Authors: Elissa Wall
By January of 1997, the benefits of the arrangement had begun to erode. Personalities were conflicting and the harsh winter in such a remote place was becoming problematic. While there had been some fun and lasting memories during my short stay at the Steed ranch, I was ready to go home.
Just as we started to wither in these frustrations, news came that changed everything: Uncle Rulon had decided that Dad had acknowledged his shortcomings and repented so that his priesthood could be fully restored. The thought of a warm hug from the man whom I had missed so dearly filled me with hope. At last, it felt as though my family was being glued back together. Home had never been perfect, but it was the only place I wanted to be.
The time is short.
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FLDS PARABLE
I
t wasn’t until we returned to the house on Claybourne Avenue that we learned Mom had been in Salt Lake City for several weeks, redecorating our house with help from my sister Rachel. It turned out that both my parents had gone to the prophet separately about reconciliation, but in order for my mother and her children to be welcomed back into my father’s home, certain things had to happen. The prophet had directed my parents to be rebaptized and remarried. They’d even gone off to California for a second honeymoon.
Another stipulation was that Mother Audrey and Lydia, Audrey’s youngest daughter and her only child still at home, had to move out. At the time, there was no explanation given for their departure, only that Audrey was to repent from afar. In truth, our problems were never the product of any one individual; they were the result of living in a complicated family with complicated issues under tremendous religious pressures. But in the prophet’s search for a solution to make us all whole again, he decided the only answer was to divide our family once more, this time in a different way.
Many years later, Mother Audrey would confide to me how difficult our departure to the Steed ranch had been for her. It had left her feeling empty and drained, and she worried that something was terribly wrong with the prophet’s decisions for our family. She’d been so elated when she heard that we were finally coming home, but her joy quickly turned to pain again when she was informed that she would now be the one who had to move out.
Audrey faced the challenge of finding a place to stay, and it was only after several phone calls to her children that her son Richard and his wife took her in. She’d have to come to terms with the fact that she and her husband would remain married but live apart. As a believer, she would continue to keep the faith, praying to the Heavenly Father that they would soon be reunited.
For my mother and father this really did seem like a chance for a fresh start. I can still see the look on my mom’s face when Dad returned home one night holding a dozen red roses and a brand-new wedding ring that she’d help to design. It had rubies and diamonds, and Dad had it wrapped in a small box tied with a bow. I lingered in the living room, watching my parents share a few romantic moments, heartened to again see them expressing their love for each other. Mom hadn’t looked that happy in ages, and seeing her like that renewed my hope that everything would work out.
With Craig gone, Travis packed off to reform, and Audrey no longer living with us, the house felt eerily quiet. Emotions were high, and everywhere there was a lingering emptiness. As a result, we eagerly anticipated the upcoming April conference for all FLDS members in Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona. This would give us not only a chance to see Travis but the opportunity to get our family back on track.
The April conference was just one of many annual events that required the entire community—including those of us who lived in Salt Lake City and Canada—to travel down to Short Creek. The FLDS does not celebrate traditional Christian holidays such as Christmas and Easter. We had our own events to observe throughout the year, three of which took place in the summer months. The first was on June 12, commemorating the birthday of our former prophet Leroy Johnson. Throughout his life he would gather the people together on his birthday and serve them all watermelon. People so dearly loved and respected him that after his passing they continued to gather on this day to remember him. This was followed by Independence Day on July 4 and Pioneer Day on July 24, with the traditional Pioneer Day parade. Of these events, Pioneer Day was by far the biggest community celebration, as it marked the day in 1847 that Mormon pioneers first settled in the Salt Lake Valley. The summer gatherings were followed in the fall by Octoberfest or Harvest Fest, in which members would all gather in the “crik” to help harvest the potatoes and other crops on which many of us would rely throughout the winter months.
Of all these yearly occasions, the April conference was the most sacred, and the people would come to the twin towns for religious teachings. For the men, this was also the time for the priesthood ordination meeting. During this important meeting, male members of the community learned their worthiness and whether or not they would be honored with an elevation to a higher level of priesthood. Young men are ordained into the priesthood at the age of twelve, when they become priesthood deacons and gain admittance to the sacred male-only priesthood meetings. As they get older, they can rise to higher levels within the church, so long as they have their father’s recommendation. Once a man reaches the age of eighteen, he can attain the level of church elder, at which point he can have a wife and family through a revelation from the prophet.
Because of the celebratory nature of all these gatherings, I had always associated southern Utah with joy and togetherness. Our time there was always marked by jubilation and relaxed fun. When I was a child, those events gave me the precious freedom to run around and play with the other children at the park. I also loved going to the zoo at the center of town that had been created by Fred Jessop, the bishop of Hildale/Colorado City and a beloved figure in our community. The zoo was home to many exotic animals, including zebras and llamas, and he built it so that children wouldn’t have to leave the community to enjoy such amusements.
Uncle Fred, as he was known, owned an enormous white house perched atop a small hill overlooking the community and visible from most parts of town. Like the Jeffs compound in Salt Lake City, Fred’s house was vast enough to accommodate a birthing center for the local FLDS community, but Fred Jessop didn’t have any biological children of his own, as a childhood disease had rendered him sterile. Instead his children came from the wives of husbands who had lost the priesthood, and had been reassigned to him.
Since he was so involved with the community, I had always had a good feeling about Uncle Fred. Though I didn’t know him personally when I was younger, I would hear stories of his life. From the little that I did see of him, he seemed to be a kind and loving man who had the people’s best interest in mind, a man who represented all the good things about the community.
Short Creek was a place where we didn’t feel strange or outcast. It was the only place I knew where I was free to socialize and roam about the town. There was a deep sense of unity in knowing that we all believed the same things and didn’t need to feel ashamed in one another’s company. Back in Salt Lake, outsiders would scoff at our long dresses and unfashionable hairstyles, but down in Hildale and Colorado City, everyone looked and acted just like our family did. The twin towns felt like home to everyone; there everyone knew one another by name and many were related by blood or marriage. If anything could ease our troubled family, it was a trip to Short Creek. As the car jam-packed with Walls made its way toward southern Utah for the April conference that year, I was optimistic about our chance to heal our family’s wounds and assuage my own overwhelming loneliness.
Unfortunately that year’s conference weekend was not what I had hoped for. When I first arrived, my anxiety seemed to disappear as friends and relatives greeted me. Together we had fun and began to relax, and for the first time in months, I felt at ease. But one day, with spring-flushed cheeks glowing from hours of play, I walked into a room to discover Mom sitting in a corner, crying. I asked her what was wrong, and through tears she said that she had seen Travis and heard the truth of what was happening to him. The family that had taken him in felt that he was corrupting their children and disapproved of a group of boys he’d befriended. Like Travis, many of his new friends were struggling with the teachings of our faith and finding ways to rebel. At this point, Travis had somehow gotten his hands on a car, and to escape the oppressive atmosphere in the household, he began sleeping in it.
Mom didn’t feel it would be appropriate to share many of the details with me, but her devastation was clear. This was the second time I had seen her crying like this, and memories of the day we left Craig on the side of the highway flooded my mind. Later, I would look back on this occasion and wonder whether Mom was crying solely out of love and regret for her sons’ pain or for the dual failure that the situation represented. A priesthood mother is expected to raise her children to be virtuous and good, and if a child strays, it is viewed as the mother’s fault. Mom was heartbroken enough to share her true feelings with me, and somehow I understood what that meant. I hadn’t yet finished the fifth grade, but it was in this bitter moment that I witnessed the continuation of my family’s unraveling.
In the end, it appeared Travis’s resentment of his circumstances at the reform retreat proved too great to endure. Shortly after we’d returned home from the April conference, we heard that he finally left Short Creek and moved into a house in southern Utah with some friends who had also left the church. Most were lost and searching for a way to make life work outside their religious upbringings. When I heard he was with them, I was pleased because it sounded like they’d formed a kind of family bond that would help them get through whatever rough times they would face. My parents, on the other hand, sensed that he was living with a bad crowd, but they could not access him and control his actions; Mom was consumed by worry—and Dad by frustration.
I
n early summer of 1997, our family was invited to join many of the Salt Lake members on an organized camping trip to Bear Lake, Wyoming, which would be one of just a handful of times that the people in Salt Lake organized their own community event. For much of my life, playing in the water had been off-limits because Dad felt it was too dangerous. On several occasions, I was told that the Devil controlled the water and swimming for pleasure would prevent the Lord from protecting us from him.
Because of this teaching, I was excited but also a little scared at the prospect of spending a few days at the lake. When I asked if the Devil would be in the water, I was told that because the prophet had approved of the trip the water would be blessed. This completely set my mind at ease, and upon our arrival, I splashed and played in the water in my long dresses to my heart’s content. At night we stayed in tents on the beach and the sound of water lulled us to sleep.
At one point during the festivities, my attention was drawn to another group of children in swimsuits frolicking in the water. They were not from the FLDS, but they too were with their families on vacation. Like a scientist, I paused to study them. I was curious because I had been taught that outsiders were evil, but at first glance they didn’t look that way to me. The longer that I looked at them, the more I came to realize that they looked nothing like I had imagined. Of course, I had seen non-FLDS strangers before—after all, we were a small minority in Salt Lake City. But I had never really studied them, to see how they acted and how they treated one another. These kids looked so nice. Sure, they were dressed in modern styles, but I found their clothes attractive as opposed to immodest. Secretly, I envied their bare legs, their sense of freedom, and the fun in their style. My ankle-length blue dress may have matched my blue eyes, but suddenly it no longer reflected how I felt inside.
As I watched them eat, laugh, and play with their families, I realized that those kids actually seemed similar to us, and that the only difference was their clothing. Even from far away, I could tell that there was love in this family’s eyes, that they cared for one another and would care about us too. I was young enough to still believe what I had been taught, simply because it was all I knew, but seeing that family gave me a shocking new point of view about the church’s teachings. I didn’t say anything to anyone. I kept it to myself.
Later on in life, I would realize that standing there and watching those kids was the first time I ever questioned FLDS teachings, even if it was only subconsciously.
Unfortunately for me, the excitement of our trip to Bear Lake was tainted by my chronic illness. My tonsils were so infected that they’d ruptured and infectious fluid was circulating through my system. My father finally realized that the severity of my situation required a visit to the doctor and was advised that surgery was in order. Doctors told my parents that I would need my tonsils and adenoids removed, as well as surgery to reconstruct my collapsed nasal passage.
Unaware of what was to come, I enjoyed all the attention I was receiving in the hospital. I had only been to the doctor a handful of times, once for a tetanus shot, another time for ear tubes, and another to treat my Lyme disease. I was given a gown to wear, and seeing my parents worrying over me made me feel cherished, like for that moment I was the only one of their children who mattered. Before my surgery, an anesthesiologist administered a shot to put me to sleep. It hurt so much, and I remember the burning sensation traveling up my arm. Suddenly, my arm went numb, and I drifted off to sleep.