Just before I entered the fourth grade in August 1985, we moved into a large new house on Claybourne Avenue in Salt Lake City, just a few months before our newest baby girl, Elissa, was due. There we would live without separation, even breaking bread together on the main floor.
That year, our frail Prophet, suffering from the debilitating effects of shingles, had admonished FLDS families to live more openly for the first time since Brigham Young and John Taylor settled Utah. The country had been through the roaring ’50s, the free-love ’60s, the civil rights ’70s, and the alternative-lifestyle ’80s, so surely it was not only our right but our duty to show the world how the true people of God lived.
He spoke with great fervor, glowing with love for his people, as he prophesied that the Lord wanted our families to put away our petty differences to stand together in the coming destructions. He could see signs all around us and believed he would soon be meeting Jesus Christ to return to him the keys of the kingdom. Although we heard this kind of thing every Sunday, I thought he really might, because Uncle Roy was the most ancient man I had ever seen. His tall forehead, accentuated by his bald scalp and scarce side hair, made everything below his brows look extra wide, and his expansive smile was as warm as summertime.
After so many decades in hiding, the thought of living openly unnerved many people who had survived the ’53 raid, including my mother. Since Dad hadn’t grown up in plurality and hadn’t experienced the raid, he was more inclined to prove his obedience to Uncle Roy and make the move. I liked the Claybourne house’s flat and spacious layout much better than that of our old home. Its orange-and-yellow décor, which would have been groovy in the ’60s, didn’t look quite modern, but I didn’t care—we had a dishwasher! For us girls, who had spent years hand-washing mountains of dishes every day, it was a wonder. I dreamed of all the things I would do with my newfound time.
Sterling and Samuel moved out, and Janet and Cindy were married off to young men that the Prophet had chosen for them, but that still left nineteen kids and the mountains of laundry, cooking, and cleaning we required. Irene decided that because she was done raising babies, she should not have to do any cooking or cleaning, so the burden was left to my mom, my sisters, and me. It felt bitterly unjust, but my mother didn’t breathe a word against her sister-wife, so I dismally resigned myself to being a servant in Irene’s household.
One day, one of my gorgeous brunette half sisters, Victoria, who was about three years older than me, walked over and put her name on the family chore chart! We all looked at her in surprise. Victoria didn’t exactly enjoy household duties, though she would at least do them, grumbling, when the others refused. None of Irene’s other children signed up, but Victoria provided an example of decency. Over the next several months, Victoria stood up to her mother and had the guts to treat ours with genuine kindness in many ways. I adored her for it.
At first my siblings and I found it quite unnerving to live side by side with Irene and her children. Without the buffer of separate floors, we were easier targets. However, we discovered an unexpected boon: there were many more escape routes in this house! Our little ragtag team of siblings became adept at battle tactics and survival strategies. If a smaller sibling was being picked on, an older one would create a distraction while a third swept in and shuttled the younger child to safety. Working together, we minimized most physical damage. Emotionally, however, it was worse, in that my mother was subject to Irene’s nasty criticism, rules, and budget all the time. Her sister-wife retained her position as the alpha wife.
Irene and Dad had both begun teaching at Alta Academy, and getting the entire brood promptly to Morning Class was a daily adventure. Breakfasts had to be gobbled and lunches packed, and a dozen schoolchildren sharing three bathrooms was a nightmare, especially as some of the older girls like Christine and Savannah wanted to carefully style their hair in the trendiest fashion acceptable in the church. They’d also do the younger kids’ hair, and I quickly learned which of my sisters was most patient and gentle as they tugged my hair into tight braids. Hairstyles were rigidly monitored by Mr. Jeffs and our teachers, and makeup was banned. The slightest infringement carried severe consequences, like a temporary expulsion and being used as a public example to others.
Wisely, Dad would have already left the house in his brown Buick Century. His place at Morning Class was up front with the Priesthood brethren, and he had to be on time. The rest of us would cram into “Big Blue,” Irene’s Chevy Suburban, and wait for the older girls, who were inevitably running late.
It was a catastrophe to be tardy for Morning Class. Most mornings, I pled with Heavenly Father to let us arrive at least during the opening song, so we would not have to creep in, humiliated, with all eyes on us.
One very cold November morning, when I was ten, we arrived late, with Irene screaming hatefully at us as she parked the Suburban. As we approached the enormous white building of the Academy, I noticed the parking lot was devoid of any stragglers.
By the time we reached to the door, shushing one another as we entered, the opening song was obviously over, and there was no way to slip in unnoticed. We tiptoed into the colossal hall as Dad and Mr. Jeffs, seated in the front of the presiding Priesthood, glared at us with stern disapproval. I made my way quietly across the green-carpeted floor to where my fifth-grade classmates were seated, determined not to let anything ruin this day.
Today was glorious for two reasons. First, it was my beloved brother Cole’s birthday. He was turning twelve—an enormously important milestone for a male in our church. He would be the first of my mother’s boys to be ordained to the Aaronic Priesthood, an honor to be superseded only when he would receive the Melchizedek Priesthood at eighteen, and later when he was married for time and all eternity. I hoped for him that he would marry many wives so he could obtain his Celestial Glory. He deserved it more than anyone else, for the way he cared about others and took care of Mom in ways our father did not. It was often the case that when a father’s life became packed full of the demands of multiple wives and many children, the sons took his place in labors of love and emotional support. After all, a man can have countless wives, but he will only ever have one blood mother.
Dad had a lot of responsibility between teaching at Alta and running HydraPak. His burden had greatly increased with Mom home full-time since the birth of our darling new baby sister, Elissa. Since two of Irene’s daughters had recently married and left home, Dad still had sixteen children living at home in 1986. I was proud of him. I knew he paid a generous tithe to the church, and I had overheard his comments to Mom about Uncle Roy’s plans for him in the Priesthood leadership. Any day now, he would be “called” to an important position in the church.
I shifted in my seat. Mr. Jeffs was giving another monotonous sermon. I was trying to sit attentively, but I noticed my classmates were as restless as I was. This was the other reason for my good mood: today we got to have a class party, something that happened only a few times a year, when mind-numbing amounts of lessons and homework were set aside for board games and treats. I glanced at the old ice cream bucket near my feet, the mouth-watering aroma of the brownies I had baked wafting up.
Suddenly there was a small commotion toward the front. Dad swiftly rose and followed someone outside while Mr. Jeffs was still speaking. Our principal looked annoyed, and I was worried. Dad cared too much about his standing just to walk out in the middle of class—something had to be going on! Someone passed a note to Mr. Jeffs, who nodded, and then Morning Class continued.
When it was finally over, my classmates and I waited for everyone to leave so we could section off our part of the great hall into our classroom. Forgetting the commotion, I dove into the activities, my reverie interrupted only when several high school boys were paged to the office. Later some of the eighth graders were called, too, but we were all focused on the rare chance to play games.
After lunch we played another fun game called Fruit Basket Upset, a modified version of musical chairs. It was total chaos and it felt so good to laugh! Mr. Jeffs often told us that laughter was “light-minded” and a road to hell. At one point during the games, I was surrounded by boys on both sides. For a brief moment, I wondered why it was so important to treat boys like snakes. Sometimes, I thought, they didn’t seem that slimy. Guiltily, I glanced into the hallway, grateful Mr. Jeffs wasn’t walking by.
All too soon, it was 1:40 p.m. and time for closing prayer. As we prepared to bow our heads and fold our arms, Mrs. Nielsen said, “Rebecca, come and see me after, please.” There was no severity in her voice, but during the whole prayer I wracked my brain. What had I done wrong? Had I sat with my legs apart at some point? Had I spoken to a boy? Had I pushed my sleeves up? That must be it! The dress I was wearing that day had elastic at the wrists and pretty ruffles, but they often got paint or glue on them, and without thinking I would pull them up to my elbows throughout the day. More than once Mr. Jeffs had admonished me, “Becky Wall! Pull your sleeves down!” When the prayer finally ended, I hung my head and walked to Mrs. Nielsen’s desk. She waited for the remainder of the kids to rush out before turning to me. Instead of anger or judgment in her eyes, there was compassion. She put her arm around my shoulder.
“Becky, your new home caught on fire.” My hand flew to my mouth as I immediately thought of my mom and younger siblings.
“Everyone is okay; no one was hurt,” she said comfortingly. “However, your house has been completely ruined. Uncle Woodruff Steed has graciously invited your entire family to stay with him while your family rebuilds your home.”
It had been arranged that one of the teachers would drive Trevor, Lillian, Amelia, and me to our house. As we neared our block, which was packed with cars, I bolted from the vehicle before it stopped half a block away from our house. I ran toward it, shocked that it looked like a bomb had hit it. Only a burned-out shell remained, and an acrid smell of smoke hung in the air. The surrounding trees were blackened, and jagged glass covered the lawn.
The windowless house, seemingly devoid of furniture, was filled with people. Students, neighbors, and strangers with garbage bags and shovels peered out of the gaping holes from the living room. Muddy rubble covered the no-longer-recognizable hardwood floor, and everywhere I looked, I saw evidence of destruction. The orange Formica was bubbled, cracked, and bowed. Huge ceiling beams now lay on the floor. I made my way carefully along the hallway to my mom’s room and burst into tears as I flew into her arms.
“It’s all right, Becky,” she murmured into my hair. She smelled of smoke, but I didn’t want to let her go. “Everything is going to be all right. Everyone is safe, and that’s all that matters.”
I hadn’t believed this was true until I heard it from her lips. I looked at my mother’s bandaged arms. She had gotten burned at one point during the fire in her zeal to save her children and home. She would heal, she promised me. Slowly, I climbed back through the debris and made my way into the room I shared with several sisters.
The moment I saw that my new pink seersucker plaid dress had been burned beyond salvation, I cried hard, though silent, tears. It was my only dress that wasn’t a hand-me-down, and Mom had sewn it special for me, even adding pleats to the skirt. With so many babies, it had taken her a very long time to finish. Long gone was the time when Mom could work through the night so that my sisters and I would awaken to the luxurious surprise of brand-new matching dresses for the 24th of July or another special occasion. I determined that day that I would become a master seamstress. I would have to.
I helped Mom gather up what few possessions were salvageable, which we shoved into big black garbage sacks to wash later. As I started hauling the heavy bags outside, I was stunned to see that neighbors had brought stacks of blankets, clothing, and food for our family. I looked at the items with great suspicion. They were apostates and Gentiles! Had they poisoned the food? Or infected the blankets? We had kept hidden for so many years, trying not to let our old neighbors see who we really were. We had only recently made our lives more public, living among the evil people.
But what I witnessed on that day and the ones following was not the presence of evil. How could all of these people who brought clothes and bedding from their own closets, made food from their own kitchens, be evil? In wonder, I noticed our neighbors had the same expression as Mrs. Nielsen had had when she told me the news. It was compassion.
I begged to stay at the house to help, but I was told it was too dangerous. We were gathered up and carted over to Uncle Woodruff Steed’s home, an immense structure several miles away in Sandy. It housed Uncle Woodruff’s many wives and children and, in the upper rooms, the Salt Lake City wives of the Prophet. When we walked in, Uncle Woodruff’s wives greeted us with great tenderness and sympathy. Aunt Daisy, her name aptly reflected in her blonde hair and sunny disposition, asked me to come and help her in the kitchen while we talked about my experience that day. Her attention and affection made me feel warm and safe for the first time since I’d heard the news. Uncle Woodruff joined us for the evening meal, and he, too, was extremely gracious. The meal was delicious and took a bit more of the sting out of the day.
After dinner, we settled into the enormous room Mom had been given for all of us. Between the bedding lent by the Steeds and donations from our neighbors, we made ourselves at home, and I was amazed to think that so many people had shifted their lives around to make room for nineteen more of us. I already loved the Steed family and, of course, the Prophet’s wives, but my heart was filled with gratitude.
Several of us ran outside with the Steed children to play evening games. We’d been out for over an hour when one of Uncle Woodruff’s wives came to the back porch.
“Children!” she called out urgently. “Come inside now!” Stricken, we looked at one another and rushed indoors, wondering what more could possibly have happened. We fell silent as we looked around the living room at our extended family members hunched together in shock, their faces filled with tears. I looked at my cousin Lisa, who was a dear friend at school, Uncle Woodruff’s daughter, and one of Uncle Roy’s granddaughters.
“Grandpa is dead,” Lisa said simply.
“Don’t say that!” I blurted. There had to be a mistake. The Prophet couldn’t be dead.
I couldn’t process it, and somehow I couldn’t cry. I was overwhelmed by everything that had happened that day, and my body shut down. I loved my Prophet like a grandfather and revered him as our spiritual leader. He was the closest to Heavenly Father I would ever get, and now he was gone. A deep, black hole of fear opened inside of me.
The Prophet of all of our people was dead. He was our shepherd. How would God speak to us now? How would we know what to do?
“We’ll wait for answers from Uncle Rulon,” said Uncle Woodruff, as if reading my thoughts. Uncle Allen Steed echoed his words, and the adults around the room nodded. I hadn’t realized I was holding my breath. I let it out.
All was not lost. Uncle Rulon would have answers from God.
It didn’t take long to realize that things would be different at the Steed home for the Wall children. At our home the Steed name and legacy were stomped on, but here we were treated with the greatest of respect, because we were Steeds, too. When any of our half siblings tried to bully us, they’d be swiftly put in line by the older Steed boys. Despite my sadness over the loss of our house, I was feeling more at home here than I ever had anywhere. While Dad made us aware that he paid Uncle Woodruff handsomely from the insurance, as he wanted to instill in us the principle of self-reliance, we also recognized the many ways that the Steeds went out of their way to welcome and accommodate us.
Things were different with Irene, too. Here, she did not dare to raise a hand or her voice to us. She and her children were far away on the bottom floor, where she tended to hibernate. Though Irene was treated with equal respect, it was the first time she could not manipulate my father, which seemed to breed even greater resentment inside her. We didn’t question it; we reveled in our newfound freedom and emotional stability.
While I knew my father had a lot on his plate trying to rebuild our house, he never said one word to acknowledge Cole’s interrupted birthday. I couldn’t help but be impressed by the Steed boys, who took up the mantle. In January, Roy Steed and his brothers said, “We gotta get that boy spruced up!” and over the next few days took him out and spent their own money to buy him a suit for his ordination, as well as a special combination of scriptures—the Holy Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price—to call his own. They included Cole as one of their own, and I saw his face glow with gratitude and a new confidence.
On the third Sunday in January 1987, Cole was ordained to the Aaronic Priesthood of God. As a female, I wasn’t allowed to attend, but I was very proud of him, and my older sisters were as well. The Steed boys congratulated him warmly, but my father was strangely distant. The older Cole grew, the more difficult it seemed for Dad to connect with him, especially when Cole excelled at church and school.
I did notice, however, that Dad seemed to have a new appreciation for Mom and her family ties, as well as for the peace we felt at the Steeds’. But something else seemed to be troubling Dad, too.
Overhearing snippets of conversations between him and my mother, I picked up on the fact that the change in Prophets held devastating consequences. Dad had been waiting for Uncle Roy to make a big announcement about his major advancement into the top rungs of leadership, but with Uncle Roy’s death came the demise of his bid for Priesthood leadership. Everything he had built with Uncle Roy would no longer be honored. Dad threw himself into remodeling our burned-out house, but it was obvious that his morale was greatly lowered.
Five months later, in April 1987, we moved back into our newly renovated home. The quick rebuilding was a testament to FLDS workmanship and the teams of young builders. Even though my siblings and I had helped a great deal during the process, we were filled with a mixture of awe, joy, and a bit of trepidation as we entered the house. It looked and felt brand-new. Gone was the ’60s Formica, tile, and carpeting, the dark brown paint, and the paneling. The kitchen boasted beautiful blonde oak cabinets, Corian countertops, and cream-colored walls. The doors all matched, and our furniture had been either refinished or scrubbed until not a hint of smoke was left and everything shone brightly.
Irene continued to spend much of her time in her room. Most of her kids would join her, watching VHS recordings, doing homework, or reading. There were several times we had the run of the house, which was new and frankly enjoyable. However, when Dad would take Mom on dates, Irene’s jealous temper would rage like in the old days. In reaction, we hunkered down together, usually in Mom’s room, which now had a lock on the door.
One night early that summer after Mom and Dad had left on one such date, my siblings and I were waiting for Irene’s storm to pass, knowing it might be a while, as our parents were having a special overnighter. Christine often read us stories when we were holed up in Mom’s room, and we wanted her to read from the new library book we had started that week. However, it was down in the living room, and none of us dared pass Irene’s room to retrieve it. The younger ones were restless and bored, and I knew they would soon be out of control. That was dangerous for all of us.
I motioned to Christine and listened at the door. Apparently, Irene had grown tired of her rage.
“I think I should go get that book,” I whispered to Christine. A look of trepidation came into her eyes. Christine had finally graduated that year, but Irene still terrified her as much as she did me.
“Can you sneak past without getting caught?”
“Yes, I think so.” I wasn’t as sure as I sounded.
Silently, we opened the door to peek down the darkened hallway. Irene was crying, but it was a snuffling, defeated sound. A crack of light from her room spilled out into the hallway. Why hadn’t she shut her door? Heart pounding, I slipped from Mom’s room, tiptoed past Irene’s, and made it down into the living room, where I seized the book.
I returned to the hallway, thinking that if I shot past Irene’s room quickly enough, I would be safely ensconced in Mom’s room before anyone knew what had happened. Christine beckoned furiously at me from Mom’s doorway. I took a deep breath when suddenly Irene’s door flew open.
“You little whore!” she screamed. “What do you think you’re doing?”
I stood, frozen in fear, as memories of past beatings came over me.
“You illegitimate bastard!” She grabbed my shoulder, her fingers sinking into me like talons. “You are a little whore… just like your mother.”
I had heard it all before, but the moment Irene said that about my mother, something within me snapped. I hinged back with my right arm and punched her square in the eye!
In slow motion I witnessed my stepmother tumbling backward, as much from surprise as from the force of my little hand, and I fled before she or her kids could react. I reached Christine, who slammed and locked the door behind me. We sat in silence, holding our breath and one another as I shook uncontrollably. Strangely, nothing and no one emerged from Irene’s room.
My rush of adrenaline did not subside, even after everyone else settled in to listen to Christine read. As I tried to concentrate on the story, I couldn’t help but think of the coming destructions. I had just hit my mother! Though she was not my blood mother, I was supposed to treat her as such, and I would never have hit my own mother. Surely God would punish me.
Finally I started to calm down, and I realized that I was tired—tired of Irene’s foul mouth and hurtful hands, of being on alert for a beating every second. Those thoughts ignited a familiar fire.
Let the destructions take me, then, I thought.
Though most of my siblings slept peacefully in Mom’s room, I kept waiting for a vengeful crash of something against the door. I felt like a caged animal, and in the early hours of morning, I snuck out of the house the back way and into the yard. Quickly, I climbed twenty-five feet or so up the tree I had claimed as a nest of safety many times before, and I waited. And waited.
Three hours later, I was still in the tree when Dad’s Buick came into view. Certain I was in for a beating, I didn’t get down. My mother came outside.
“You can come down now, Becky,” she said. Slowly I descended, prepared to meet Dad and his belt at the door. Though I babbled apologies to my parents, I was astonished not to receive any formal punishment. Irene was nowhere in sight.
A few days after the incident when she came into the main room, I tried not to gasp. She was sporting the most richly colorful black eye I had ever seen.
“Do you like your handiwork?” she snapped. While she gave me a horrible look, there were no consequences… at least not immediate ones.
We had spent only five months with the Steeds, and yet something else had been “remodeled” in our home, far more extensive than plush carpet and pretty new wood cabinets. Oliver Wendell Holmes once wrote, “Every now and then a man’s mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back to its former dimensions.” My siblings and I had learned that we were perfectly worthy of being treated decently and that we were not second-class citizens. On a deeper level, we gained something we’d never had before: self-respect.
That summer and the next, Mom sent Cole and me to spend most of our school vacation in Canada—something that the adults understood to be an exile, but an exciting trip for the two of us. Cole still seemed unable to please Dad, who would not listen to him or protect him from Irene. Though she never said a word, I sensed that Mom was sending us both away to keep us safe from Irene’s increasing abuse, however much it broke her heart to do it.
For those in Utah, Canada was the most logical place to send “wayward” FLDS youth. Boys provided cheap labor, and work kept them away from the girls. While Cole slaved away at the logging camps, I stayed on my uncle Jason Blackmore’s large property in Bountiful. Though I enjoyed all the breathtaking beauty that British Columbia offered, the material comforts there were few and far between. Jason’s wives, including two of my mother’s sisters, and his daughters were responsible for massive amounts of cooking, cleaning, sewing, and working the wild and rugged land.
While in Canada, I was introduced to Uncle Jason’s brother Winston Blackmore, the bishop of our FLDS community there. He was a jovial yet callous man, a product of his environment and his beliefs. I laughed at some of his jokes but cringed at how harshly he treated his wives. Even at the pulpit, he would couch unkind remarks in humor. “Like Brigham Young, I don’t like whiny women! Just like him, I tell ’em, ‘Leave! I’ll replace you in an instant with another wife, and she will serve me the way a woman should serve her Priesthood Head.’ ” On the walk home from church, I would glance around at the wilderness. Where would a woman go to survive alone out here if she left the FLDS? We didn’t know that divorce was easy in the early church, because it certainly wasn’t now. Leaving meant being cut off from all family and all support—physical, financial, emotional, and spiritual. With nowhere to go, women rarely left.
I enjoyed letters and an occasional call from home, learning that there was much excitement in our community about Alta Academy building a new high school. Our members were constantly fulfilling the commandment to reproduce, and there were far too many school-age children to fit comfortably in the lower level of the Jeffses’ home. Things had felt bleak since Uncle Roy’s death, but the construction project poured renewed hope into our hearts. Surely our new Prophet wouldn’t have us build a high school if the end of the world was coming so soon.
My father utilized his engineering skills to aid in the design of a new building that would safely hold a large number of students. Sometimes FLDS builders would cut corners regarding safety and compliance, but my dad was adamant about every detail, especially where children were involved.
When Dad filled me in on the phone, it seemed to me that he saw this as a way to prove to Uncle Rulon what a ready and loyal member he was, worthy of another wife and of the leadership so recently snatched from his fingertips at Uncle Roy’s death. Dad had sold HydraPak at Uncle Roy’s urging and Uncle Rulon’s insistence and was now working as a geological consultant. He hoped that the new Prophet would be aware of him and all of his sacrifices for the church. Dad saw that the building would be a daily reminder of his prowess as an engineer—and something Warren could not do.
Although Dad didn’t openly share details, my siblings and I were aware of tension between him and our principal. So while Dad was unable to do anything inside of the school to shine, the outside of the impressive building would be hard to ignore. He also had Mom bake a hundred loaves of bread each week for sandwiches needed for the swarms of FLDS craftsmen who had come up from Short Creek to work at the construction site.
One day, after the foundation was laid and the framing begun, Uncle Rulon came by to take a look at the progress. He glanced around appreciatively at the expansive and handsome new building.
“Maybe I’ll just use this for my home,” he said. There was a split second of shocked silence, and then everyone chimed in, “Oh yes, this should be your home!” and “Yes, a new home for the Prophet!” When I learned about this a little later, I was really disappointed, as were most of the students. If my father felt the same way, he didn’t voice it, but set to work to redesign the interior as a residence.
That fall we returned to school in Uncle Rulon’s old thirty-thousand-square-foot house, which Alta took over entirely. The building had been retrofitted to include the high school students now as well. We discovered that rules had become stricter, the schedule more extreme, and the homework more arduous.
In the beginning, Mr. Jeffs’s homework tapes had been limited to the elite members of the church whose children attended Alta. Eventually he leveraged their air of exclusivity to create high demand in every FLDS home, to the point where any home without the tapes was somehow seen as suspect. It was almost as if listening to Mr. Jeffs’s monotone sermons was the only way to ensure salvation and avoid destruction.
At Alta Academy, he was often heard speaking on behalf of the Prophet. “Father says we must…” was a phrase that would haunt not only the great hall but every classroom. Mr. Jeffs ended every sermon, talk, and class, and nearly every conversation, with “I’m just the humble servant of my father.”
After another arduous year at Alta, the summer offered the relief of time to think—to hear my own voice in my head, and not just that of Mr. Jeffs. Tapes still played continuously in our home, but I could go outside and hear the sounds of nature. The summer of 1990, just before my eighth-grade year, I found myself in the awkward stage where I was no longer a child and not yet a teenager. My body was beginning to change, and where I had been chunky before, I was beginning to slim down and fill out. Becoming a woman was confusing, and I noticed that people, especially males, treated me differently. No one explained it to me; I was left alone with my chaotic feelings.
Dad had begun acting rather protective of his daughters. Ever since Uncle Rulon himself had married my mother’s little sister Ora, over fifty years his junior, it seemed that our uncles and other older men in the FLDS were beginning to see possibilities for young brides among several of us who were no longer considered children but “options.” So when Christine and I raised the question of going back up to Canada the next summer, Dad said, “Absolutely not!” He had always had some reservations about Uncle Jason, who had flirted with my mother even though he had already married her older sister.
I was disappointed by my father’s refusal, but I determined to continue my study of music. I utilized that time well. In June, the local Suzuki Music Camp invited some of the greatest violinists in the world to instruct us. Brian Lewis was the first chair at Juilliard, the famous music conservatory in New York, and I had the privilege to be coached by him on one occasion.
That day, he asked me to play a technical passage several times. Although I did fairly well, my trained ear knew it sounded muddy. I had been a bit of a virtuoso as a child, but I had reached a wall that was keeping me from a higher level of proficiency. I was already nervous to begin with, so when he cried out, “Stop!” I nearly fell to my knees.
I looked up in shock to see the teddy bear of a man holding his violin out to me. We had just been told that Brian’s precious Fisher Stradivarius had been insured at $1.8 million. He looked at me patiently, and although I was frightened, I held out my hands. I cradled the violin in my arms with the same mixture of wonder and awe with which I’d held my very first instrument. The Strad’s proportions were perfect, and I found myself playing the passage impeccably, my fingers like dancers on the strings. After playing it through twice, I discovered I could replicate it on my own violin! I glanced up to see the rapture I was feeling mirrored on Brian’s face. Not only was my barrier shattered, but something within me bloomed into being.
One of our world’s greatest musical performers had passed away just the summer before. Grandfather Steed had been conducting a choir when he fell off his platform and hit the back of his head, resulting in a coma and his eventual death. We still grieved for him but took comfort in the fact that he had lived a full life and died doing something he cherished. Grandfather had not been afraid to shine in his music, but he was also a man. It was only at Suzuki camp that I felt like there was a place for a female musician in my world.
Mr. Jeffs had come to think of most music as being worldly and showy. Although he would call on me to play at nearly every school program, he constantly reminded me that all the glory must go to the Lord lest I become an instrument in the hands of the devil. I became quieter about my talents. Fortunately, around that time, another special artist entered my world. Peter Prier made and sold string instruments in his shop on 200 East and 200 South in Salt Lake City, which was a treat to visit. On these rare and special occasions, Peter would ask me to play various pieces of music on different violins. When I finished, he would clap and rejoice as if I were playing at Carnegie Hall! I learned to celebrate the musician within me, even if only privately. It was enough to keep going, and the validation kept me from seeking other sources.
Some girls my age had begun covertly wearing makeup or arranging clandestine meetings with boys. While the occasional thought of boys was secretly exciting, I had no desire to sneak around. I was influenced in part by a book called Fascinating Womanhood, which made the rounds among married and singles alike in the FLDS around that time. It included advice on how to stand out in a crowd; how to please a husband and awaken his deepest feelings of love; and how to make him think every good idea was his. “The role of a woman when played correctly,” wrote the author, Helen Andelin, “is fulfilling, fascinating, and full of intrigue. There never need be a dull moment. The practice of this art of womanhood is an enjoyable one, filled with rich rewards, numerous surprises, and vast happiness.”
Since FLDS women literally had to stand out in a crowd of their own sister-wives in order to be noticed, it was little wonder this book made waves, and the men loved it. For a girl like me whose only desire should be to fashion myself into that kind of bride, it held a certain amount of intrigue. I read it with great fervor, and I began to carry myself quite differently than before. Still, much of the book drove me crazy! We were supposed to slyly remind the man of how weak we were compared to him, but FLDS women were physically very strong. We had to be—it wasn’t like there was always a man around to carry a fifty-pound bag of flour or crate of newly canned peaches. So now I was supposed to jump up on a chair and cry out, “Ohhh! Come and kill this spider!” whenever a man was present? I had killed plenty of spiders and hauled many heavy boxes.
Still, my mother and Mama Alice encouraged me to act more like a refined lady. I practiced to please them and found that sometimes these skills seemed to work. My brothers noticed I didn’t climb my tree anymore or beat them in races. However, I began to feel different inside than I had before. I was realizing I could create the kind of woman I wanted to become. The question was, what kind of woman was that? Frail and weak? Or a woman of genuine grace and strength who could make a difference?
The concepts of obedience and self-worth filled my mind as I returned to Alta for my eighth-grade year that fall of 1990. Classwork and homework would again be demanding. Mr. Jeffs was bound to be just as hard on us, if not harder. I did my best to respect him, but sometimes his behaviors were downright creepy, though I would never say it aloud. For example, he had signed my yearbook fifteen times, all over his pictures. Not even my best friends did that! At times his body language was strange around me and other children. Rumors abounded throughout the school of his beatings whenever a child didn’t toe the line. Although we faced abuse in our home from Irene, I knew plenty of families who didn’t practice corporal punishment, so this was quite shocking. I noticed that children also left his office changed in a way that I couldn’t put into words. I deliberately steered clear of there.
We had all grown up afraid of the secret rooms in Uncle Rulon’s old home, which were now part of Alta Academy. There were secret panels that could be locked from the inside, but we noticed that others locked from the outside. They had supposedly been built to hide women and children in case of another raid. However, it was rumored that ill-behaved children learned what it was like to be locked up in the dark. If I simply remembered that Mr. Jeffs, my father, and the Prophet were always right, perhaps I could stay out of trouble entirely.
Once during Priesthood History, Mr. Jeffs asked us to raise our hands if we thought women should have the right to vote. Immediately I raised my hand—and realized I was the only one to have done so. My principal berated me. How could I possibly think that a woman could have the faintest idea of how to vote, or what the country would need more than her husband? “The only reason a woman should vote,” he said, “is to give more power to her husband and the church.”
It wasn’t only in the classroom that Warren antagonized me. He seemed to notice that something had changed over the summer in the way I held myself. He went almost crazy pushing the girl/boy issue, incessantly asking, “Did someone pass you a note?” “Did he touch your body?” Every time, I answered with a firm no. His questions made me feel sick inside. I wasn’t interested in boys, except as the perfect Priesthood bride for a man when I was older—or at least creating a life that would be pleasing to God, whether that entailed the affections of a man or not. I looked at my FLDS role models—my mothers, aunts, and cousins—and everything they had to endure. Like most of them, I felt that I could handle anything in this life if it meant my salvation in the next.