50 Years in Polygamy: Big Secrets and Little White Lies Page 19
As always, rumors were spreading. Whenever a single girl was spotted sitting or hanging out with a married family, everyone had their assumptions. Before you knew it, true or not, the word was out. They’d assume another plural marriage had already taken place, or soon would.
This time when Mark accused me of being jealous, I said, “Yes, I am jealous, and I have a right to be! Your every thought lately is how, when, and where you can see Carla again. You come up with every excuse you can to see her without me around. You’ve pursued her more than any of your hopeful girlfriends, and I don’t trust her one single bit. She doesn’t want anything to do with us. All she wants is to win your affection and take you away from me!”
“It’s not like that, Sophia,” Mark insisted. “She likes you. She’s just uncomfortable being around both of us at the same time.”
“Big whoop-de-do!” I shouted back. “Now you want me out of your courting life because she’s uncomfortable?”
“Dammit all!” Mark yelled. “I don’t want you out of my life at all. You are my life! If we didn’t have to live plural marriage, I wouldn’t want anyone but you.”
“I know. It’s just feels like you are always looking at or for someone else; and no matter how hard I try not to care, it always hurts!”
*****
Previous to and during that time in our lives, I was grateful to God Norma finally quit watching our boys and hanging around Mark. Of course, I had no idea she would be back in Mark’s life more than twenty years later. She started dating Jared, a married man who was many years her senior. While Norma was waiting to turn sixteen so she could marry Jared, she described their wild and heated escapades. She delighted in telling me how they had done nearly everything—how the two of them would get so turned on, they could hardly stop.
I knew about heated passion. But I was angry with her for fooling around with Jared before she became his plural wife. According to my dad’s courting rules for married men, they were not to date or court a prospective wife without another wife present. They were not supposed to be alone together until they were married.
I told Norma their behavior was wrong and how sorry I felt for Callie, Jared’s wife. “How do you think she’d feel if she knew what was going on behind her back?”
Norma appeared oblivious to anyone’s feelings but her own, and just shrugged her shoulders.
“I’m sure glad you decided not to marry Mark,” I told her. “It kills me to think what might be going on between you two if you were engaged to him.”
Norma smiled and giggled sheepishly.
Jared and Callie, his beautiful and intellectual wife of fifteen years, were new converts to The Group. In public, Callie appeared to be elated, strong and completely accepting of their little teenage bride-to-be, who was only one year older than her oldest son. Yet, one day after church, Callie cried as she told me of the despair she suffered when her husband demanded she stay in her bedroom with the door shut. While she listened to the sounds of Jared “just” making out with teenage Norma in their dark living room on their opened couch bed, Callie piled pillows over her head and cried herself to sleep. But, as required of plural wives, Callie continued to publicly display her best-actress-on-earth smile and pushed forth in exemplary fashion.
*****
In addition to girls’ camp, Primary had become a new resource for the Allred Group’s children. My sister Amy organized classes for those in the Murray area, and I started classes for children in the South Valley area in our new home. The kids enjoyed the creative and fun ways our teachers presented otherwise dull stories from the Bible and Book of Mormon. On Primary days, I made sure my home was immaculate so the Spirit of the Lord could reside there, and it seemed well worth my efforts.
*****
Mom asked me to drive her down to Colorado City for her father’s funeral.
“I don’t want to be disrespectful of you, Mom,” I said, “but I want you to know how I feel. Okay?”
She nodded.
“I don’t want to go to the funeral, but if you need me to drive you down there I will. I can’t pay my respects to Grandpa Cooke because I didn’t have any respect for him. I didn’t love him and he didn’t love me. As you know, he was always mean to you and to your kids.”
I hesitated. “He used to watch his girls dress and undress, and who knows what else he was doing. Mom, I don’t have even one good memory of that old man.”
Mom’s breathing got heavy and strained. I hugged her and told her I was sorry I upset her for talking about her father like that, but it was true, and I thought by then she should know how I felt about him.
“My dad always hated me! He never once had a nice thing to say to me, either.” My mother’s words surprised me. She caught her breath and continued, “I never understood why he disliked me so much. Why me? What did I ever do to deserve his horrible treatment? When I was young, he would hit and slap me. He treated me like I was a dog!”
Mom started to say more, but she abruptly stopped herself. “This just isn’t right. I shouldn’t be talking about my father like this. It’s very wrong to be so disrespectful. He was a good man. He did the best he knew how to do with his large family and . . .” Mom gulped, wiped her tears, and sniffled. “Do you know the reason he was like that, Sophia? A long time ago, his mother, who was a large woman, used to beat on him and everyone else in the family, including his dad. So my father had no respect for his mother. When he was just a young boy, he swore he would never allow a woman or anyone else to treat him the way his mother did.”
“I’m sorry, Mom, but that’s a sick excuse!” I snapped. “He justified his disgusting behaviors, and then treated you, his wives, children and grandchildren worse than shit!”
“You’re right,” Mom said calmly, ready to end the stressful conversation. “But it’s like your dad always say’s, Sophia—all of that is in the past and that’s where it should stay. It’s better left alone. I’m sorry I ever started complaining to you about my dad. We need to put our hurts and anger aside and keep sweet so we can keep the Spirit of the Lord with us at all times.”
That was and is the Fundamentalist Mormon rule, especially for women. Nothing of discord was to be felt, acknowledged, or talked about—ever. We needed to keep a big smile on our faces and shovel our pain deep inside. If we were good, sweet, obedient, virtuous women and endured to the end, we’d be ever so blessed. We held onto the opinion that family idiosyncrasies and secrets were to be kept quiet and certainly never discussed. In the hereafter (if we ever qualified) we’d be able to trade any hell or anguish on earth for eternal happiness.
*****
My labor pains came and went for nearly two full months. I was miserable. Uncle Rulon sent me to an obstetrician, “to be on the safe side.” After some deep, palpating on my abdomen, the doctor told me I had only one big baby to deliver, and as far as he could tell, everything was all right.
I couldn’t have an ultrasound, since they were rare and expensive back then, but the whole time I carried my baby, I was certain we’d have another son.
Doctor Fulton was also hiding out in Pinesdale, Montana. He’d been charged for practicing medicine in Utah without proper credentials. In two days, Uncle Rulon planned to make his regular monthly trip there, as well. He’d go to bolster his wives, congregation and disciples. And my baby was already twenty-two days overdue.
He told me I had three choices: I could wait longer and ask a midwife from the Kingston Group to deliver my baby, if she was available; I could take a castor oil and quinine mixture to start me in labor and get going before he had to leave; or I could go to the hospital, where they’d probably induce labor and/or do a caesarean section. He already knew I wouldn’t choose the last option. Going to the hospital to deliver babies was out of the question for most women in The Allred Group. No one in their right mind would go there to deliver a baby, unless they were desperate or in big trouble. We’d heard and spread numerous horror stories of unnecessary, rushed deliveries wi
th forceps and episiotomies. But most atrocious, was our anxiety about the “mark of the beast” as is referred to in the Bible: “He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead so no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast . . .If anyone worships the beast and his image and receives his mark on the forehead or the hand, he, too, will drink of the wine of God’s fury” (Rev. 13:16–18; 14:9–12).
All of us fundamentalists were worried the time was at hand for that to take place. We worried that if we fell asleep and left our infant in the care of a nurse, a barcode would be tattooed just under the skin of our infant’s hand or forehead. There was already enough of God’s fury in my life; I didn’t want or need more.
I knew I couldn’t persist any longer with my on-and-off labor, but I feared my huge baby would never be born if I waited. I’d already tried everything possible; so I administered the large dose of the castor oil and quinine mixture to myself early in the morning and counted on his birth before the day was over.
Around 7:00 pm. when my contractions became unbearable, Mom called Uncle Rulon to come to our home. While he checked me, he said he hadn’t slept for three days and nights because he’d been so busy delivering four other babies in our Allred Group.
“Now, my dear, it’s finally your turn.” Uncle Rulon said tenderly. “The bad news is you still have several more hours before you will be dilated enough to push. If it’s all right with you, I’m going to go get a few winks of sleep, as I still have to drive to Montana tomorrow.”
For hours and hours Mom put cold, wet rags on my forehead and rubbed my back where I was sure my baby was trying to come out. This time around, there were no sleeping breaks between contractions as in normal labor. If I’d had any energy to scream, the whole neighborhood would have heard me. Instead my body was withering away in death. I begged God to stop the pains or at least ease them so I wouldn’t die. I couldn’t possibly go on one minute longer.
Finally I asked Mom to wake Mark so I could tell him goodbye. Within seconds after she left the room, I was no longer in pain. Close to the ceiling of my bedroom I could peripherally see every corner of all four walls at the same time. I was engrossed in euphoria for several minutes, it seemed when my spirit saw my dead body, swollen with child, lying on the bed below. Just as quickly I knew I didn’t want to die. I wanted to have my baby and raise my children. In an instant my soul and body were connected once more; and I was again in tremendous pain.
Uncle Rulon, Mark, and Mom rushed into the room. Uncle Rulon checked me again. They had to move my exhausted and poisoned body to the end of the bed. When Uncle Rulon broke the sac my baby was still in, dark, slimy, brown liquid flowed from me. I heard him tell his wife and assistant, “This infant is in distress. He’s had a bowel movement in the amniotic fluid, and some of it has entered his little body.”
Melba hurriedly gathered syringes and the other necessary instruments and set them on the tray next to her husband. To ease my alarm he tried to lighten things up a little.
“No wonder this little guy is taking so long to get here. He planned to relax on his elbow and slide into this world with ease, but instead he got himself stuck. His right hand is covering his right ear and his little fingers are facing down toward his jawbone.”
I heard a few sighs of merriment. In their concern everyone was trying to be optimistic.
After delivering literally thousands of babies over many years in his medical practice, Uncle Rulon knew exactly what to do so my son’s arm wouldn’t break during his trip through the birth canal. Each time I bore down, he turned Schuyler’s head and shoulders to the right so his arm would slide down to his side. After twenty-two hours of agonizing labor, a dark blue, nine-pound, twenty-three-inch-long infant, silently entered this world.
Neither the baby nor I could move. After Jake’s delivery I wanted to get up and run a mile. After Alan’s I could have walked around the block a few times, but this time I felt paralyzed. Uncle Rulon finally got Schuyler breathing and handed him to my mother while he delivered the placenta.
Mark went downstairs to sleep, and Uncle Rulon left. After Mom had cleaned and dressed her grandson, she laid him next to me on the bed. Tears of joy slid down my cheeks as I stared at his perfect, pink colored face and thanked God he was finally here.
But within minutes, Schuyler quit breathing and started to turn blue. I picked him up, blew in his face, and screamed for help. The baby quit breathing every time his little body relaxed. For two more hours, Mom and I kept him awake and begged him to nurse and stay alive. She promised to take good care of him and pled with me to get some sleep. Though I felt run over by a train, I insisted on staying awake to make sure my precious infant wouldn’t die.
I’d been awake over thirty-six hours. The twenty-two hours of excruciating pain had been caused by the impact of the castor oil and quinine mixture. It poisoned me and my baby’s bodies, nearly killing both of us.
When I awoke nearly five hours later, Schuyler wasn’t beside me on the bed where I had last seen him. I was sure God had taken him away from me because I’d been neglectful and fallen asleep. When Mom heard me cry out in anguish, she rushed in my room to assure me Schuyler was alive and getting better. She told me he had continued to stop breathing off and on for several more hours, so she’d finally called Uncle Rulon for help.
Mom kept Schuyler living through the night by giving him enemas of warm water and mild garlic to help remove the toxins. Though Schuyler’s tiny arm still dangled for the next few days before his muscles gained strength again, he began to thrive.
CHAPTER 21
Guns and Murder
1976–1977
Six days after Schuyler’s birth, Francine and William rented our unfinished basement while they waited for another home to rent. In lieu of rent payments, they decided to make the empty space as livable as possible without a big expense. They ordered natural, light wood cupboards and an ugly, bright orange Formica countertop. Just days before they moved in, William framed and put dry wall up for a bathroom, a long hallway, and three small bedrooms.
For another few rent payments, William bulldozed a couple of the old, dilapidated chicken coops behind the apartment we had lived in, which provided a huge space for a vegetable garden. With the huge scoop on the front of the bulldozer, he smashed the old, rotten wood and the concrete foundations into small pieces. Then he dumped the rubbish into a house-size hole he’d dug in the pasture in the back. Slowly, but surely, we believed our junkyard would be turned into a beautifully landscaped yard full of flowers, orchards, gardens, and play areas.
*****
Nothing I owned fit me. Because Mark knew how hard it was for me to spend money on myself, he made me promise him I’d buy an outfit for me, not for our boys. When I saw the dimples behind my knees in the dressing room mirror, I sat on the bench and sobbed. I must have weighed a ton by then, since I never lost all the weight after having Jake and Alan. After having Schuyler, I felt like the cow Dad said I’d become if I didn’t stop eating. It would have been nice to take after him. He seldom craved anything but sustenance for his tall, thin body.
A few years previous, when we learned the doctor had said Mom’s heart was fibrillating, it scared all of us. We wondered if it was because of the extra forty or so pounds she carried around. Maybe I’d have to deal with all the trouble she was having if I couldn’t get control of my weight.
My postpartum depression and all the fights with Mark continued to hinder my peace and spirituality. As usual, our fights were about his failure to participate in what I deemed necessary and appropriate religious behaviors and our differences in child rearing.
“My anger,” he would yell, “comes from your inability to accept my choices and my beliefs! I shouldn’t have to go to meetings, kneel to pray, and pay my tithing to your dad’s group. I won’t kiss people’s asses in order to be considered a good person.”
To add to Mark’s long list of grievances, both of us knew a few council members, specifically Gregory Maynard, wouldn’t work to support their massive harem that produced dozens of desperate, ragamuffin kids. He required his wives and devotees to provide clothing and sustenance for him and his family. To keep them humble, Maynard wanted his families to live in poverty and look like vagabonds.
Mark and I were told firsthand, he allowed his daughters to be molested and how he beat at least one of his wives for her differing opinions, and for trying to get away from him.
“Then there was sanctimonious Jon Thomas, who stole another man’s wife and . . . you already know the rest,” Mark reminded me. “He’s a major pervert of the worst kind.”
When Mark was a teenager, he also witnessed Jon beat a horse with the blade of an ax. While its backside was split wide open, he still kept pounding on it because the horse wouldn’t move the heavy load of logs he’d chained to it. Mark complained there were men in my uncle Rulon’s “perfect group” who had committed adultery, cheated, and stolen. But all they had to do was kiss up and suddenly they were—and acted like they were—better than everyone else.
“Many of those men are held up as godly and honorable in your dad’s and Rulon’s eyes. And you know damn well I could go on and on So-ph-ia! So why in the hell would I want to be a part of that crap?”
I understood Mark’s feelings. I too condemned all of that depravity. I couldn’t understand why Uncle Rulon, Joseph Musser, or any of God’s prophets could have been inspired to call immoral and corrupt men to be leaders, especially of His “chosen” people.