It was an unusually temperate day for early spring, and the delicious scent of new beginnings wafted through the open window, filling my body with pure joy. Instead of peering longingly out at the grass and budding crocuses, we were actually going to be allowed outside past our backyard.
While I waited impatiently for my seven siblings to gather to leave, I looked around the shadowy walkout basement we called home. The teak parquet flooring and matching wood paneling made it seem even smaller than it was. My mother had her own room, but the rest of us were stacked in bunk beds in every corner like sardines and forced to play musical beds every time another baby joined our family. My mother’s swollen belly made it clear that we’d be moving beds again in just a few months. Drawers were built into the undersides of the bunk beds, and we each had one to fill with underwear, socks, and hand-me-down clothing.
Someone passing by our simple two-level redbrick home would likely never guess how many children lived in the basement alone. He would likely be shocked to learn that another large family lived upstairs; the only common denominator between the two families was one man who spent half his nights upstairs with his first wife and children, the other half downstairs with our mother—wife number two—and her children. This man was my father.
My bones always felt cold in this house, though the thermostat was set at a normal temperature. The eerie green fluorescent lights strained to brighten the darkest recesses of our rooms, tinting our skin and clothing with strange, shadowy hues. Light didn’t seem able to fully penetrate the walls, as hope did not dwell long here.
Today, however, Mom promised time in the sun for all of us. Though she said we were headed for an “adventure,” she kept the destination a secret. In my excitement, I danced in spinning circles around the room, nearly tripping over my worn, shin-length blue skirt. Mom asked me to quiet down before slipping outside with my siblings, and we furtively piled into Old Blue, our ancient station wagon.
As one of the younger children, I sat on the lap of my oldest sister, Christine. The seven of us watched the blocks roll past, as Mom drove us from our home on Cascade Way, in the Salt Lake City neighborhood of Mount Olympus, straight up into the green foothills of the awe-inspiring Wasatch Mountains.
Soon we all realized our adventure would take place on the grassy knolls behind my school, Eastwood Elementary. It was the same route we used when walking to school, but normally the trek would have been far too risky for all of us—and not because of the cars speeding by. We couldn’t afford to draw too much attention to ourselves as a family. It wasn’t just the honking, the stares, or the derogatory “Plygs!” bellowed out of windows. We were used to all of that. The danger lay in what the authorities would do if they discovered us. It was why I was a “Wilson” and not a “Wall” at my school, and why I could only rarely play with the sweet little girl across the street. If she learned the truth about me—about my brothers and sisters and our family living secretly in the walkout basement—we would risk being discovered.
The little girl was curious about us, though. Everyone was. It wasn’t that it was unusual in this region to see large families. Salt Lake City was populated with a majority of prolific Mormons, and the small number of Catholic families often had many kids as well. Still, only a few thousand people in Salt Lake dressed even remotely like us. With the exception of July 24 every year, when the annual parade celebrated our state’s Mormon pioneer history, we were highly conspicuous in our long-sleeved shirts, girls’ long prairie dresses and skirts, and exceptionally long braids. Mom said we were special, but it wasn’t until I went to kindergarten that I understood we represented a tiny fraction of the population around us. Mainstream Mormonism had given up polygamy in the late 1890s in order to secure statehood for Utah, so we were now the odd ones who hadn’t fallen in line.
I hated how kids gawked at us, whispering loudly and pointing us out as if we were a tourist attraction. Sometimes the comments were innocent and simply curious. More often, though, they were intentionally demeaning, and it was frightening to wonder whom they would tell—and who might put my father in jail and split up our family. So we hid away from the prying eyes of the world.
That was also why our mother chose this place, on the edge of the mountain, where few would see us behind the empty school. We spilled out of the car and onto the grassy knoll, lush and vibrant from the melting snow. Our mother gathered us up on the top hill, where we could look down upon the Salt Lake Valley. Despite the warmth of the sun, I shivered as I looked in the direction of our home below, hidden amid the many houses of the Gentiles—the wicked people who did not believe in Joseph Smith or Jesus Christ. My mother’s lap was full with her toddlers and her ever-expanding belly, but I squeezed in as close as I could. It was a rare treat to have her relaxing with us instead of cooking or cleaning or doing incessant laundry after a long day at work at HydraPak Seals, my father’s manufacturing business. I scanned the city; to the north I picked out the capitol, towering on the hill above the downtown buildings that obscured the temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—the Mormons who had fallen away from the Work. It was no longer our temple. A deep, unexplainable sadness filled me. We worshipped diligently at church, but our people did not have a temple of our own. Someday in the future, it was foretold, we would build one. But for now, we simply had to endure life. We had to suffer pain and sacrifice, because eternity was what mattered.
Dad so often said, “It’s not if, but when, the Gentiles will hurt us. It will serve you to remember that always.” I put my knees up protectively to my chin as I let my gaze drift across the valley. To my left, the southern part of the city was growing fast. Clumps of business developments and houses spanned nearly where the Salt Lake Valley met the Provo Valley. Our Prophet, whom our people affectionately called Uncle Roy, had dreamed about the destructions. He said they would arrive when the construction of dwellings extended past that area known as the Point of the Mountain. It was a definite sign that the last days were imminent. I wondered how we would ever survive.
“Okay, children, we’re going to play a game!” My mother’s voice brought me back to the present. My fears melted away as I looked up at her beautiful face and warm smile. Her toffee-colored eyes gleamed with excitement as her lengthy brown hair, gathered up in a tidy French twist, fought the spring breeze. She was hiding something behind her back—a surprise brought from the car when we weren’t paying attention. I held my breath in anticipation while my younger siblings fidgeted.
Mom brought out a very old feather pillow she had once sewn herself, and I noticed that she had unpicked the hem on one side. She scooted my siblings off of her lap and stood up. Suddenly she began throwing handfuls of feathers high into the wind. We were astonished—this was nothing like my mom, who was always fixing things, not tearing them apart.
“Help me scatter the feathers!” she cried, laughing. Stunned for a moment by her contagious giggles, we joined in enthusiastically, reaching into the bag and grasping handfuls of feathers to toss into the wind. Feathers began floating all around us like snow. The older kids—Christine, Savannah, Brittany, and Cole—and I threw them up into the air, watching them take flight as if they were wings themselves. Even my little brother Trevor joined in. Amelia toddled around in her long skirt, her giggles covering the hillside like the feathers now scattered across the grass, trees, and shrubs.
Suddenly, Mom became quiet. We stopped, too. The only sound around us was the wind whistling in the trees. We looked around in guilty pleasure at the mess we had made.
“Now,” she cried, “run and gather them up!”
We looked at her in bewilderment. Was she serious? It was then we realized this must be part of the game.
“Gather them up now. Hurry! Hurry!”
Driven by her prompting, we ran fast, clutching as much down as we could, scraping our knuckles along the ground, trying to grasp the feathers before they blew away. Within a few minutes it was obvious our endeavor was fruitless. The sack of gathered feathers, mixed with old leaves and grass, was not even a third full. I looked around in awe. How could the feathers have flown away so quickly? Exhausted, I dropped at my mother’s feet.
I never forgot what she said next.
“Words are like feathers… can you see that? It is so easy for them to come out, and they scatter on the wind before you know it. But like feathers, our words are not easy to gather back up again. Once out of your mouth, you simply cannot take them all back.”
I looked at her. I knew what she was talking about. In my mind’s eye I could see Aunt Irene, Dad’s first wife, spouting words of anger and hatred at us, her mouth twisted in venomous disapproval. “Bastards! Little shits!” she would yell. She hated us, and we all knew it. All nine of her children knew it, too, and several of them used her hatred against us as well. Despite what our Prophet had told us about living together in harmony, existing together in the same house was nearly unbearable.
“Words make up glorious stories,” Mom went on. “They make up our education, and even our prayers to our Heavenly Father. Using words the right way can build things—even great big things like bridges and buildings! But if we don’t choose our words carefully, the effect of them can be a lifetime of pain and suffering.”
I hung my head in shame. Here I was pointing fingers at Aunt Irene, when I had sassed her back plenty of times! I didn’t like the names she called my mother, and how she treated all of us, especially when Dad wasn’t present, but I showed my displeasure, unlike a good Priesthood girl. My words scattered like those feathers. How could I make it through the destructions if I used my words like Aunt Irene used hers? My mother never stooped that low. Even when Aunt Irene barraged her with bitter, caustic words, she would “keep sweet, no matter what,” as we had been admonished by our Prophet. She refused to let her sister-wife’s anger rob her of her own dignity.
That night as I lay in the small bed I shared with my sister Brittany, her feet near my pillow, I couldn’t help but think of the feathers. I decided that like my mother, I would use my words carefully. Many times I had heard my dad boast about my mom proudly, “Sharon has never once defied me!” He was very gratified that she acquiesced to all of his demands and wishes like a good wife.
I thought about how my mother did use her words. She was kind and encouraging and prayed with us every night and morning, calling each of us by name before the Lord. My biggest delight, however, was when Mom would tell us stories. Since we did not have a television, stories were our primary form of entertainment. Our imaginations painted vivid pictures as she wove bright, elaborate tapestries of characters and lessons. Every story had a moral, one that entwined its way into my consciousness, coloring and shaping my perspective of the world and what I believed in.
Sometimes Mom’s stories haunted me. If we skimped on a task or lied, she would tell a sobering story of life growing up on her father Newel Steed’s remote farm and cattle ranch. It was vital during those hard times that all of his seven wives and nearly sixty children pitched in. Mom described piling sacks of potatoes into their rusty red wagon to pull for miles upon miles through and around Cedar City, just to sell them door-to-door for pennies apiece.
Each time her older brother Neil sold potatoes, he would pilfer a bit of money to buy forbidden sodas in town, and bully his younger siblings into silence.
“Little things you do now… grow into big things,” Mom recounted sadly. “Later in life, he left the Priesthood,” she went on, her eyes welling with tears. The first time I heard this I was shocked. You couldn’t know the truth and leave the Priesthood! That was worse than being a Gentile. One who knew the truth and rejected it was an apostate. I shuddered every time I heard that word. Apostates were doomed to Outer Darkness in the eternities—a fate of never-ending agony! Samuel had died a horrific death. Some thought it was suicide, but Mom believed it had more to do with the local Mafia.
“He wouldn’t give up all the money when he was little, and I don’t think he would give it later, either. Remember the Golden Windows, my children. Remember…”
“The Golden Windows” was one of Mom’s favorite stories, and it was about a poor, hardworking farm boy. He dreamed of a life in the distant city, its windows blazing with gold, which he could see from his hilltop home. Finally, after spending considerable time and energy to journey there, he wept to discover the golden windows were just a reflection of the sunset. Worse still, the tattered people of the town often dreamed of living a grand life on a faraway hilltop and pointed to the windows of his boyhood home, blazing with gold in the sunrise.
“He returned home,” my mother would say, looking into each of our eyes, “realizing that what he had admired was a lie. He had become disillusioned, ugly, and broken from the pursuit of a lie. Don’t let that happen to you. Nothing on the outside is as glorious as it looks. It may seem pretty, glittery stuff, but it is not real.”
That story was used to squelch all of our questions, whenever one of us wished to engage in any worldly thing. Getting a haircut. Wearing lip gloss or nail polish. Anything that led us astray from the sacred duties of a polygamous family was morally wrong and shameful.
My father, Donald Wall, was just as adamant in upholding our religion, even though he had not grown up in the Work. He was proud of his conversion to the FLDS, one that was quite unusual, as our people didn’t proselytize. Most were born into the faith, with parents who practiced polygamy. His did not. In fact, Dad had come from a broken home and a mother who had abandoned him physically and emotionally.
He first married Irene, who was not part of the Work, either. She and my dad had both grown up in the mainstream Mormon faith. Not long after their marriage, Irene’s parents had become convinced of the truth of plural marriage. Horrified, she and my father set out to prove them wrong, but after diligent study, their hearts came to believe that the rest of the Mormons had discarded the truth. Both my dad and Irene converted to the “true gospel” under Uncle Roy, our Prophet.
Following their conversion, my father saw a beautiful and talented young woman singing at a church service. He believed she was meant for him. He came home and told Irene about her. Irene said she’d had a dream about my mother, and she gave her blessing for my father to take another wife. Dad spoke with Uncle Roy, and after a time she was “given” to him. Not long after Dad brought home his young and beautiful new wife, however, his first wife became unable to live the Principle without tremendous pain. Poisoned by jealousy, Irene made sure we all suffered right alongside her, especially when Dad was away.
By the time I was born, in 1976, I had three older full sisters and a full brother born less than nine months before me. My mother would ultimately give birth to fourteen of Dad’s children. There were also plenty of half siblings—nine, in fact. Dad would eventually sire twenty-four children from three wives. Three was the “lucky” number among Priesthood men, as this was the number of wives Abraham had taken. It was believed that by having this number he and his family would achieve eternal salvation in the Celestial Kingdom, the highest kingdom of glory in Heaven. Otherwise, a man was doomed to a lower kingdom, and his wives to be servants or concubines in their husband’s eternal household—another fate worse than death. The Terrestrial and Telestial Kingdoms were still a part of Heaven—the eternities—but it was only in the Celestial Kingdom that a man and his wives would attain the presence of God and become joint heirs of God with Jesus Christ, being able to rule and reign in their own worlds as gods and goddesses.
I couldn’t understand why Mom would want to live in the eternities with Dad and Aunt Irene. What if the eternities mirrored life here? Irene had a television set and the most luxurious bedroom in the house, the nicer car, control over the family budget, and the seat next to my father in church. My mother had what was left over.
My father lived two vastly different lives. His public life was full of business success and renown. He was a brilliant civil engineer in the aerospace industry, as well as a noted geologist, having worked for such acclaimed companies as Thiokol Chemical Company, later known as Morton Thiokol, and on projects such as the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. Later he created other prominent businesses, of which HydraPak was by far the most successful. It manufactured O-rings, as well as mechanical and hydraulic seals and pistons, for NASA’s space shuttle. His public and private lives did intersect—his ability to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in tithing donations to the FLDS church made him popular with the Prophet. My father obeyed Uncle Roy without question—even at great financial cost—because he would be rewarded here and in the hereafter, and because he was being primed for FLDS leadership, which promised enormous power.
There were other times Dad’s public life came up against his private one, like when he brought clients to our home to wine and dine them. Upstairs, Irene and her children would be decked out in their finest for a delectable meal. His worldly clients never knew that downstairs, his other family was huddled in the murky shadows, munching crackers.
Mom used those times in the dark to whisper to us her most dramatic childhood memories as we hung on to every word. On one of these nights, she recounted how Governor John Howard Pyle of Arizona instigated a raid in 1953 on our forebears in Short Creek (which later became the twin towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona).
“Since our family was well-known among the people for our musical talent,” she murmured, “we all came into town to provide entertainment for the 24th of July celebration of 1953. We spent a few days in our Short Creek home, and had so much fun! My father let us relax before going back to the ranch—a rare luxury for us. We were happy we were going to share the Sabbath with our friends and family.
“I was only three years old… but I remember being woken up in the wee hours of that Sunday morning. My father had received a tip-off that authorities were closing in, and we quietly slipped out of town in our nightclothes, minutes before the authorities raided!” I imagined myself having to flee from police in my long nightgown. Every time a chair creaked upstairs, I jumped.
“That day, just before dawn on July 26, 1953, over one hundred Arizona state police officers and soldiers from the Arizona National Guard came into the tiny town. They took every man, woman, and child into custody. They literally ripped children away from weeping mothers and fathers.” I gasped.
“We were so lucky Daddy had made us hightail it back to our ranch, more than two and a half hours away. At first, they didn’t try to come after us, though we were watching for them. Heartbreaking stories poured in of young believers who were forced into foster homes in Phoenix—far from anything and anyone they had ever known. Then we got word that the raid was broadening to surrounding communities.
“Daddy and all of my mothers told us it was 1944 all over again, with raids to stop the Work from progressing and to scare the families into submission to the law. Nineteen forty-four was the year your grandpa was excommunicated from the Mormon Church for believing in the Principle and marrying Mama Olive, Mama Vilate, and Mama Kloe. That’s when he became a target for the smaller raids, all the way up until 1953. But my father promised he wouldn’t let us get taken by a lawman.
“My brothers were like sentinels. They watched main roads and fields like hawks. One early-warning signal was dust rising from the roads, which gave us plenty of time to hide! We had practiced drills, so we knew what to do. It was our duty to take cover in the rafters of our attic, to be quiet and still so that our father wouldn’t get caught, and no one would know how many children he had.” Suddenly my mother’s voice became small, as if she was three again. I swore I could feel her body trembling.
“When our mothers sent us up there, we were compelled to be as still as death. I was terrified my little foot would break through the ceiling or, worse, that lawmen would arrest my father on bigamy, and take every one of us sixty children to Gentile foster homes far away.”
“Mama?” inquired little Trevor, his whisper filled with fear. “Why did the ’thorities want to take you away?” He began to howl. “Why do they want to take us away?”
Mom shushed him quickly and held him in her arms for a long moment, until Amelia whined and pushed her way back into place. The lines in my mother’s face etched a little deeper.
“The people upstairs are not the authorities; they are Gentiles,” she whispered gently. “We can’t take the chance that they wouldn’t tell if they knew. Just as it was important for me to be so quiet in our attic, you must be as quiet as a mouse down here. Daddy is counting on us, just as my father counted on us back then. The Work has a lot of enemies, Trevor. As God’s people we must face persecution. It’s our test, to see if we can remain faithful.” She looked around at each of us. “We have the truth, and the devil will inspire the Gentiles and the government to try to destroy us. But Heavenly Father won’t let that happen if we stay the course. As long as we remain true to the Work, God has promised we will survive the destructions, and all the bad people out there will be destroyed.”
We sat huddled in somber silence. Uncle Roy talked about the destructions in church nearly every Sunday. People would whisper about the things Gentiles would do to us if they caught us. That was why it was safest to play in the backyard, surrounded by the camouflage of trees. That was also why we had to put up with Aunt Irene, and the ugliness that pervaded our home. The destructions were upon us, and we had to hold together so we wouldn’t be destroyed.
After Dad had quit working for Morton Thiokol under Uncle Roy’s orders, his new business began to thrive. He often had to travel far from home, which made us daily victims of Irene’s demonic rages. Some of her children refused to participate in the abuse, but others realized what they could get away with during Dad’s absences.
Uncle Roy taught the women straight from the pulpit to put away their jealousies and criticisms. He admonished wives to “treat each other’s children as if they were your own.” Irene took that to a whole new level, and she would come down and snatch any one of us she wanted for a beating, especially when Mom was at work. The older children devised an ingenious way to prevent entrance, by wedging our small jogging trampoline against the door. Diligently we kept an ear out for that first telltale screech or slammed door. Christine would send scouts to grab those playing in the backyard. When they rushed in, we locked the door and hunkered down together. Our only safety was in numbers, but even then, we each experienced times when we were just not that lucky.
How I wanted to forget the stormy day I had been playing with my tattered dolls on the hard wooden floor. I was dressed in my favorite blue gingham dress. The skirt had ruffles on the bottom, and the yoke on the top had beautiful white eyelet lace with black ribbon woven through it. I pretended I was a beautiful mommy, and my dolls were my babies.
That day, Irene had gone food shopping, which meant there was a more easygoing feeling throughout the house. Two of her children, Victoria and Timothy, came downstairs to play, but the others were outside. Christine and Savannah were busy taking care of the youngest ones. My half brother Sterling sauntered down the carpeted steps and into the area where I sat with my dolls.
Sterling, a heavyset blond with greasy hair who had never paid me much attention, was one of Irene’s favorite children. He could do no wrong in her eyes. More than once, however, I had seen Irene beat another son, Samuel, to a pulp, almost as if he were one of us. Similarly, she gushed over her daughter Janet but would beat Cindy nearly senseless if one of my full siblings wasn’t within reach.
“Becky,” Sterling said quietly, as if letting me in on a secret, “how would you like to play with Lillian’s new doll?” My eyes lit up. Lillian was younger than me, but she had beautiful dolls that she played with in front of me on purpose. Sterling smiled and held his hand out to me. I reached for it, a bit puzzled, and he led me up the stairs. Fearfully, I peeked around the door at the top. Except as a baby, I had only ever been allowed to go upstairs during family Sunday School. I glanced out the window to see that Irene’s car was still gone, and finally exhaled.
Sterling led me past the Formica kitchen table and chairs down the hall, and into what I suddenly realized must be his bedroom. Why did Sterling have Lillian’s doll in his room? I turned in time to watch Sterling close and lock his door, his eyes glazed over. He grabbed my wrists roughly, binding them easily with one of his hands, leaving the other to travel beneath my dress and tug on my underpants. I squirmed and twisted for what felt like an eternity, but I could not escape his clutches. I couldn’t understand why he was doing this to me. All I knew was that it hurt. Tears streamed down my cheeks, but he paid no attention. At one point he finally released my wrists to free up both of his hands, and I rushed past him and fled to the door, barely unlocking it before he could get to me. Racing down the hall, I ran straight into something solid.
I looked up into Irene’s face.
My stepmother looked down at me in surprise, her dyed black hair perfectly coiffed as usual, with a French twist in the back. She took in the terrified expression on my face and then glanced up to see Sterling slowly closing the door to his room. When she peered back down at me, she glared with a hatred she usually reserved for my mother.
“You little whore!” she snarled. With one hand she picked me up by the neck of my dress and dragged me into her room. Seeing another door locked behind me, I began to panic, but I didn’t dare move. She stood me up brutally against the bed and tugged my underwear again, but this time up into its rightful place. Then she grabbed my braids with vicious cruelty, to hold me while she slapped me over and over.
“It’s your fault!” she shrieked. “It’s all your fault that Sterling did this to you… you did this to Sterling. You made Sterling do this. You’re such a little flirt! You’re just a whore like your mother, you piece of shit!”
I don’t know how many times the flat of her rigid palm lay into me, but I didn’t dare look up. I noticed blood splatter against the white, lace-yoked collar of my dress, but even then she did not stop. Rage had overcome her. A torrent of blood poured from my nose and mouth onto the collar and down to the ruffle of my skirt, which was now no longer white. I felt numb and could not cry.
Then unexpectedly, as if a switch had been flipped, Irene collected herself and looked at me, as if for the first time. With dead calm she gripped me again by one of my long braids and dragged me into her bathroom. There she began to scrub my dress roughly with icy cold water. She scrubbed my swollen face and cleaned the blood from it, and finally scoured the collar and ruffle of my dress with a bar of soap until they were white again. Then she bent down to meet my eyes with that same calibrated look of hatred.
“This is all your fault, you whore, you hear me?” she threatened. “If you ever tell anyone, I will kill your mother.”
Drenched and trembling with buried sobs, I could barely breathe as Irene thrust me down to the stairwell. I opened the door and Christine’s tender eyes and warm smile greeted me from across the room.
“There you are!” she said in surprise. “We’ve been looking for you!” She looked at me a little more carefully. “Are you all right?” I wanted to run to her, to be enfolded in her arms, to tell her everything that had just happened.
Rooted at the spot, I wondered how I could answer that question. I glanced over my shoulder, into the gloom of the stairwell, where the door was opened four or five inches. Irene’s eyes stared back at me. I couldn’t unburden myself. Not now. Not ever.
“I’m… okay,” I lied, and walked toward Christine, letting her lead me away from Irene’s sight line. I heard the door shut quietly behind me. I took off my dress and never wore it again, complaining it was too tight in the arms. In a way, it was. I never said a word, not wanting to put my mother at risk. But I did promise myself that I would never be that vulnerable again. I learned to run fast—faster than any of my classmates. I could outrun any of my brothers, and especially any of my half brothers. By the time I was in first grade, I made sure I was so fast that no one could ever catch me again.