Authors: Elissa Wall
Dismayed, some council members who favored a more traditional leadership structure left the FLDS to form their own church that came to be known as the Centennial Group. For church members, this was a pivotal period and resulted in what has come to be known as “the split.” Those who left our church to form the new group were deemed apostates and were no longer considered “worthy” by the FLDS. Uncle Rulon and members of his inner circle strongly discouraged even casual contact with members of that sect, which established itself about a mile from the Crik.
The danger of course with the post-split power structure was that all control over the FLDS people resided with the prophet. This did not prove to be a major issue during the waning years of Uncle Roy’s life, but with Rulon and Warren at the helm it held a great many risks.
I want to be the humble servant of the prophet.
—
FLDS PRAYER
I
n the fall of 1998 our family was still living on Claybourne Avenue and, much to my surprise and everyone else’s, Mother Audrey returned home. Her youngest daughter, Lydia, had been married not long before, and with no more children at home, Mother Audrey strengthened her friendship with Mother Laura, who was now in her mid-twenties and raising her young son. The two women had bonded from the beginning and had grown closer in our absence. But the house that Mother Audrey returned to was not the one that she had left the previous year. All of a sudden, it seemed Laura had become Dad’s favored companion. It was Laura accompanying Dad to the supermarket. It was Laura scrutinizing the other mother’s shopping lists about whether certain items were truly necessary.
Just as Mother Audrey had struggled with the addition of Dad’s second wife, now Mom had a hard time coping with Laura’s presence. This is one of the natural drawbacks to a plural marriage. The husband experiences pride and excitement with a new wife in the household, but for the women already there, resentment and jealousy sets in. Making matters worse for my mother was that the old wounds between her and Audrey had yet to heal. Once again, Mom found herself on the outside, with the blame for the family’s domestic troubles laid at her feet. No one was completely innocent, but no one was willing to accept responsibility for the problems that continued to plague our home.
While my mother got the brunt of it, everyone pointed fingers. To me the other two mothers were ganging up on my siblings and me. When a problem arose in the house, Dad was quick to side with one of the other mothers, dismissing the children’s version and agreeing that punishment was in order. From my perspective, it seemed that to Dad, Audrey, and Laura, Mom’s kids could do no right. My brothers had taken to escaping the tension with forbidden trips to the local arcade and Toys “R” Us, where they met friends and played video games. Meanwhile, my sister Teressa began standing up to Dad and his other wives and advocating for our mother just as Craig had, a rebellion that landed her on the dark side of Dad’s anger.
Terrified of losing the family he loved for a second time, my father only grew more paranoid as Teressa and my brothers stretched their teenage wings and became more openly confrontational. Though they were merely acting like normal teenagers, they were seen as defiant and Dad suffered great anxiety over how their behavior would affect his priesthood standing. As sad as it was, it was clear to us all that Dad was coming apart as he fought to rein in his wives and children according to the priesthood’s design.
Thinking back on his battle to control our family, I have wondered if Dad’s own difficult childhood had left him emotionally unequipped to handle his twenty-four kids and three wives. When he was just a small boy, his mother had abandoned his family; the way Grandpa Wall told it, she just didn’t want to be married anymore. Unable to care for his two young children and continue to earn a living, Grandpa Wall had no choice but to send Dad and his sister to live with relatives. In time, a different arrangement needed to be made and Dad ended up on a working farm for orphans in Utah. Because Grandpa Wall was away working in the coal mines, it took a while for him to realize that the farmer was abusing the children, including my father. When Grandpa finally learned what was going on, he promptly moved Dad back with him. Over the years, they moved around a lot and ended up in Utah, where Grandpa eventually remarried. But problems in the home forced Dad to move out when he was sixteen. Still, he completed his high school education. After graduation, Dad joined the National Guard and received training in combat engineering. He served as a reservist for eight years. Later, his discipline and desire for education helped him earn advanced degrees.
Dad desired order and wanted his boys to be good priesthood men; however, as my brothers grew into teenagers, it became impossible to form them into the proper FLDS mold. Faithful boys were expected to serve their fathers in a humble manner, greeting them by saying things like “I am here to do your will. What do you want me to do? I want to be the humble servant of the prophet” and to constantly express their “undying love and loyalty” to the prophet and priesthood. But my brothers listened to a deep inner voice telling them that this type of behavior just wasn’t right. As hard as Dad tried through example and scripture, his sons struggled to live the principles of our strict faith.
The fact that Teressa—not just my brothers—was now openly dissenting only added to the friction. While I’m sure it broke her heart to be at odds with Dad, the situation became so unbearable that she began to sneak out of the house to escape conflict, if only for a few hours. I’d always looked up to Teressa and admired her strong and stubborn personality. She wasn’t afraid to display those attributes and do what she felt was right. To exhibit this type of attitude and behavior was bold, as it was not acceptable for FLDS women to have a voice or a say in their own destiny. Despite these social pressures, she never hesitated to speak her mind, much to my father’s great dismay. It was with great sadness that my mother looked on, helpless to fix the situation.
Teressa’s rebellion invited pressure to marry. Now I see that it was a common practice that a girl who had “problems” with obedience should be married and made pregnant as soon as possible to help pull her from her wicked ways and push her to conform to the FLDS ideal of womanhood. Our mother and some of our older sisters began urging Teressa to “turn herself in to the prophet for marriage,” but true to herself, Teressa refused. In response, my parents coaxed her into a meeting with Uncle Rulon and Warren. During the meeting, my sister sat stubbornly silent, refusing to answer Uncle Rulon’s questions. She’d warned my parents that if they forced her to see the prophet, she wouldn’t speak a word. Offended by her behavior, Warren later ordered her off church-owned land, allowing her only to go to the community in Bountiful, Canada, to work, repent, and learn about her proper role in our society.
Not long after Teressa was sent to Bountiful, my twin brothers Justin and Jacob joined her there. They had continued to question elements of our religion, and in order to prevent the situation with the twins from getting out of control, they too were sent to Canada for reform. As with Teressa, my parents hoped that time away would solidify their beliefs and bring them home more faithful.
The three of them went to work at a church-owned post and pole manufacturing mill in remote Alberta, almost seven hours north of Bountiful. Once there, they were all put to hard manual labor alongside other boys and occasionally a girl or two who had been sent there to reform. “Work them so they can’t find time to get into trouble” was the saying. Their primary task was to turn trees into poles. This was rigorous for all three of them, but especially hard on Teressa in her long prairie-style dresses. Frequently they worked the night shift, even in subzero temperatures; and there was little safety equipment. They received no pay, only room and board.
There was little attempt to hide the purpose of subjecting Teressa to this regimen. The point was to break her spirit by working her into submission. Marriage was dangled in front of her as the only reprieve from the work. It was a battle of wills and they were determined to undermine hers. After many months, Teressa finally gave in and it was announced that she would marry Roy Blackmore, the eighteen-year-old son of my sister Sabrina’s husband and one of his other wives. While it was an unwanted marriage for her, at least her husband would be her age, not to mention the fact that at the time, Teressa wholeheartedly believed Uncle Warren’s prophecies that the end of the world was imminent. Convinced that she was not worthy of eternal salvation, she believed she would have only two years in the marriage before the destruction of the world landed her among the wicked in hell for all eternity.
It had taken the bitter cold of Canada, manual labor, and intense pressures, but finally Teressa had been broken. She was seventeen years old when she got married, and the most beautiful bride I’d ever seen. She had golden blond hair and fiery blue eyes. She was stunning on the surface, but beneath that veneer, I knew she hated that they’d defeated her.
I was only twelve when Teressa was “sealed” in marriage and became a permanent member of the Canadian FLDS community. Being the pesky little sister, I had never been able to have a close relationship with her. I secretly idolized Teressa and wanted to be just like her. Watching her spar with the members of my family, I learned that it was important to stand up for yourself if something was wrong. Though she had eventually given in to marriage, she advocated for her beliefs and her personal rights, even though her opinions went against the church. Her actions were bold and insubordinate, but I was old enough to recognize that there was something admirable in them. I didn’t know it at the time, but seeing Teressa’s defiance through the eyes of an impressionable young sister changed something in me. Only years later would I find out just what that something was.
O
n July 7, 1999, I celebrated my thirteenth birthday with my family in Salt Lake City, not knowing that it would be the last time that I would ever observe any event with my father.
I was now the oldest girl in the house, and I took on many of the domestic tasks previously performed by Teressa. With no school to attend, I began to do a lot of the cooking and cleaning, often busying myself with chores and the care of my mother’s two youngest daughters, Sherrie and Ally. Many times I lovingly tended to Mother Laura’s little boy, but I had to be careful about the way I treated him. Mother Laura was still playing the role of mother bear and remained highly protective of him. While her behavior could be frustrating, Mom encouraged me to see that Laura’s actions were understandable. She had been the same way with my brother Travis, ultimately quitting her job at Dad’s company so that she could care for him and her other kids during the day.
A sad look came over her eyes, as she no doubt thought of Travis, who wasn’t faring well. His living situation with the other boys who had left the FLDS had eventually deteriorated and become unsustainable. Most of the boys forced out of the community were mere teenagers themselves and had been raised in such a closed community with little real education. While they banded together to help one another, there was little they could do beyond working menial jobs. Finally it got to a breaking point, and when Travis decided he could no longer live like he was, he returned to Salt Lake City for a fresh start. Years of hard work as a member of the FLDS community helped him land a construction job, and he again moved into a house with other former FLDS boys. The move did little to change his fortune, and the hard times that had begun in southern Utah continued back in Salt Lake, leaving him in need of help.
Because he’d left the church in the middle of his “reforming” in Short Creek, he was now labeled an apostate. To be an apostate was even worse than being a gentile.
Gentile
was the term given to all non-FLDS people, no matter their religion, but an apostate was someone who had lost faith or had left the church, turning their back on the priesthood. Apostates were viewed as one of the worst kinds of evil. FLDS teachings demanded that all members abandon people who choose to apostatize—even members of your own family. The severity of this requirement was such that we had to be extremely careful about our association with our brother. We’d been warned that the punishment would be harsh, but none of us knew exactly what that meant. Still, we were not prepared to abandon a brother and son completely.
After months of being away, Travis became a presence in our lives again, and periodically he would stop by to check in on his younger brothers and sisters. Usually, he would come just to say hello, but he would end up staring at our dinner with hungry eyes. Mom and Dad couldn’t stand to see their child in that condition, and on occasion they would allow him to have a plate of food, despite the risk. No matter how much he was suffering, Travis couldn’t bring himself to ask my dad for help. Mom and I would sneak him care packages during his forbidden visits home. Though it went against the church’s teachings, we couldn’t stand to see him starve.
It was devastating to watch the members of my family being slowly destroyed in the name of our religion. Even as our home life spiraled out of control, Dad continued to hold our annual camping trip and picnics in the mountains in an attempt to recapture the good times we all remembered. But the realities of our situation were glaring, and the absence of so many of my siblings made it hard to enjoy the trips as I had in the past.
The sad truth, as I learned later, was that our family’s struggles were making their way to Uncle Warren’s ear. Mom had again been talking with Rachel in secret, confiding about how my father was not in full control of his family. Rachel naturally took my mother’s side without seeking out my father’s perspective, eventually concluding that Dad was not leading the family correctly and that he had no power over what was going on under his roof. In turn, Rachel often relayed stories to Warren, a practice that grew more frequent after Rulon’s stroke had put our prophet in the backseat while he recovered.