50 Years in Polygamy: Big Secrets and Little White Lies Page 12

  I despised myself for hurting the guys. I hated being and feeling so crazy. How could I force my feelings or heart to behave any differently than they did? I felt tormented by God. Why wouldn’t our omnipotent Lord be up front, outspoken, and forward, instead of all of this brouhaha? If only He would just tell us out loud the way it is supposed to be, we’d all have a better chance. Having only one life and one chance to get things right just wasn’t fair. Instead, helping God build His kingdom felt like an everlasting series of guessing games—games I would surely lose if I couldn’t find the right answers.

  It occurred to me, since I hated not knowing whom I’d marry beforehand, maybe our prophet, Uncle Rulon, should tell me whom I should marry. After all, prophets are supposed to receive “the word of the Lord,” right? But knowing God, he’d set me up with an old, ugly, stinky man. And what if the man was mean? I quickly became grateful I could take my chances and decide for myself.

  CHAPTER 13

  Featherweight and

  Cougar Speed

  1965–1967

  In the patriarchal blessing Dad conferred upon me when I was twelve, he said I was born into a noble lineage and our ancestral blood was pure and unblemished as far back as Jesus. There was not one drop of Cain’s blood to blight our eternal progress. Apparently, I wasn’t the only Allred kid who’d received the same message from God.

  In meetings, in the neighborhood, all around me, I heard claims of superiority. We carried “royal” Allred blood. This encouraged an attitude of supremacy, with many considering themselves “God’s chosen ones.” We were told we were His “handful” of righteous people who, above all others, were entitled to His love and blessings. Because we were such valiant souls in the pre-existence, we had the opportunity to be born under the covenant of plural marriage.

  If women continued to prove themselves, they would be exhausted. No matter how impoverished we were, or how miserable we were because our fathers’ and our husbands’ time was spread between their ever-expanding families; we hoped we could go to heaven for being perfect women. We could be God’s righteous ones who would be saved when He poured his wrath upon the face of the earth and destroyed the wicked.

  Of all the religious principles I was taught as a child, that one was probably one of the most difficult to fathom. Why would God save only a handful of His children when His whole world was full of them?

  Two of my cousins were totally infatuated with each other. They appeared to be joined at the hip, but like the rest of us, both had been educated about the consequences of inbreeding. If God’s kingdom was to be built up, it required new blood, converts, and opportunities for those who should find the truth. To risk the wellbeing of our future generations by marrying relatives simply wasn’t an option for The Allred Group.

  “There are plenty of virtuous and honorable people out there,” Dad preached. “God will simply inspire and guide the right ones to the right place.”

  Consequently, back then, the majority of our families wholeheartedly disagreed with the justifications Colorado City, the Kingstons, Independents, and other polygamous groups used to justify intermarriages. Often siblings as close as half-brothers and half-sisters were married; creating severe birth defects in way too many cases.

  *****

  I’d begun to think I had a split personality. With all the controversy going on in my head and heart, I felt as if there were two souls inside of me, fighting with each other for survival. One of them felt sorry for my beautiful sixteen-year-old cousin who decided to leave The Group.

  Folks around me said she’d probably go to hell when she died. At the very least, she would only make it to the telestial kingdom—the lowest glory of heaven. After all, she was one of those “valiant spirits” who’d been born and raised under the covenant but chose not to participate in the “fulness of the gospel.”

  The other girl inside of me was terribly envious of my cousin. She had enough courage and determination to leave The Group to find happiness outside of polygamy. The feminine soul inside of me wanted to be brave like my cousin, but knew I’d break my parents’ hearts if I ran away. Living a few joyous years on earth, versus eternity without my family, just wasn’t acceptable to me—or at least for the religious part of me. I just kept on plugging along, hoping and wishing I would someday make the grade, and God would forgive me for all of my sins.

  My brother Rick tried to be friendly toward me on the rare occasions when we saw each other. He wanted me to act like nothing had ever happened. I thought it was because he felt so terrible about the wicked things he had done to me. Oddly enough, something inside of my young heart made me feel sorry for him. Maybe, I surmised, it was because when he died, he’d be spending his time in purgatory.

  During a summer race with my brother James, Rick’s comment changed my life. I was already angry for not pushing myself harder to become better, stronger, and faster. When James won our race up the street and back to our front porch, Rick happened to be standing there.

  “Sophia, you could run a whole lot faster if you weren’t so fat!” he jeered.

  None of my dad’s ongoing, well-intended harassment about Mom’s weight and our bad habits had changed my eating behaviors, nor had the constant harassment from cousins and school bullies. Their comments had only intensified my feelings of inferiority and my addictive behaviors. But that day, Rick’s cruel words had a significant impact on me. They inspired an inner challenge. I would do anything to be able to run faster.

  At twelve years and six months of age, I carried 140 pounds on my medium-boned, five-foot-six-inch-tall frame. I went beyond all the starvation diets I’d ever heard about. I didn’t eat or drink anything but water for the first week. One day while I was guzzling water from the drinking fountain at school, I blacked out for a few seconds. A male student nearby caught me before I hit the floor. He waited with me until I got my equilibrium back. After the first week, I added a variety of fruit juices from our canned goods, and by the third week, I added a few more solids to my diet. It felt so good to not eat! Oh, how I wanted to maintain that feeling and end my compulsive overeating. I desperately wanted to hold fast to my anorexic regime for the rest of my life.

  Four weeks later, at 120 pounds, I delighted in my featherweight body that seemed to soar at the speed of a cougar.

  *****

  The trip to The Crick (Colorado City) with Dad driving Mom and I, was long and tedious as usual. As with every trip we’d ever taken down there, she begged me to conform to the weird dress standards I detested.

  To some degree, I’d become an assertive, rebellious teen (according to my mother), wearing medium-length (short, according to Mom) skirts and sticking up for myself a little more. My newfound strength (character flaw) made it more difficult for her to pressure me into compliance.

  “It won’t hurt you to wear a long dress! I don’t want you to offend anyone,” she would say.

  Again, in the most logical way I could possibly divine, I tried to sway Mom’s rationale by using the good old guilt, analogy method. “Mom, if I dress like they do just to appease them, isn’t that being hypocritical? And didn’t you say being deceitful is wrong?”

  “I guess you’re right.” Mom smirked, realizing I’d gotten the best of her. “Okay, then. At least make sure you wear a modest dress.”

  When we arrived at Grandpa’s house, Mom’s half-sister Maggie (who was four years older than me) and her new baby were there. Maggie and I had a lot of catching up to do.

  She informed me her husband had written her a “Dear Jane” letter and confessed to committing adultery while he was in the army. He wouldn’t be coming back to Maggie. She felt sad, but said it could’ve been worse if they’d have had time to fall in love before their assigned marriage and his induction.

  Somewhere along the line, Maggie informed me their community changed its name from Short Creek to Colorado City. I also found out her leaders didn’t believe they should adulterate their “royal” blood with new converts.
For quite some time, intermarrying was the norm. Rather than send missionaries into the field to preach the fulness of the gospel to the Gentiles, which they’d originally believed was God’s will, their young men were asked to quit school and dedicate two years of their lives to a “work mission.” They were to donate their time, without pay, to help build the kingdom of God. Many of the young men were told, completing their missions would earn them a bride or two. This free labor helped pay for homes, fences, gardens, roads, a park, a school, a church, and supporting their prophet, “Uncle” Leroy Johnson.

  The townsfolk were delighted their new Colorado City High School was under construction by the young men serving their work missions. The construction was also funded with government money, granting an entire polygamous faculty to serve humongous polygamous families who all followed the dictates of their prophet.

  Maggie and I both knew the rules from day one. It was unacceptable for girls and boys to talk to or to look at each other longer than necessary, lest they be tempted to fall in lust or in love. However, on a beautiful summer day, our rebellious minds and young libidos got the best of us, and we decided to pay a visit to the school construction site.

  In the school bathroom, Maggie changed from her ankle-length, long-sleeved, dress into a pair of tight jeans and a form-fitting blouse. Who knows where she found them. Zap! In a flash, she was a seductive-looking teenage beauty.

  Though I had no cleavage to show off, I undid the first and second buttons of my blouse (the ones Mom always fastened back up, when I supposedly forgot to) so my tantalizing collarbone could be seen. I rolled the waistband of my brown-and-black plaid skirt a few times so it would reveal my long, bare legs from three inches above my knees. Lastly, I folded my long sleeves up to my elbows and untucked my beige Lady Manhattan blouse to hide the rolled-up waistband.

  There, in the jurisdiction of archaic dress codes and philoSophias, Maggie and I must have appeared like Lady Godiva, without her horse.

  Our flirtatious smiles and mannerisms caused the eyes of those “wicked” young men who dared look at us, to bug right out of their heads. Those who were dedicated to “avoiding even the appearance of evil” turned away so their souls wouldn’t burn in hell. A few brave, “evil” guys drew near—six or seven of the teenage boys.

  Maggie and I wanted to completely ditch the rules. We joked about being able to spend hours on end in un-chaperoned conversations. Fat chance that would ever happen! The young men were quickly called back to work by a stalwart brother, who told us to “Beat it! Now!”

  Before we got back to the house, some “good Samaritan” had already informed Grandpa of our vile sins.

  “Ya nasty little trollops,” he shouted as soon as we walked in the front door. “Ya both have committed a carnal sin taday! Yer not only responsible fer yer own evil behaviors but fer the lustful state ya musta put those young men inta. I’m sure they were unduly tempted by yer nasty, lewd getups. You two oughta be ashamed of yerselves! Now git yer nasty little arses up them stairs right now! I don’t want ta see ya horrible little sinners fer the resta the day.”

  Maggie and I didn’t mind missing supper. It gave us time to review our exciting, wild day on the town while her sisters ate and had to do the dishes. I think we both felt a little guilty. Would we be held accountable for messing with those boys’ libidos, we wondered. Until her two impressionable sisters, both close to my age, came along, Maggie and I entertained ourselves in retrospection. “What if we . . .” “Did you see his eyes?” “We could have . . .” The two of us laughed until our guts hurt and our eyes watered.

  Maggie’s baby, her two sisters, and I sprawled across their double bed and continued our merriment, mixed with the usual girl talk, late into the evening.

  Soon, all three of these attractive and charming aunts from Colorado City would be assigned to their covenant mates. Each one said she explicitly trusted their prophet’s decisions, no matter what. They’d been taught since birth, God would reveal to “Uncle Leroy” when, and to whom, all eligible girls and boys should marry.

  In this, my young aunts confirmed parts of the story Mom had told me not long before, about her dear friend Alice. They too would most likely not know who their husbands would be until their wedding day. At first, they might despise or be repulsed by their husbands. It would be okay though, my aunts assured me. After some time, they’d learn to love the head of their household. But more importantly, they told me, if they were sweet, obedient wives, their husbands might learn to love them as well.

  Of course, I was concerned about marrying the “right” guy. But after hours and hours of talking to my teenage aunts, I told them, “I’d still rather choose my own husband, even if I married the wrong man, rather than have to marry an old man like your sister Dorothy did, or a total stranger.”

  The girls were heartbroken for me. If only I would stay there and be part of their group like my sister Lucinda had done nearly fifteen years earlier... “This way,” they coaxed, “our prophet can make sure your future spouse is the man God wants you to marry.”

  Even with our differences, the four of us felt a deep bond.

  We looked into each other’s eyes in dismay. “Do you think we have the same God?” I asked my aunts. “How do you feel about a loving God who promises to damn everyone who doesn’t follow the one and only prophet on this earth? That could be you or me. Is your prophet or mine the right one?”

  Sadly enough, all four of us girls were sure we knew the right answer.

  *****

  Sacrament meeting had already started. I rushed from our back door, across the patio. Near the door to the garage, where we held our meetings, I heard a voice coming from behind our fence.

  “Sophia, Sophia! Hey, Sophia, are ya going ta get married today?”

  Instantly, my stomach twisted into a huge knot. “What are you doing here?” I grumbled at Pete—the boy who’d been my worst adversary and most aggressive tormenter for years.

  “I came ta see ya! Ta see if I can screw ya before ya get married off to some old man,” Pete said.

  “Get out of here now, or I’ll get one of my brothers to make you leave,” I hollered back.

  “Bet your brothers do ya, don’t they, don’t they?” Pete taunted. “I heard all of the men trade all their wives. They get together and mix up all the house keys, and then they go screw the women who live at that house. Oh, come on, Sophia. Let me do ya before the old men get to ya, please, please.”

  I was mortified and hurt. If I could have climbed over our fence in my Sunday dress, I’d have tried to beat the living daylights out of Pete. No one had ever talked to me like that before, let alone made such crude remarks about the good men and women in our group.

  “You’re pathetic and sick! Get away from here now!” I yelled.

  The ignorant jerk kept calling out obscenities even as I escaped into the safety of our sacrament meeting.

  If I had told my brothers about his comments, they’d have beaten the tar out of him. It would have been all right with me, but the pestering at school would have become more unbearable than it already was. Telling wasn’t an option either.

  *****

  I met Dick during youth conference at the Pinesdale Ranch. Amy and I were surprised and nervous when we found out we had to stay at his family’s house. Somehow, Aunt Eleanor had made the sleeping arrangements for us girls.

  Amy and I naively flirted back and forth with Dick and his brother off and on during the weekend. Later in the summer, Dick said he was coming down to Salt Lake City, and wanted to take me out. I found out later, our date had also been prearranged. Since his mom and Aunt Eleanor were good friends, my going out a few months before I turned thirteen made it okay to break the dating-at-sixteen rule.

  It was only the second time I’d been to a drive-in movie theatre. Dick sat too close to me and wouldn’t keep his hands off me. When he tried to kiss my neck, I pulled away and told him to stop. He just slid closer.

  “Come on, S
ophia, let’s have some fun,” he said.

  I was sickened and repulsed by how he was acting. I wanted to beat him up. But he was practically a nephew to Aunt Eleanor, so I had to be polite.

  “Please stop. Don’t! Stop it!” I persisted. But every attempt I made to resist his advances only seemed to entice him more.

  When Dick was nearly on top of me, I went emotionally and physically numb. Without one single turned-on feeling and completely devoid of fear, I seemed to disappear, and gave in to his lack of concern for me. It wasn’t until he was so crazed he was ready to rip my clothes off before I came to my senses and screamed, “Stop it! Take me home now!”

  There’s no way to describe the emotions I felt on the long drive home. But after that night, I discovered a new and yet simple sense of courage inside of me. It felt like I won a disgraceful contest I hadn’t signed up for. I was so grateful for those powerful feelings; but I was mortified about my inability to be stronger in the first place.

  Dick didn’t speak all the way home. But he obviously thought I’d be speaking to my parents about him, so he beat me to the draw.

  When Aunt Eleanor called me into her bedroom a few days later, she scolded and lectured me on the evils of my lascivious, smutty, aggressive behaviors. She explained how dirty, nasty and evil sex was outside of marriage. She told me I should be ashamed of myself.

  “I hope you know how blessed you were! Thank the good Lord you were with an honorable young man who wouldn’t take advantage of your disgraceful conduct!”

  Of course, when I attempted to explain what had really happened with Dick, Aunt Eleanor didn’t believe me. Things hadn’t changed over the years where I was concerned. I still had no validity in my father’s family. Whatever Aunt Eleanor said, was the way it was.