On July 7, 2016 I was cruising Social Media when I came across the fascinating and brilliant Writer
Luna Flesher Lindsey.
Her comments on Facebook grabbed me.
I could relate to them because
I too was ostracized while living in Utah
from 1948 to 1960 among the LDS/ The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
In my case it was for being a Mormon fundamentalist.
In Luna’s case it was for being a highly-functioning and gifted autistic person, a genius, and a bisexual; i.e., she was different–
ostracized for not fitting in and not going along with the crowd in everything …
though she really tried to go along to get along.
(Everybody wants to be accepted and respected,
not rejected simply for being who they are.)
In Luna Lindsey’s following
Facebook commentary she exhibits
a beautiful way with words
as she expresses some of her excruciating memories of being singled out and ostracized.
But firstly MY commentary by way of introduction:
Luna Lindsey grew up a mainstream LDS Mormon. As an adult, she chose to leave “the church.” Her most interesting social media comments to her friends online (comments I’m posting below) relate some of her most painful experiences growing up in that tight-knit Utah Mormon environment.
Unfortunately her words begin mid-stream. I failed to copy her introductory Facebook comments. But what I captured and preserved is a story worth hearing – a heart rending human experience that speaks in diverse ways to me and others, ways that express how ostracized people feel.
It would have been sad to see these comments lost to Facebook, as most of our comments are. But before we get into her riveting remarks, let me add that upon messaging Luna for permission to post her Facebook comments here, I learned she was an Author and Public Speaker.
Having already seen how brilliant she was, how talented, I bought her hardcover book; then bought it as an audiobook also:
Recovering Agency:
Lifting the Veil of Mormon Mind Control.
Upon beginning to read her outstanding chronology of Mormon truths,
I couldn’t put the book down.
Because this well-documented manuscript enlightened, educated, and mentally fed me,
I’m a more recovered Mormon!
So I have it on my list of books to reread, relisten to, and study again in the near future.
Here are Lindsey’s comments, beginning midstream, ending full circle:
Luna Lindsey
(Speaking to a friend on Facebook)
“I’m realizing that even though we were in the LDS church at the same time, that our difference in age (and gender) could have a huge impact on our different perceptions of the experience.
“I was terrified to be different! There were certain lines I knew I could never cross. I had to act and be as feminine as I could, to fit the gender roles which were constantly being thrown at me. I felt deeply ashamed that I wasn’t good with kids, that I didn’t like cooking, that I wasn’t good at sewing.
“I was constantly told I was blessed with inherent nurturing capabilities and that children would bring me joy, yet they didn’t! I watched as all the girls my age (I won’t call them friends, because only 2 of them were ever my friend, in all my 18 years as a Mormon child) acted as girly as possible, who rushed to see the new baby in the ward, and I felt like a freak because I didn’t share their enthusiasm.
“And I didn’t feel nurturing. I wanted to build rockets and study insects and sit at my computer. I felt like something was wrong with me because the Church said I should be that way and I wasn’t.
“I felt overwhelming shame at anything sexual. I was taught, from a young age, that God knew every impure thought we ever had, and that it was a terrible sin. When I started growing leg hair, I stopped swimming. I could only wear pants in summer. Because I was too embarrassed to ask my peers about such things.
“I knew how to shave my legs, kind of, but I wasn’t very good at it, and I wasn’t sure if I was doing it well enough. And talking about it seemed like I was talking about sex. My legs felt like they had to do with sex, so I just covered myself up and avoided swimming, and suffered thru hot summers with capris instead of shorts.
“I had crushes but was too ashamed to seem “boy crazy,” so I never talked about them and felt terribly ashamed that I even had them at all.
“I had fantasies. I didn’t even know what sex was, so they weren’t even sexual fantasies, but I felt like they were wrong, and even admitting that here and now, scared me. These were my deepest, darkest secrets. And when the Bishop asked me during interviews, “Have you had any impure thoughts,” I lied and said “No.” But I’d been taught that the Bishop has the Power of Discernment, and can tell if you’re lying.
“So I felt like he could see into my soul like God could. I was terrified. (Incidentally, having girls (and boys) aged as young as 12, alone in a room with a grown man who is asking sexual questions is extremely problematic, and in my mind, abusive.)
“And here’s something that happened to me. You probably don’t know that I was put on voluntary disfellowshipingbecause I got naked with a boyfriend once. (We didn’t have sex, just made out.) I went through the repentance process.
“Later, when I was getting my temple recommend, I had an interview with a counselor of the Kennewick Stake Presidency. He asked if I had any sins in my past, and I replied, “Not that I haven’t repented of. I went through disfellowshipping for something.” And he started pressing for details. I told him, “I thought those sins were washed clean.” No, he needed to know.
“He asked for details, LOTS of details. The Bishop hadn’t asked for these details when I was repenting. But this Counselor, he wanted a picture. And he asked lots of questions about why I did it, too.
“It seemed like he was getting off on it. It was super creepy, but since he was “called of God,” I didn’t feel I had any right to stop him, to set boundaries, to say no. My “Temple Recommend” (and eternal ordinances attached to that) were hanging in the balance. He had complete power over me.
“Since I’ve left, I discovered that this is a common story, and in fact, many members have been abused more than this in those situations. And it was abuse, no question. And it did not even follow the doctrine surrounding repentance.
“The kids my age gossiped. A lot. As a teen. Later, as a young single adult. Wanna know why I never found a nice Mormon guy to marry? Because I was the Other. I didn’t fit the gender norm, and I was a divorced single mom. These two things alone were enough to make me an undesirable. It was extremely difficult to even get dates.
“One guy I dated, who was also a friend for many years, got honest with me and told me that his other friends thought I was weird and they didn’t want to hang out with me. That’s how social dynamics work.
“If you set up a “norm” and go on and on and on about how it’s the norm, anyone who is an outlier will be singled out for maltreatment. It’s just how human beings are wired. You can say “Love one another,” but if you keep “othering” those who are different, it’s incredibly difficult for members to understand what “love one another” really means.
“Being a divorced single mom made sitting in Church painful as well. They’d get up there with talks about how great families were, how great husbands and wives were in supporting one another, how the Plan of Salvation was so great because of families, how important it was for mothers to spend time focusing on their children, and every single time they gave one of those talks or RS (Relief Society) lessons, I just wanted to CRY.
“They didn’t give any space for people like me to exist. They never once gave a talk focused on how much of a struggle it is to be a single mom, or how painful divorce can be, or how members can love and help those who are different.
“Occasionally they’d say one or two sentences on those things, but a sentence now and then isn’t enough to have an effect on a majority of members, nor can a sentence really give those members an understanding of what it’s like to be “other.” All the focus is on people who are normal, who naturally fit in.
“And it leads to, yes, gossip. Abuse. Bullying. Shunning. It just does.”
This concludes the extent of the essay I copied, written by Luna Flesher Lindsey on Facebook, July 2016; published here with her permission.
** NOTE: The following Essay by blogger Bruce Holt is borrowed by permission:
Steven Hassan’s BITE Model…Part “B”
/ MVDBMAN
The BITE model: The specific methods that cults use to recruit and maintain control over people.
“B”: Behavior Control
- Promote dependence and obedience
- Modify behavior with rewards and punishments
- Dictate where and with whom you live
- Restrict or control sexuality
- Control clothing and hairstyle
- Regulate what and how much you eat and drink
- Deprive you of seven to nine hours of sleep
- Exploit you financially
- Restrict leisure time and activities
- Require you to seek permission for major decisions
To me, a former member of the LDS Church, these are self-evident. To a current member, they may not be so evident. Why? Confirmation bias. Obedience to authority, depending on authority for the current word of God, behaving in accordance with proscribed actions, paying tithes and generous offerings in order to receive anticipated rewards (blessings, status, ability to participate in ordinances not available to those who don’t), sexuality (including modes of dress, abstinence until marriage, heterosexual only, personal arousal, etc.), “busy work” (Ministering – formerly Home/Visiting Teaching), time-consuming callings and assignments, recommendation to date and marry within the Church, Word of Wisdom, etc.
These are methods to control behavior! Period!
Members will protest, saying they choose these things and are not forced. However, each of these things has a reward, if they are chosen, meaning they ARE, absolutely, forms of control! Sure, one does not have to follow or comply with these things, but where does that leave this member? What will happen? Will he/she be left alone?
If they are noticed, no (have you ever attended a Ward Council meeting??)!
This is behavior control, pure and simple.
Thoughts Pro/Con? Please comment!
Hi, Bruce:
Could I copy and use your piece, “Steven Hassan’s BITE Model…Part “B,” and put it on my website? It would be enlightening to any number of people who read my blogs — my latest blog, for example. I would, of course, give you all the credits as well as reference your website — should you wish.
BTW, another way the LDS Church controls, converts, deprives, etc., its people of sleep, time, and so forth, is in how it has High School students attending Seminary at 6 AM in the morning, no LESS — leaving little time for social life (outside of brainwashing Seminary), homework, sufficient sleep for their growing bodies, and all else!
Thanks! ~ Steph Spencer
Rancho La Mora, Sonora:
LeBaron-American-Mexican
Massacre
NOTE:
Due to the recent Mexico-LeBaron tragedy,
I interrupt my regular-scheduled blog to post
the following Memorial.
MSN.COM: US Victims in Mexico massacre were tied to family with long history of violence
In Memoriam:
My condolences to my extended-family members and friends murdered in the recent Rancho LaMora, Sonora, Mexico massacre.
I’m grateful to have escaped the LeBaron Fundamentalist Mormon colonies in 1967. Nevertheless, am in a state of grief as I try to comprehend and move beyond this recent violence most likely due to Mexican-mafia drug-cartel turf wars.
My heart goes out to my relatives, extended family, and friends in the aftermath of this incomprehensible Cartel retaliation.
I pray for the survivors as they work to pick up the pieces, regain strength, and go on with their lives; while trying to deal with the terrible trauma, loss, and inability to understand how anybody could do such an inhumane thing— murdering, in the worst manner, innocent mothers and children!
How could any human criminal leave so many suffering survivors and families to deal with a future of unbearable sorrow and missing links in their family web!
But the Mexico-LeBarons are a strong breed. Their history has proven they don’t/won’t give up easily. It’s not in their making; nor in their belief system.
You will understand better my Mexico-LeBaron extended-family members and their recent tragedy, once you listen to the following documentation borrowed off Facebook:
* Courtesy of Laura Kelly
(Director of Sound Choices Coalition) and Facebook:
—Says Kristyn Decker, Author of “Fifty Years in Polygamy,” and founder of “Sound Choices Coalition:”
“Thank you, Laura Kelly, for sharing
the following article explaining our
Mormon fundamentalist connections to the victims.
It’s SO devastating. Lots of tears & sadness:”
MSN.COMUS victims in Mexico massacre were tied to family with a long history of violence.
“The roadside killings of nine U.S. citizens in northern Mexico has brought renewed attention to the scattered communities of Mormons who settled in the country more than a century ago to escape persecution …
Cont. November 14, 2019,
“Pt 41-D:
Esther LeBaron Spencer
and ‘More on’ LeBaron Madness”
Pieces by Stephany Spencer- LeBaron: William P. Tucker’s Baby and Wife Left to Die by Cult, Sister, & Bill’s Buddy Stephen Silver
“Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”William James
In July 1967, three months after my/our husband, William Preston Tucker/AKA: Bill Tucker (I say “our” husband because I was one of Bill’s three wives), announced to the “church” he was leaving, he died from a burst appendix. Up until then, he had been one of the two top leading priesthood members of my Uncle Joel LeBaron’s Messianic Mormon fundamentalist cult.
My Uncle Ervil LeBaron, Joel’s eighteen-months-younger brother, was the other top-ranking priesthood member of Joel’s sect, “The Church of the Firstborn of the Fullness of Times” — a Mormon Fundamentalist doomsday cult headquartered in Colonia LeBaron, Galeana, Chihuahua, Mexico.
When Bill died, most of the true-believing members of this apocalyptic, extremist group believed God had taken him because he left “The Church.” In their minds, Bill Tuckerhad apostatized from the only true religion upon the face of the earth.
Therefore, half the people who had followed my/our husband out of Joel’s cult of polygamists, just three months before, returned to his cult — more fervent followers than ever!
Bill’s dying was all the sign they needed to convince them Joel’s “church” was true, after all. And Bill had simply been led astray by Satan and his minions.
It didn’t carry much weight with them that Bill died because he was allergic to Penicillin — the wonder drug that cures peritonitis; i.e., Acute appendicitis, the fatal infection that sets in when the appendix burst.
The following poem was written shortly after my husband’s death. I was barely twenty-one, had just escaped the LeBaron cult two months before; had a three-year-old daughter, no money, no home, no support system …
“No nothing” but the legacy of having spent my past seven years held captive in a secluded, backward, abusive polygamist cult; where I was married at sixteen, in a prearranged marriage, to a man (William Preston Tucker) ten years my senior, who already had two other wives — the oldest one, Marilyn Tucker, fifteen years my senior and immensely jealous of me — not to mention his other wife who was six years my senior.
During my seven years — from age fourteen to twenty-one — living in the LeBaron cult in Mexico, I was deprived of an education and every modern convenience — plusany type of contact with the outside world.
That meant, among other things, no telephone, radio, television, newspapers, magazines, or books. And the motto was: “Keep them barefoot ‘n’ pregnant.”
Most of us were living a religiously-fanatic, backward, poverty-stricken lifestyle worse than many people lived in the feudal systems of the Middle Ages — the Medieval Period; i.e., the period from AD 500 to AD 1500 — or the 6th- 16th centuries.
I used a bucket tied to a rope to draw water from a well about half a block from my kitchen; scrubbed laundry on a washboard or my knuckles; bathed in a small galvanized metal tub; and had no indoor plumbing nor electricity.
For most of us in LeBaron, “toilet” meant a rickety old, unpainted wooden outhouse — and a “stink” pot or can kept under our bed … that needed frequent emptying and cleaning. It was like camping out, except I lived in a cinderblock or adobe abode, instead of a tent — depending on which period of my seven years I spent in the LeBaron colony.
I lit a coal oil lamp or candle for light when evening fell; and didn’t have the luxury of a cook stove, let alone a fireplace. This is but a glimpse of the background I left behind me upon re-entering “Babylon” — as the cult called it — after spending seven solid years sequestered in Colonia LeBaron.
Within a month or so after my husband’s death, I had escaped the LeBaron Colony; left it behind to move to “the foreign country of California, USA.”
Grief-stricken and shorn of my previous religious foundation and security system, needless to say, in every way, California was culture shock and post-traumatic-stress syndrome/PTSD in three-quarter time — except I was only waltzing to keep from crying.
To make matters worse, though I was twenty-one, I barely had six years of formal, albeit country-school education. I was lucky to have gotten this before my parents moved me and the rest of their family to Mexico in 1960 to “gather with the Saints” in the LeBaron Colony — a backward, secluded “get-away” in the Rocky Mountain Range.
The Rockies extend from Western Canada, the Southwestern United States, and on into Mexico. Once there in “Rockie” LeBaron, my education ended and dire deprivation began.
My teaching career also began: I hadn’t been there in that corner of The Rockies’ — that desolate little LeBaron Chihuahuan Desert dump — more than three months but what my parents volunteered my 16-year-old sister and me, an extremely shy, fourteen-year-old, to teach the colony’s kids — some as old as I was.
Yes, suddenly, and with no preparation, I was handed the adult responsibility of a group of twelve kids, ranging from ages ten to fourteen! And I hadn’t the slightest understanding of pedagogy and its centuries-old precepts!
I’d never had a reason to think about teaching theories before, let alone think about why and what youngsters should learn — other than when I played house and pretended I was a schoolteacher teaching my dolls – or my younger siblings! And fantasized about growing up and being a teacher someday.
But now, I had to figure out everything on my own, as to how and what to teach the kids. There were not even any books and paper for ME, let alone for my students! We were that poor down there in the LeBaron colony in 1960—“God’s gathering place for the saints!”
Nevertheless, and all within a day or two, I had to figure out such things as “Why schools? And why teach, anyway? And if education is important, how, why, and what should I be teaching?”
I had never had any reason to think about such lofty adult ideas and ideals. Why should I? Being a child, I had simply taken these things for granted; especially having grown up in the United States with education being “a given;” and going to schools given by grown-ups.
But now I was thrown this — another unbelievable whopper, while still suffering culture shock due to being thrown head-on into the isolated, bleak, utterly boring LeBaron Colony, a cactus covered, wind-swept desert outback at best.
My parents had built up to high heaven our “knew home,” as we were packing to move to “Zion,” Mexico. So I wasn’t prepared for what I found: an utterly sweltering, desolate, sandy oasis that couldn’t begin to compare to what I had barely left behind in the small verdant, agrarian town of Hurricane, Utah, USA!
Now, on top of this, suddenly I was deluged with the role of “responsible adult,” to add to my PTSD and the other emotional distress and loneliness I was dealing with, but could barely endure.
The distress included my raging adolescent hormones, the loss of my home, bedroom, most of my toys, friends, teachers, lifestyle, culture; and the school I so loved back in Utah.
But there were also numerous other strange things and changes I found and had to adjust to in this third-world, foreign country. The Mexican peoples, different customs, and Spanish, itself, were monsters for a shy, introverted teenager like me to adjust to.
To add to the the “Zionic” mess, in our “knew home,” nine of my siblings and I were crammed into a dark, stank, one-room, mud adobe hut replete with dirt floor—a big back room of my Grandma’s house.
Its only window was covered by oiled butcher paper! There we lived for over a year while Daddy worked on building our family a residence of our own a couple of blocks down the road.
To put it succinctly, the LeBaron colony was utterly not what Mother had built it up to be. Not at all what I was expecting or looking forward to!
My parents got us kids all excited about leaving our home and many of our belongings, etc., in exchange for this rugged pioneer life — this primitive existence in Old Mexico; where we had come “to live with the Saints and help build up the kingdom of God”!
But we fled the U.S., also, in order to avoid the famine and destructions one of Ma’s dreams showed her was soon to rain down upon “the wicked and worldly United States” — the country that was going to finally be punished by God for having persecuted and killed the early Mormon Saints — especially Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum!
Be that what it may, to add to my disappointment, despair, and distress, I was now expected to carry an adult job … to be a teacher, no less!
I, a fourteen-year-old was now to arise before the sun was up, be at the little adobe hut/school house by 8 AM to build a fire and warm the setting before my students arrived; and I was to do this every day, five days a week!
Well, I almost lost my mind trying to deal with this sudden adult responsibility thrust upon me. It was one more security blanket pulled off me within a space of three months.
Trying to figure out the answers to all my queries about why and what to teach … and a lot more … was mind-boggling beyond words! What were my parents thinking! They had to be dreaming … certainly, they weren’t rational. Visionariesnever are.
Fortunately, before I went crazy with the stress of this stupendous responsibility I hadn’t been given the leastpreparation for, Daddy caught me, the evening after my first strenuous day of teaching, lying face down on the couch in the living room, thrashing around in a fetal position, trying to smother my sobs so nobody would hear.
I continued writhing in agony, as Daddy, deeply concerned, tenderly inquired of me, “What’s wrong?” I wailed: “I don’t know how nor what to teach … And I’m too nervous to talk in front of those kids!”
I never before saw him so worried. He couldn’t locate Mumma quickly enough. Finding her in the kitchen, he had some anxious words with her; whereupon, she dropped what she was doing and came scurrying to my rescue. It’s amazing what a few words of consolation from your mumma can do:
For starters, she told me she’d had some teacher-training classes during her two years of college. Then she quieted my worries by telling me she would take over my classroom the following morning to demonstrate how to educate, and how to control the unruly big boys.
Well, all I can say is it was about time! With her Teacher Training, she should’ve been teaching the class! But after her Teacher Demonstration that following morning, she even gave me a book for beginning Educators that taught some teaching theory; and explained how to prepare and organize Lesson Plans (It was a book left over from her College days). Again, all I can say is, “It was about time!” But better late than never.
Need I say, my parents sure could put the cart before the horse? I was somehow expected to already know how to teach, of course … in this little cult where everything was perfect, and God would simply drop the knowledge you needed into your mind during one hour of sleep — “like Joseph sold into Egypt, wherein God gave him a dream, filling him in on everything he needed to know.”
Mama actually and truly believed if God thought you needed the knowledge, He’d give it to you in a dream. So education and study weren’t even needed. I’m not kidding! That’s what Mother believed … and told me! But she often did not practice what she preached.
Her double standards and living in a fantasy world had kicked in, as usual — for here she had thrown me, a novice at age fourteen, into my own classroom of students. And I was expected to teach, without the least preparation — And certainly no dream came that night from God to fill me in on “Everything I needed to know to do this job!”
But, fortunately, after her one-time teaching Demo, and the other bit of help Ma provided me by supplying me with a teaching manual, a light bulb switched on in my beleaguered, overwhelmed adolescent brain.
I was off and running from then on! This fourteen-year-old child-teacher/”idiot savant” was back to playing school with a bang and a bounce! But now it was the real deal — hardly make believe anymore.
What’s more, not only did my students love me, and I them — and teaching, too — but I got called “Miss Beulah” … or “Miss Booyah” … all over town, from then on, as I ran into my students after school or during the weekends. This show of affection and respect was an unexpected dividend — a wonderful bonus; an uplifting experience for me. It made the whole thing worth it.
But “Beulah” is a difficult name for tiny tots, and even first and second graders to pronounce.
I recall secretly struggling to learn to pronounce “Beulah,” myself when I was three or four. I so wanted to be able to correctly tell people what my name was when they asked.
But no child should have to go through the embarrassment of not being able to say their own name correctly. So I recommend simple nicknames for “Simple Savants”… or “Simple Simons.” Save the difficult names for when small children are old enough to confidently pronounce each syllable of their “Handle/ Moniker/ John Henry.”
But names aside, I soon became pretty good at creating lesson plans in my mind, on the fly, or by the seat of my pants … creative that I am. I mean, “When there’s a will, there’s a way”!
But my lesson plans didn’t come close to what I was able to do after some maturity, a college education, and the numerous teachers’ training courses, and other studies I pursued, after escaping that backwards, bizarre, conceited cult — escaped it at twenty-one to “get a life,” a college degree, and a teaching credential.
But getting back to “the little adobe schoolhouse,” in LeBaron: The following year, they had me teaching a group of twenty kids, ranging from ages five to fifteen, many of whom needed to learn how to read — or were there to simply learn English.
And I, fifteen years old by then, was expected to work miracles — though I didn’t even know Spanish, let alone the pedagogy behind Bilingual Ed.
Furthermore, I was expected to do all this without even a decent chalkboard or chalk, let alone the benefit of other teaching supplies … like books and paper.
And, of course (other than Mother’s one-hour amateur teaching demonstration) there was not the least teacher preparation nor training.
And had there been such a highfalutin thing offered, you can be sure it would’ve been me, fresh off the streets, they’d have dragged or roped in to teach others how to teach what I had not been taught myself — because Mother and other adults were too busy to teach, LOL! Except it wasn’t a laughing matter:
They were very busy reinventing the wheel and “The Little Red Schoolhouse” … in “Zion, the gathering place of the Saints,” where people took themselves most seriously as they diligently strove to build up the kingdom of God and prepare a place of refuge “for when the calamities started in the US, and people had to flee over the border to Old Mexico — no less! – to save their lives.”
Crazy? Yes, and how! Because they could barely save their own lives, let alone help anyone else’s, once the sky started falling. About all they could do was continue to follow Chicken Little; i.e., “The Prophets Joel and Ervil (My mother’s brothers).”
When I escaped that cult in 1967, I didn’t know how to drive, use a telephone, nor count change — let alone exchange American money. I could barely use Mexican money, having had so little scrip allowed me during my childhood or married life.
Our cult, like most Mormon fundamentalist cults, believed women shouldn’t be allowed to have or manage money. Therefore, you can be sure I didn’t know how to write a check, let alone open a bank account, get on a bus or train … or take a taxi.
So, at my/our husband’s funeral, my oldest sister told me I could come stay with her in San Diego, California, and she’d help me get situated in my new life and find a job … given that I had no money, basic education, nor work experience, to speak of, and couldn’t drive — plus had a toddler to look after.
And who should know, better than she, my older sister, all the disadvantages and back sets I’d just left behind, such that I wasn’t prepared for this “foreign country;” and frightening life of single motherhood.
On top of that, I had recently announced to the cult that I no longer believed in their religious dogma and had left their secluded colony for good. So my “big” sister (seventeen months older than I) knew she was all I had to turn to for help in getting started in my new world.
Looking back on it now, I guess it sounded pretty impressive and good to my “big” sister that she should invite me to come live with her and “she’d help me get set up.” After all, she’d heard and seen other people around her say and do such benevolent things.
So I guess it seemed to this twenty-three-year-old, average-minded ingénue like the thing any normal and sensitive sister in her right shoes would say to any normal and helpless sister in my wrong shoes, I being her younger, timid, and destitute widowed “apostate,” social-scientific-thinking sister.
But, much to my disappointment, let-down, and dismay, in the two to three weeks my toddler and I were there, she never did one thing to help me find a job!
Even worse, food began to gradually dwindle then disappear from her abode, ultimately leaving the cupboard bare but for a few cans of orange juice. That’s all she left for my baby and me the last five days we lived with her and her husband Stephen Silver … who was usually away visiting his other wives.
I suppose she was trying to give me the “hint to git”? That she really hadn’t meant for me to take her up on it when she invited me to come live with her “till I got started on my own”?
Like, was her husband, my brother-in-law Stephen Silver, put out with her when I actually showed up on their doorstep … or what? Obviously, there wasn’t … and still isn’t … much communication going on between me and her. I’m supposed to pretend things didn’t happen the way they did, I guess.
But, for sure, she has apparently never taken a look at what she did. All I’m certain of is she sure didn’t/ doesn’t think she owed/owes me any apology. At least I’ve never gotten one — and fifty years have passed since then. That was just how people, at least in my family, did things.
They weren’t dependable. Didn’t keep their word — Didn’t follow through on what they promised. We simply took each other for granted, didn’t expect too much — and usually got less. People weren’t/aren’t valued so much when there are an awful lot of them — as in huge families. I was simply grateful for the few times, over the years, my older sister hadcome through for me!
But, though there has been no communication between me and her about that time, by now I’ve figured out she and Stephen weren’t starving like my baby and me. And it was NOT a common thing for my sister to have no food in her house: The louse was eating her meals out to avoid feeding me and my baby!
But she never told me what she was up to. I simply thought they were low on money. And was just as naïvely still trusting my sister would eventually help me find that all-important job!
But, to add insult to injury, Stephen learned from her I had $18.00 pocket change. Even in 1967 that didn’t go very far –especially in San Diego, California; and especially when I had a child to support!
So I was taken aback when he asked me to give him all the money I had — even asked me if I was sure I didn’t have any dimes or pennies left in my apron pocket!
Now, wouldn’t you think the right thing for such a “saint” and future “profit” to do — since I couldn’t drive and and there was no transportation within walking distance of their apartment — would’ve been to take me shopping so I could use that money to buy some food for my malnourished baby and me! Or maybe even get me set up with Welfare?
But, apparently, he thought I owed him some money for having stayed at his wife’s place a bit. So he was simply exacting all he could get from me. And maybe he thought it was too dangerous to have me go to the Public Welfare Dept. to get assistance: They might find out about him, a Plyg, and he’d be thrown in jail.
But, fortunately for him, I didn’t know how to use a phone, let alone that a Department of Social Services existed; i.e., a Public Welfare System that offered aid to stranded, starving mothers with dependent children. I didn’t know anything because he and my sister never explained anything … nor did anyone else.
They apparently had too many of their own problems to worry about to consider me. Plygs are extremely busy people. Just trying to make ends meet and stay out of jail is more hell than most can handle.
So, instead of helping me in any way, get what followed next — a story so shocking and inhumane I can still barely relate it to this day: Without ANY warning, in the dead of night my sister and brother-in-law took off, ditching me and my toddler.
Yes, unbelievably, and without any suggestion to me that they were going to leave, these “Saints” fled, leaving my baby and me to further starve to death.
We had already endured around two weeks of a near-starvation diet, while staying with my sister and Steve. But after being brutally abandoned, we literally went five full days with only water, till we were rescued by DeWayne Hafen. But that’s another gory story for a later line.
Over time, I realized these Mormon fundamentalist Plyg “Saints” had fled their apartment, while I was sleeping, to not only dump me and my kid; but to also avoid paying the many months’ back rent they owed! But what can I expect from my older sister? I had always been a thorn in her side.
She had never gotten over my being born! I guess my parents hadn’t properly prepared her, at the tender age of seventeen months, for my sudden arrival on the scene and “her” territory.
To make matters worse, I immediately began to take her place and nurse at my/HER mama’s breast! And, later on, to use HER potty … without anyone’s permission: I potty-trained myself at age one.
I saw how much attention my older sister got for using her potty and leaving a turd. So I copied her … And deposited my own turd. Then properly got Mother by the hand and took her to see what I left in the pot, expecting she would really praise me, too.
I will never forget how upset my twenty-nine-month-old Sis was — the dismay she showed when I’d usurped her very special potty chambers.
I recall Mama tenderly trying to convince her it was important to share her special new potty chair with me. “Doe-doe,” as I called her at that age, never did agree. She simply put up with me, an intruder on her territory, because she had no alternative. And hated me.
When it comes to “interlopers,” she didn’t have much more use for the U.S. government and the rule of law, either … Other than that it afforded her and her husband and his other wives a living, a welfare check, and more.
Thank God for the good ole Americans that do respect the rule of law, so as to create wonderful things interlopers — such as bleed-the-beast “Saints” — can benefit from.
Ah, yes: These self-proclaimed Mormon Fundi saints were simply bleeding the beast … including me and my baby. To add insult to injury, these same self-righteous “saintly beasts” actually proclaimed themselves to be better than my/Bill’s “apostate” kid and me!
What’s more unbelievable, given their behavior, is Stephen had been my/our husband’s “best boyfriend.” Of course, I didn’t know this at the time. Over many years, I pieced the puzzle together.
It started back when they’d met in France’s mainstream-Mormon mission field where they spent about two years in close quarters as missionary companions — even sharing the same bunk the whole time!
So Bill was, no doubt, turning over in his grave as he saw how his secret lover Steve (i.e., wife?) had ultimately vented his uncontainable jealousy toward me — And also vented his feelings of betrayal and grief he’d long since harbored toward Bill because he could never marry Bill and have him all to himself.
So how did he get even with Bill and me? He simply abandoned us … me and the baby I’d had with Bill; i.e., He left us to expire once his lover Bill had expired.
But what a wickedly proverbial betrayal it was that Steve would actually leave me and my/Bill’s baby unprotected and “without a pot to piss in,” given that Bill had helped Steve often — So many times he’d come to Steve and his family’s rescue, over the course of the twelve years he and Steve had remained “Best Buddies”!
What’s worse, as it stood for me, after Bill died, his first and legal wife got all the monthly Social Security money the U.S. government paid to Bill’s family upon his death. She even took all the money from our chicken business in Mexico — though she shared some with Bill’s second wife — her “best girlfriend” and sidekick.
But those two left me and my child to the wolves — because I wasn’t “really” part of “the family;” i.e.,”the love nest.” (They made that choice, not Bill. But Bill went along with whatever choices his two oldest wive’s made, more often than not.)
Life with a harem was more peaceful for him, Bill Tucker, when those squeaky hinges/”hens” got the grease; i.e. He let these first two jealous wives wear the pants and have the power… usually.
Actually, they thought (as I had) that my sister was going to help me get a job and get situated in the United States, after my/our husband’s demise!
But that was still no excuse for them to take for themselves and their kids all the money and gifts that came into our family, after Bill’s death, leaving me and Bill’s baby he impregnated me with, helpless and hopeless, once he died.
But what’s new, when it came to me and them? This was how it had always been — my having to sink, think, then swim — or die trying. No help from them, to speak of. They did the bare minimum, to save face, and not a farthing’s fart more! Bill wasn’t much more help, either.
But, getting back to Stephen Silver: To top off ALL else he did and didn’t do, later on, that narcissistic nut case started a Mormon fundamentalist cult of his own — after he spent some years in the country of Israel, no less, trying to convert the Jews to the idea that he, Stephen (half Jewish), was the Messiah prophesied of old!
When that didn’t work, that’s when Steve returned to the United States, got a perm, sported a redheaded Afro, and set himself up as a self-proclaimed prophet — “The one mighty ‘n’ strong” Adam, if you will; and his wife was Eve. And that’s only the half of it, when it comes to Steve and his crazy, “knit-witt” shit!
I got side-tracked with this backstory. Let’s continue with my story about why and when I wrote the following poem, “Bright Childhood a Blessing.” At the time my muse brought this poem to me, I was without even a religious base, having left my religion — The Church of the Firstborn of the Fullness of Times. (I had left it, in my mind, by age nineteen; a year before I knew my husband had left it.)
He had secretly left it, in his mind, too, a year or so before he dared tell me he’d quit believing in my Uncles, Joel and Ervil LeBaron, and their priesthood claims and doctrine!
Anyway, needless to say, when he passed away at age 31 — I was 21 — my three-year-old toddler and I were left without any support system whatsoever.
Add to this that, because I had left “The Church of the First Born,” I was being maligned and ostracized by many people in the cult … including my mother, older sister, and other siblings.
My toddler and I were considered basically “bad” because I was no longer a “true believer.” So we were left to rot and be forgot … Conveniently abandoned by God’s self-proclaimed chosen handful … who always claimed to be so full of love, charity, and goodness!
Wouldn’t you know, these self-righteous, self-proclaimed Saints left me and Bill’s baby to die:
They considered us “Daughters of Perdition” … simply because I had chosen to use the God-given brain I was endowed with to make my own choices in life. (God forbid I should do such a thing!) And it is with this backdrop the following poem came to me … came to be:
ADVERSITY’s STRENGTHENING
by Stephany Spencer-LeBaron
I was born into a cult.
When I fled that sect I‘d known,
I was shunned, demonized,
Left on my own.
Presently I’m steeped in pain,
Purpose that once shown
Now faces the abyss
Sitting on a throne.
The vicissitudes of life
Have left me loss full-blown,
Heartaches unquenchable,
And so alone!
Come! End this anguish!
Put Justice in its place!
Do not tarry long.
I can‘t bear the pace.
Once I had a mother
And father who did care,
Plus friends and family
To help pave each stair.
Now I’m dangling in the air,
‘Midst stress and strife.
I’ve lost the scaffolding
And foundation for my life.
Once I prayed to be made strong,
A soldier in Your crew,
But never imagined
The strengthening to ensue.
Now I pray deliverance
From a crushing pain.
Bring back hope, bring back joy.
Bring heaven once again.
NOTE:
The following is my first version of this poem:
Bright Childhood a Gift
by Stephany Spencer-LeBaron, age 21
Bright childhood was a gift on loan.
But today I wander back,
Wondering where that gift has flown;
Leaving me abandoned; on my own.
Steeped in drudgery to the bone,
Helplessly, hopelessly left to groan,
What am I now? Who took away
That life I once had known?
Who caused me to be so flung
When hope had almost grown?
Who finds it wise to lend me loss –
This misery once unknown?
Filled with heartaches made of stone,
Who took me here to moan?
Who left me here, greatly lost –
With people but alone?
Come, end this anguish fierce!
Put justice in its place!
Don’t tarry long, I pray –
I cannot bear this pace.
You gave me once a mother dear,
A father who did care;
Plus friends and sisters near
Who helped to pave each stair.
But quick You took that life;
Left me dangling in the dearth
Of helpless stress and strife –
Still a mother; no longer wife.
When once I asked to be made strong,
A soldier in Your crew;
I hadn’t dreamt this was what
My energies were due.
Now I pray to bring me up,
Out of crushing pain!
Bring back hope;
Bring back joy;
Bring heaven once again!
In the following video, my cousin Donna LeBaron Goldberg is interviewed by her aunt (my aunt-in-law) Producer Rebecca Kunz Kimbel. Donna was born and raised in Colonia LeBaron and the LeBaron Mormon fundamentalist cult where I was raised and spent eight years of my childhood and young adulthood.
Pieces by Stephany Spencer LeBaron:
SB102: Legalizing/Decriminalizing Polygamy
Circa 1962: Three weeks after I was married off in an arranged marriage, at age 16 to 26-year-old Mormon polygamist William Preston Tucker–who already had two other wives–one 6 years older and the other 15 years older than I.
On Feb 10, 2020, a Bill was on the table in the Utah senate to reduce the level of penalty for polygamists in Utah: SB102 would make bigamy among consenting adults an infraction on par with a traffic ticket!
Around March 23, 2020, in an effort to try to stop the passing of SB102, I sent (and also called in to the Utah Governor’s office) an urgent message. But my efforts were wasted. The bill was passed this week. The following is the message I sent to the Utah Governor on March 23, 2020:
I was born and raised fifth-generation Mormon fundamentalist–a great-great-granddaughter of the renowned Benjamin F Johnson. I’m presently 74-years-old, an Ex-Mormon fundamentalist, Ex-polygamist-wife, Survivor, and Escapee (in 1967) of the Mormon-Fundy LeBaron cult headquartered in Colonia LeBaron, Galeana,Chihuahua, Mexico.
As an escapee of Mormon fundamentalism, I SERIOUSLY and URGENTLY request that Utah Governor Gary Herbert VETO SB102.
This bill is written for “consenting adults,” NOT the vast majority of women and children who are not consenting. This bill does NOT provide assistance or safety for the thousands of victims of polygamy!
I lived through the 1953 Short Creek Raid and barely escaped with my life the Mormon-polygamist Ervil LeBaron cult. I have been writing about some of my experiences growing up as a Mormon fundamentalist who was married off, in an arranged marriage, at age 16 to a polygamist 10 years my senior–who already had two other wives. My website is: StephanySpencer.com
Polygamy devastated mine and my daughter’s life. Please become FULLY informed on what religious polygamy does to especially the women and children born into Mormonism. Anybody fully informed of polygamy and its devastations would NOT pass SB102.
Polygamy is ingrained in Mormon fundamentalists from birth. I was indoctrinated, like all the rest in Mormon Fundy cults, that I MUST live polygamy or go to hell–because the Prophet Joseph Smith (in the 132nd section of the Doctrine and covenants) said so!
Many Mormon fundamentalist women tell you they are choosing to live “plural marriage.” They only say this because they live in denial and aren’t aware of what they are even doing…let alone what they are doing to the unborn generations they continue to pass this doctrine down to.
I beg you, from the bottom of my heart:
VETO SB102!!
Sincerely,
Stephany Spencer-LeBaron
Guest opinion:
Has the Utah Legislature done its homework on polygamy?
By Valerie Hudson, Contributor Feb 16, 2020, 7:00am MST
The Capitol in Salt Lake City is pictured on Thursday, Feb. 13, 2020. The Legislature is considering a Bill that would lower the felony penalty for bigamy. Spenser Heaps, Deseret News
The Utah State Senate has voted to decriminalize polygamy between consenting adults, making bigamy and polygamy an infraction rather than a felony. Fines and community service would be the extent of legal enforcement, akin to a traffic ticket. Of course, Utah has for the past several decades largely declined to arrest anyone for polygamy, unless additional charges such as underage marriage or welfare fraud could be brought. Maybe decriminalization is “better than doing nothing,” to use the words of state senator Daniel Thatcher?
I suggest that position is untenable. Where polygyny is involved — and the vast majority of polygamy cases are in fact cases of polygyny (the union of one man to multiple wives) — the harm has been found to be inherent in the practice. In 2011, the Supreme Court of British Columbia was asked to rule on the constitutionality of Canada’s ban on polygamy. One of the star witnesses was Professor Rose McDermott of Brown University, who has penned an entire volume called “The Evils of Polygyny” summarizing her extensive research.
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McDermott finds a statistically significant relationship between the legality and prevalence of polygyny within a country, on the one hand, and what they call “an entire downstream suite of negative consequences for men, women, children, and the nation-state,” on the other. Their data analysis points to a significant relationship between polygyny and poor outcomes, including higher levels of sex trafficking and higher levels of domestic violence.
In addition, the literature finds consistent underinvestment overall in the children of polygynous unions, including lower rates of primary and secondary education for both male and female children, higher rates of child labor, higher rates of child malnourishment, higher rates of genetic abnormalities and lower age of marriage for girls. There are also predictable consequences of polygamy’s “cruel arithmetic” for teenage boys, who may be exiled in significant numbers from polygamous communities so that male leaders may have multiple wives.
Other experts have pointed to serious psychological harms for women and children in polygynous marriages, including anxiety and depression. This anxiety and depression may not only be felt by women (and their children) already in polygynous relationships, but also by women (and their children) currently in monogamous relationships, who must worry about whether their husband and father will take additional wives.
McDermott concludes: “Policymakers would have to change multiple laws across multiple domains to exert as much of an effect on these negative outcomes toward women and children as could be accomplished by the abolition of polygyny. … By prohibiting polygyny, we reduce social inequities, violence toward women and children, (as well as) increase political rights and civil liberties for all.”
All of this research weighed heavily in the subsequent ruling upholding Canada’s ban on the practice. The full judgment of the BC court can be found online and should be read by any Utah state legislator before voting on this important issue.
Furthermore, it is important to consider the conclusions reached by nations with significant numbers of emigres from polygynous cultures. Instead of decriminalization, virtually all European nations, as well as Canada, have refused to recognize such marriages due to the harm involved. By refusing recognition, these nations also prohibit the practice of a man periodically returning to his country of origin in order to take additional wives and bring them back to the destination country.
The law is not a hindrance, at least not in this case. Instead, the law is a powerful teacher and a bright beacon of hope. This is most eloquently stated by Ora Barlow, a polygamy escapee, who was treated as a piece of property all her life until the law told her that those who did this to her were wrong and had committed a serious crime.
“As a child growing up there,” Barlow said, “I can tell you the only friend I felt like I had was the law, because when the law did take effect and the leaders were put in prison, I actually felt free.”
Girls of 16 (the legal age of marriage in Utah with parental consent) raised from birth to become polygamous wives or face hellfire will have fewer defenses than ever before. Regardless of whether Utah has chosen to vigorously or laxly enforce the law, all Utahns know the law is there and that it divides right from wrong, justice from injustice.
Polygamous systems are rightly compared to organized crime and slavery. Indeed, it is a most pernicious form of trafficking, as the British Columbia case clearly shows. What if we judged (correctly) that laws against sex trafficking were just not making much of a dent against that practice, and thus decriminalizing it would be “better than doing nothing”? After all, the law sends sex traffickers and their victims “into the shadows,” as one state senator has said of polygamists under current laws. The law also sends prostitutes and their pimps “into the shadows.” Drug dealers, too, are there, as those engaged in the black market for human organs. Should we consider decriminalization for these consensual lifestyle choices, as well? Every society faces cases where law enforcement is difficult and may even have unintended consequences. Sometimes a society should live with that tension for the greater good of the largest number of people.
But there are tweaks to the law that could and should be considered. Consider the Nordic model of addressing prostitution, where only pimps and Johns are arrested, and prostitutes are rightly considered victims in need of support and assistance from the state. Nothing is stopping the Utah state Legislature from carving out a similar category of victim who would be exempt from legal punishment for bigamy.
It should raise a huge red flag for the Legislature that even the very open-minded and progressive Canadians and Europeans reject the path of polygamy decriminalization. The House has yet to vote on the matter. Perhaps it’s time for additional homework on the subject before voting: We suggest bringing out Professor McDermott to testify at the next set of hearings.
Valerie M. Hudson is a University Distinguished Professor at The Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University. Her views are her own.
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