Authors: Elissa Wall
There were no dissenters among us to dispute Naomi’s claims. We all robotically absorbed her words. To those assembled that day, her testimony dictated that our prophet had intended to continue his work through his son. While some of us silently hoped that Uncle Fred would take over instead of Warren, Fred, the man who had held the bishopship of the twin cities for so many decades, remained eerily silent. From that day forward, the people of the FLDS would look unwaveringly to Warren Jeffs as the prophet.
Perfect obedience produces perfect faith.
—
FLDS PARABLE
I
n the confusion after Rulon’s death, many people came down from the community in Canada to pay their respects to him. This meant there were lots of vehicles making the return trip, and I was hoping to catch a ride to Bountiful in one.
I’d already been feeling hopeless about my marriage after the ill-fated first year anniversary, but our move to the trailer around my sixteenth birthday the previous summer had only made things worse. Becoming sixteen had been a turning point for me in some ways. It had enabled me to get a job on the books and a valid driver’s license. Although I had access to a vehicle and like most FLDS teens had been driving in the Crik since I was fourteen, the license afforded me a new sense of security. I no longer had to worry every time I saw an out-of-town police car, and I could now legally drive in St. George, away from the scrutiny of home. Allen was working regularly for Reliance Electric, installing light fixtures, and had a second vehicle, the brown Ford Ranger that he let me use.
Being legally allowed to work enabled me to earn a more significant income. Along with my jobs as an aide for the disabled infant and dressmaker, I had agreed to work under another woman in the FLDS as a direct seller for Saladmaster. I went door-to-door selling pots and pans and also prepared meals for families in their homes as a way to demonstrate the products. I’d always been good in the kitchen, and this was a new way for me to use my culinary skills. This work became quite lucrative for a girl my age, and I was earning a lot more than I was turning over to Allen each week. In the FLDS, a woman is expected to hand over her entire paycheck to her husband, and he is to handle all of the finances and provide for her. It frustrated Allen that I wasn’t following those rules, and it only added to the strain of the marriage, even though I was giving him enough money for the use of his truck.
What Allen didn’t know was that some of my reasons for not turning over more money were that I was anxious to make sure my family members were provided for. I felt responsible for them. Mom had to go to Uncle Fred when she needed money for shoes, fabric, or other necessities for her and my younger sisters, but she felt uncomfortable because she always had to produce convincing reasons for the things she needed. She was also too proud to ask for assistance, and it felt as though she held a lower status in Uncle Fred’s home than many of the other wives, although it was never spoken aloud.
In addition to the responsibility to my mother and little sisters, I also felt compelled to help Caleb, who was still living with the Barlows in Hurricane but was basically on his own. He’d started eighth grade at Hurricane Middle School and had joined the football team. I would sneak down whenever I could to watch his games and take him to dinner. Understandably, Caleb seemed to be hurt about being abruptly left at the Barlows’ by our parents. I did my best to make sure he knew he still had family that cared, but as hard as I tried, I could not alleviate his pain. I could see that it was so difficult for Caleb to know that his biological mother and father were just thirty minutes up the road and they weren’t taking care of him. No matter what I did, my presence in his life would never make up for being without his parents.
As if all this weren’t enough, I was also keeping an eye on my older brother Justin, who had recently come to southern Utah. In the months after Dad and Audrey moved from Salt Lake, he and his twin, Jacob, parted ways. Jacob remained in Salt Lake City, but Justin had come down to Hurricane and was rooming with a bunch of boys who had been expelled from the FLDS community. Since his arrival, I had been doing my best to help Justin out, and whenever I was in Hurricane, I would visit him as well as Caleb. Sometimes, Justin would go without food for days at a stretch, and he was often sick.
Over time, shouldering all these responsibilities and managing my deteriorating home life began to take its toll. Technically, I was living with Allen in our trailer, but I spent as much time as possible with my mother and sisters up at Uncle Fred’s. Although I loved being with my mom, Uncle Fred’s home was a tense place for me. Allen was often reporting to Fred about my disobedience, so I had to be careful in my comings and goings there. Even though I was still in a desperate situation, I did my best to keep my mother sheltered from the truth. She had Sherrie and Ally to worry about. I didn’t want her to know how Allen was using me sexually. And I certainly didn’t want her to know about the miscarriage that I’d had that past spring, or a second one that I suffered in the late summer of 2002. The second was not nearly as severe as the first, but still, I was traumatized.
The result of all this was that on the nights when I was with Allen I found it more difficult to maintain a “sweet” composure in the face of his constant advances. One experience in particular that fall pushed me to become desperate to get away from him. Eager to get some time alone, I had called Uncle Warren in October to ask if we could meet.
“No,” he’d said firmly. “You need to come in here with Allen.”
“Well, can I just ask you over the phone what I need?”
Pleased when he didn’t hang up, I proceeded to tell him that I wanted his permission to travel to Canada to visit my sisters.
“Well, that is between you and Allen,” he told me. “You need to bring it up with him.”
“Well, I have,” I explained. “I’ve asked Allen if I could go, and he said no. I…I just need a break. I need some time separate from Allen so that I can gather my thoughts and regenerate.”
“Pray, and just remember what your mission in life is,” Warren said before hanging up that day. He hadn’t given me permission to go.
By December 2002, I had become so depressed that I was struggling to get out of bed in the morning. A glimmer of hope was rekindled in me when my sister Teressa and her husband, Roy, arrived from Canada to pay respects to Uncle Rulon and visit his grave. Spending time with them immediately raised my spirits, and from the moment Teressa saw me, she knew I needed to return to Bountiful with her. Despite my continued pleas, Allen refused to let me go.
“I’m not going to do anything,” I told him. “I just want to see my family and have a break.”
Allen knew that our marriage was falling apart, but he refused to let me go. “Your place is by my side,” he said. “You need to be here.”
At one point during Teressa’s stay, I accompanied her and Roy to an appointment that they’d set up with Uncle Warren. Since he was now officially our prophet, they needed to check in and seek his guidance before returning to Canada. Warren did not seem pleased that I was with them, and I was very nervous. Teressa maintained that she needed my help with her new baby and raised the issue of me accompanying them back to Bountiful. She and Roy had three children, and Teressa made it seem like with Roy out of the house for much of the workday, she would need an extra set of hands to help out.
I also tried to explain it myself, telling Warren again, “I don’t feel like I’m in a good place right now. I need to have some space from Allen and to gather my thoughts.”
Warren couldn’t understand why I was bringing up the same problem again. “I’ve already told you that you need to speak with Allen about this,” he reminded me. “You need to do what Allen tells you. If you are not careful,” he admonished, “you will follow in the footsteps of your sister Kassandra and you will lose your faith the way she has. She has been given every opportunity to have salvation, and she has given that up. She is damned to hell.”
Teressa jumped in to support me. “We’ll take really good care of Elissa and keep her encouraged.”
My downward spiral had alarmed her greatly, and while she didn’t say anything to me, the fact that she’d been willing to allow me to attend this meeting with Uncle Warren showed how seriously she took my condition. Uncle Warren was not particularly fond of Teressa. She did not have a high standing in the FLDS and was considered trouble because of her strong will. So at first Uncle Warren was resistant. He had told me that I needed to go home and learn to obey Allen. But my sister and I persisted, and eventually Warren agreed to call Allen and hear his position over the speakerphone.
“I just don’t feel like she should go,” Allen said. His denial infuriated me, and I wanted to shake him through the phone. But I tried to keep sweet, hoping that Teressa and Roy could help to persuade him.
“I have either got to have time or space to go and regenerate, or else I can’t do this anymore and I want out,” I said, directing my comments at Uncle Warren. “I just want out.”
After more back-and-forth, Uncle Warren finally conceded, saying that if it was all right with Allen, I could go. Allen sighed. He was obviously unhappy with Warren’s words, but he had enough sense not to push any harder. Reluctantly he agreed, but before I could get too caught up in celebrating, Warren reminded me that I needed to remember my duties and the commitments that I had made. I happily accepted.
I could hardly contain my joy as I packed my clothing and readied myself for the trip. What I hadn’t told Allen was that I was pregnant for the third time. If he’d known, there was no way that he would have agreed to let me go. I didn’t know how or when I would eventually break the news, but it didn’t matter. I was on my way to Canada.
W
e hurriedly left town before Allen could change his mind, but what I didn’t realize when we left was that our ride to Bountiful would turn into a family reunion of sorts. Unbeknownst to me there had been a lot of contact among my family members. Both Kassandra and Teressa had been in touch with our brother Craig over the past month.
It had all started when, out of the blue, Craig called Kassandra at the prophet’s compound in the days before her escape. A while back, Kassandra had obtained Craig’s address and secretly sent him a care package that included her direct phone number at Uncle Rulon’s house. More than a year passed before he finally called her in late October 2002. He’d learned of Rulon’s death and felt compelled to get in touch with Kassandra to see how she was faring. It was a miracle that she was still in the same room with the same phone number, since it was common for the prophet’s wives to be moved around and their phone numbers to be changed.
This was the first time that anyone in our family had spoken to Craig since he left in 1996. He was upset when he later heard about all of the difficult times our family had been through. He had no idea that Mom and her youngest kids had been taken away from Dad and that she’d been reassigned to Uncle Fred. The news of my marriage to Allen also infuriated him. Craig encouraged Kassandra to stay strong and not give in to pressure to remarry. While Craig was committed to helping those of us still in the FLDS, he saw Justin’s situation as the most urgent.
I didn’t know it when we set out for Bountiful, but my older siblings had hatched a plan to move Justin to Oregon, where Craig and now Kassandra were living, so Craig could help him. They decided that we would pick up Justin and drive him to a mutually agreed upon place, from which Kassandra and Ryan would take him the rest of the way to Craig’s house.
Before we even got to Kassandra though, we would see yet another old family member. Our first stop would be in Salt Lake City to catch up with my brother Jacob, whom I hadn’t seen since we moved to Hildale for good in 1999. We were all eager to see him after so much time and meet his new baby. He’d met a girl shortly after he moved out of Dad’s home on Claybourne Avenue. The two had now moved in together and were raising an infant daughter. Although visits to my “apostate” siblings were strictly forbidden, like Teressa I was willing to take the risk.
The moment we drove into the Salt Lake Valley, homesickness enveloped me. A fresh snow had fallen, and the majestic Wasatch mountains were blanketed in white powder. The wintry scene was a welcome relief from the red clay that dominated the landscape of Short Creek. Even though I’d come to appreciate the rugged panorama of arid land, I missed this place that I had once called home.
Being back in Salt Lake reminded me of all the good times I’d shared with my family, the snowball fights with my brothers in our front yard, sledding in the mountains with Dad, and skating on the homemade ice rink we created every winter from packed snow and a garden hose in our backyard. The crisp sound of blades on ice rang clearly in my mind as we drove the city streets en route to my brother’s apartment. I couldn’t help but wish that I could go back in time to when things made sense and Dad was there to love and protect me, and I wondered whether I would be married and pregnant at sixteen if the priesthood hadn’t split us up. I was sure that Dad never would have let this happen, that I’d be at home sipping a cup of hot chocolate and enjoying my true family instead of desperately trying to get space from the husband I didn’t love.
As we made our way to Jacob’s house, I wondered how it would be for me to meet his girlfriend, Whitney. The mother of his child was African-American. Hearing this came as a huge shock to me, although today I am embarrassed to admit it. All I could think of were Warren’s words from Alta Academy that nonwhite people were the most evil of all outsiders. His racist remarks and hate-filled bigotry were a routine part of the classroom experience at Alta Academy, and from them, I had developed a prejudice about anyone whose skin looked different from my own. I had been told that my brother was damned to hell for even associating with Whitney.