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Alice Rankin was the 16-year-old youngest daughter of Walter Rankin’s first wife, Lydia. She was a headstrong child that chaffed under his authoritarian rule. The polygamist family lived in a splinter LDS community outside Page, Arizona. Her father had two wives, and five children. He ran a small local bank, and the family had prospered over the years.
On the morning of Day 0 the family was camping in the Kaibab National Forest in a custom RV built out of a 1951 Greyhound bus. When the quake hit, it dumped her out of the top bunk. She landed on her butt and screamed as the RV rocked from side to side.
It took 10 minutes to get everything organized and ready to leave, even with a series of aftershocks rumbling through the campsite. As they reached Highway 89, the sky had blackened, and the wind started raging. Walter parked the RV on the east side of a large building at Cameron, Arizona, and they waited through the dark night.
Her father cried and prayed for deliverance, but Alice just huddled in her bunk and waited. She had always been skeptical of the church, and even though she was scared, did not think her father’s prayers had any effect. Part way through the second day, the building that was their windbreak collapsed, and debris slammed into the RV. Several windows on the windward side of the RV were broken, and her older brother had a bad cut on his head.
After the wind died down, the torrential rain soaked everything and everyone inside the RV. The older children and the adults spent several hours clearing the debris so the RV could be turned to avoid the worst of the rain.
In the days and weeks that followed, the family grew closer, except for Alice. She withdrew and became argumentative with everyone. Their world was cramped, damp, and food was scarce.
When the rain eased, Walter headed the RV toward their home in Page. They only made it a few miles to the town of Gray Mountain before encountering the ash. There was a two-inch layer of volcanic ash covering everything to the north. Everything that was flammable had burned.
They realized that their home and their familiar world were gone. The sickly sweet smell of burned flesh was present in several of the burned homes in Gray Mountain. Her father turned the RV around and headed toward Flagstaff.
In Flagstaff, they found a large and growing Mormon population, who quickly establishing a Mormon dominated community. Elder Joseph Benton a radical polygamist led it, with seven wives and 30 children.
Housing was limited, and the Rankin family had to live in their RV. Food, fuel, and everything was in short supply. Her father secured a position as an assistant to Elder Benton, but both her older brothers were put to work doing hard physical labor. Alice and the wives worked every day in the food prep kitchens around the community.
Non-Mormons were forced to convert, sometimes with violence, or leave the community. Roadblocks were set up on Highway 40, to force non-believers to bypass the community.
The winter was hard, and the community suffered.
One day, Elder Benton was inspecting the kitchen where Alice was working and her father introduced her to him. Alice was not impressed. Elder Benton was in his 60’s, bald, and had a large mole on his chin. He leered at Alice, and she flushed and turned away.
That night, her father told her that Elder Benton been very impressed by her poise and good looks. Her father was promoted to be Benton’s Chief of Staff, and the family moved into a remodeled office in the County Courthouse Building.
After another “accidental” meeting with Benton, her father told her that Benton would take her as his eighth wife as soon as she was 17. Both parents ignored her protests. Her mother told her she should be grateful, and that her marriage would ensure her family’s place in the new Mormon society. An additional protest resulted in a slap from her stepmother, which knocked her across the room.
Alice cried herself to sleep nightly, believing she had no other choice.
