Rico, fast for a whole day and then go see your mother, and she will tell you a lot of interesting things about your life.” He reluctantly agreed to do that.

When I returned to Puerto Rico three months later, he was waiting patiently to talk to me. He came running up when he saw me and said, “President, you were right. I don’t have an ounce of Negro blood in me. I fasted, prayed, and went to see my mother, and she was very kind and considerate. I said to her, ‘Mother, the president of our Church here in the islands told me that I didn’t have any Negro blood in me. I can’t understand that because father was a Negro and grandmother was Negro, and I’ve always been a Negro.’” At that his mother broke down and cried and said she had never confessed to his father or anyone else about a transgression she had many years before. His father had worked on ships and while he was away for a period of time, she met a Danish sailor that came to the Virgin Islands. She had an affair with him, and became pregnant with a baby boy. They named the baby Hesteras. She had led her husband to believe that this little boy was his. Hesteras was registered on his birth certificate as being of black parentage. In reality his father was Danish and his mother had no Negro background, even though she was quite dark.

I conferred with the district presidency and in the afternoon session of conference I personally presented his name for ordination. I made a brief explanation that we had investigated Hesteras’ background and found that he did not have any Negro blood. That afternoon we ordained him to the holy priesthood.