LITMIR.BIZ

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siblings, memories, as well as their understanding of the source of the troubles, varied tremendously depending on their age and involvement in the family strife. From my perspective, there seemed to be frequent fights among various family members that often resulted in raised voices and angry tones. It seemed like both mothers constantly pointed out each other’s faults, with one accusing the other of a lack of cooperation and disrespect toward the children. Each complained of being overworked, and each felt that she was carrying the heavier load. As Sharon’s daughter, I naturally tended to support my mother’s point of view. I looked up to and adored my mother and strove to be just like her.

      Mother Audrey liked a tidy house, and she tried to create an organized system for family members to accomplish their individual responsibilities. In theory, it was a good idea, but with so many people in the home it was hard to keep track of everyone’s role. Although the chores did somehow get done, the strained communications in the family prevented repeated attempts to implement a workable system. Despite the flaws, there were moments the family took pleasure in working together. We all knew the faster we finished, the sooner we could play and escape the inevitable complaints that our jobs had not been completed to satisfaction.

      All this tension between the mothers frequently spilled over to the kids, who also harbored feelings of resentment, believing that the sons and daughters of the other mother were receiving special treatment. Church rules forbade us from outwardly showing dis pleasure, so the bitterness remained just below the surface. We were taught to always put on a good face, even when things are going poorly. We were told to “keep sweet,” an admonition to be compliant and pleasant no matter the circumstance. Since we couldn’t reveal our angry words and feelings, they got bottled up inside, and often there was no communication at all. Despite our teachings, many times our true feelings came out, erupting in arguments, with each group of children naturally siding with their biological mothers.

      Over time the bickering between Mother Audrey and my mother took its toll on my father and endangered his standing with the church. Dad’s role as patriarch of the family was to control his wives and children in strict accordance with the teachings of the church and the directives from the priesthood. Priesthood in the FLDS, is a hard concept for outsiders to understand. First, to “hold the priesthood” is to hold the power and authority of God, delegated to men. To hold priesthood, a man must prove his worthiness by showing his absolute devotion to the work of God through strict obedience to the key holder of the priesthood, the prophet. The prophet is the president of the priesthood. In the FLDS, it is believed that God (or the priesthood) is funneled through the prophet to the elders of the church.

      Lines of priesthood authority are patriarchal and strictly observed. In this system all women and children basically belong to the priesthood—not just to their husband or father. In reality, they are possessions of the priesthood and the prophet, and revelations from God determine their ultimate fate. When the prophet decides to award a wife to a priesthood man, it is viewed as a transfer of a possession to the man. The prophet decides when two people should marry, when families can form, and when families that are not working are to be reorganized. From my earliest memories, I was taught that I should never do anything to go against the prophet and priesthood. Doing so would ultimately be going against God himself.

      It was common practice to expel men, and in extreme cases women, whom the priesthood considered a threat and could weaken the faith of other members. It doesn’t take a religious ordinance or excommunication for a man to lose his priesthood. All that’s required is for the prophet or someone acting at his direction to say: “You have lost your priesthood.” The significance of this is enormous for believers, as it creates a culture of fear. If a husband loses his priesthood, his family is literally no longer his. In addition, he has to leave his land and home because his home is owned by the FLDS Church and controlled by the priesthood. Faithful wives and children will accept these decisions and wait to be reassigned to another man. In the meantime, the father is told that his only chance to win back his family is to leave and repent at a distance.

      If men want to remain faithful members of the church and not lose their home and family, they must obey the priesthood’s rules and teachings in every facet of life. An important part of this responsibility is running a happy and obedient house hold. Because of the friction between Mother Audrey and my mom, it was no surprise that my father was apprehensive about the prophet getting involved in our family’s domestic issues. Men had been kicked out for far less serious problems, and it seemed only a matter of time before the difficulties at home would become apparent to the priesthood.

      But even this risk was not too great to stop my mother from enlightening the prophet to our problems once she’d reached her limit. Mom had long ago learned that trying to fix problems herself wouldn’t change anything and she could no longer allow her children to be blamed for troubles in the home. Not long before the night we learned that my father would have a third wife, my mother had contacted the prophet, alerting him to the trouble in our house hold. This bold move was a huge violation for a woman, as it disrespected her husband and went against the church code of female behavior. Women are not supposed to complain; they are taught and expected to willingly and “sweetly” obey their husbands, who are their “priesthood heads.”

      The fear of displeasing God and failing our religious responsibilities is so great that it pushes most members to do anything for the priesthood. For many women, this means they must sacrifice their own desires, needs, and feelings to conform to those of their husband and their religious beliefs. The FLDS believes that women cannot gain entrance to the highest of the three levels of heaven on their own; they must be married to a man who holds the priesthood and has at least three wives, or they will go to a lower level of heaven or to hell.

      From birth, girls are prepared for this role. Their way of life is chosen for them by the priesthood. They are told whom to marry, what to believe, and how to live their lives. Women are taught that they have already chosen their destiny before their birth, at which point they chose to willingly place their lives in the hands of the prophet and priesthood, having everything dictated for them.

      For my mother to alert the prophet without my father’s knowledge meant risking our chance of going to heaven together as a family, but things had gotten so bad in our home that my mother felt something needed to change.

      When my father learned of my mother’s actions, he feared that he would never receive a third wife—or attain celestial marriage. But he held faith that the prophet would see him as the good man he was. He was well aware that men who prove unable to control their wives are looked upon as “weak sisters” and that he faced the possibility of losing his wives and his children to another man the prophet deemed more worthy.

      So Dad was quite relieved several weeks later when he received a call from Rulon Jeffs, the prophet at the time. It seemed that Uncle Rulon had “another lady” for my father, and that my mother’s concerns had not jeopardized his standing after all. All my father’s worries were put to rest. Clearly, the prophet must have been confident that my father could handle his family issues.

      My mother’s complaints may have been brushed aside, but there were reasons to be optimistic that another mother would bring stability into our home. The whole house seemed to light up at the mere prospect, and the two days after the announcement were consumed by a flurry of activity. All of the kids had fun rehearsing the musical presentation to welcome our new addition. Even my mother and Audrey seemed to put their differences aside as they began preparing for the wedding.

      Dad had been assigned to marry Mom’s twenty-four-year-old niece, Laura Jessop. Laura’s father was married to two of my mother’s sisters and one of them was Laura’s mother. In the FLDS, it’s not uncommon for members of the same family—even sisters—to share a husband. Our family and the Jessops had been close for many years, but the choice of Laura was still a big surprise because we had been so closely tied to her growing up. It would be an adjustment to now call her “mother” instead of cousin.

      The wedding was to take place at the prophet’s home in Salt Lake. Laura was driving up with her family from Hildale, Utah, home of an FLDS-only community. For years, Hildale and its sister town of Colorado City, Arizona, were called Short Creek, named after a stream that came out

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