50 Years in Polygamy: Big Secrets and Little White Lies Read online

  “I don’t see why I should have to help you with the canning you chose to do. I didn’t buy all this fruit! I don’t want to have to work all day and come home to more work,” she exclaimed.

  I calmed down a little. “Well, Diane, you and your children eat just as much or more of the fruit than we do, so if you want to relinquish that privilege, I won’t expect you to help me get it canned.”

  Diane knew she and her children had been eating gobs of peaches as well as the other fruits and vegetables my kids and I had canned.

  We sat on Jake’s and Alan’s twin beds, where we finally retreated away from lots of little ears, to finish our first and last real argument that finally wound down into a sane conversation. Diane agreed to help me wrap up our workdays together. She said she’d start making dinner for her own kids, or she would help out with the dishes whenever I made dinner for all of us. And I promised her I’d try to have more patience with her when she was having a tough day. We gave each other a big hug. With those promises, we renewed our love for each other and our desire to live the principle of plural marriage as sweet, loving sister-wives should.

  CHAPTER 29

  A Friendship from God

  1982–1984

  I wanted to believe. I convinced myself I was solid and making everything work out wonderfully without Mark. Apparently it wasn’t true.

  My ongoing battle with weight seemed to drag me down as much, or more, than anything else in my life. My compulsive overeating helped to numb my feelings of inadequacy as a parent, a wife, and a person. Over the years, with the exception of having my mouth wired shut, I tried nearly every diet I’d ever heard or read about, considering my lack of financial means.

  I felt alone in crowds of people, among family members, and at church. When I was all by myself, visceral ghosts from every corner of my world would show up. On a wide movie theatre screen, in electrifying colors, they would recap my failures and harass me about my years and years of defeat.

  I avoided full-length mirrors like they were demons. To me, they were. Those evil monsters punished and shamed me even more. If I happened to see the reflection of my 225-pound, grotesque, cumbersome body as I walked by a window, I imagined I should be vivisected and skinned alive. In my daydreams, I wished I could take the butcher knife to myself and carve and chop away until there would be nothing left of me but my medium-size bones covered with perfectly taut, light brown skin.

  “God, if you are as powerful and omnipotent as we are supposed to believe you are, then why can’t you make me stop eating? I have asked and begged, pled, and tried to make bargains with you! I have tried with every ounce of energy I can muster to have the will power to quit this obsessive overeating. Nothing works! You see, God, this is another reason I have such a hard time believing in you. In most of my requests and pleadings, you have abandoned and punished me. Why, God? Why don’t you help me? Why can’t you make me stop overeating?”

  *****

  For girls’ camp in 1982, my sweetheart of a mother agreed to stay in a camping trailer to help me out. Camping was not something she liked to do, so I was extremely grateful when she agreed to help me again. Three years earlier when I was a camp counselor, she watched Jack so I could keep nursing him. This time, it was my Karleen she’d help with. In between my duties as one of the three camp directors, teaching classes, and attending fireside meetings in the beautiful hills around Kamas, Utah, I could spend more time with my baby because of my mother’s help.

  On the second day at camp, I packed five-month-old Karleen in my arms and walked from camp to camp to see how everyone was faring with the mixture of personalities, needs and supplies. When I reached “Camp Gardenia,” I visited with Michelle, an old friend who had dated my brother James when they were teenagers.

  Karleen and I went back to Michelle’s campsite at lunchtime. For nearly two hours, we sat on a blanket under the huge pines and quaking aspens, and got reacquainted.

  A month after girls’ camp, Michelle brought her five children over to my house for lunch as we had planned. During our visit, she told me she’d been praying for a long time to find a close friendship with someone who would care about her, and about whom she could also care.

  Soon Michelle and I began to exercise, walk and diet together. We hung out with our younger kids and even began to plan our work, outings, meals, and holiday celebrations together. She became more of a friend to me than I ever knew was possible. She doted on me, my brain, my talents, and regularly reminded me of my potential. She raved about my abilities and attributes, and always defended my opinions and me. As the days passed, I discovered her constant and unflinching goodness and loyalty to my children and me. I began to think Michelle would make the perfect husband. We could enjoy everything in our relationship but the sexual aspect.

  As time passed, Mark had a few longer breaks between his jobs in California. When he first met Michelle, he was kind and tolerant of our friendship. Before long, however, he began to despise and resent her presence in my life. With each passing month, his dislike for Michelle intensified.

  “Don’t you get it? She is a lesbian! She wants you all to herself,” he said. “Michelle speaks and writes words of endearment to you the way a man would write. She wants to steal you from me, Sophia! She needs you all the time and makes you feel obligated to help her. There is always one reason or another why you have to rescue her.”

  “I’m telling you, she is so smart and manipulative she knows all the right words—the ones you want and need to hear—to convince you to trust everything about her. She’ll continue to plot and connive to take you away from me, whether you know it or not! She compliments me to make you believe she cares about me. While you believe she has our best interest at heart, you buy into all her shit. She twists and turns those compliments around to make her criticisms of me sound and feel valid, then Michelle decides if what I’m doing, or not doing, is good or bad, and you believe her. She is as brilliant as she is sly!”

  “You must really think I’m stupid!” I retorted. “Do you think I’m so dumb she could sway me and my thoughts enough to break us up?”

  Of course, Mark adamantly believed everything he claimed, and in the quiet of the nights I’d mull it over and over in my heart and mind. He was right in many of the things he said. Michelle was brilliant. She had a knack with words and an incredible photographic memory. I couldn’t blame him for his point of view. Even I was a little suspicious of the notes she’d written to me. The verses she wrote were a lot like a boyfriend’s notes to his girlfriend. In many ways, I started to feel overpowered by her need for us to spend so much time together. Her demands definitely stole too much of my time away from my family and work. Still, I believed it was my duty to rescue her from her deep bouts of depression. She was there for me when Mark was gone. Who else would be there for her when she needed help?

  I still couldn’t or wouldn’t believe she was a lesbian, or that she would deliberately do anything to steal me away from Mark. Even though her requests and actions were dragging me away from him, I pled with him to understand.

  “Who will help her when she needs help? I can’t just leave her and her children all alone when she feels like killing herself.”

  “She’s not your problem, Sophia. You can’t keep trying to fix her and everyone else. You are everyone’s sucker—you always have been. They call, you jump!”

  In my heart, I knew Mark was right about that part, too. I couldn’t fix Michelle no matter how hard I tried. Leaving my kids and Mark to rescue her was only a temporary fix. I’d be exhausted, and within a few days or weeks, she was down again in another deep bout of depression—one right after another. For quite a while—because of Mark’s insistence, I stopped hanging out with her and quit going over there every time she called. It didn’t stop my constant worries, though. I wondered if I would also be held accountable to God for her death and the horrendous toll it would take on her children if she ended her life.

  *****


  My sister Francine had finally had enough moving, sharing, and sister-wife grief. She left her husband of twenty-seven years, and our sister, Hannah. “There are at least a hundred reasons why I need to leave,” she assured me.

  I knew and understood her reasons quite well. It didn’t matter that I had been her strength through her many trials the past ten or more years, or that I’d listened to her ongoing woes and rescued her from many debilitating physical and emotional traumas. I still felt abandoned and I was disappointed in her decision to leave the gospel, and me. Before the tables turned, it was her unwavering prayers and testimony; her talks of damnation and encouragement; her example of “enduring to the end,” always nudging me back to my own dutiful existence.

  “If we’ll just hold to the straight and narrow path leading to God, there are abundant blessings in store for us, if we qualify,” she would tell me.

  Standing between my bed and closet, I stared at a picture of Francine on my chest of drawers. Right out loud, I proudly looked in the mirror and pronounced to God and Francine, “I will never leave polygamy! No matter how much this way of life hurts and how crazy it makes me feel, I will endure to the end! I will finish what you taught me to do, even if you can’t or won’t!”

  Then I stared at the brave, bold young woman—or that crazy, altruistic mother—in my mirror and said, “Did you hear that, Sophia? Did you hear what you just said? Now you are stuck in this insanity forever, you idiot!”

  *****

  Ever since Mark left for California, Swede had taken my kids and me under his wing, as if we were his very own. He never had any children. To have us involved in his life was as wonderful for him as it was for us. He was a godsend from the first day he brought his shotgun in hand to the front door of our old chicken-coop bungalow, to warn me to keep our dogs locked up. He and I were dear friends. We were like brother and sister, surrogate father and daughter, and he was a grandpa to my children, who adored him.

  Early one early morning at Swede’s house, he told me the same little red Opel we’d been tracking in the car ads had been marked down from $1,200 to $800 within a two-week period. He said, “Come on, Sophia, we’re going to go buy that car right now!” He smiled teasingly. “Besides, I’m getting damn tired of you borrowing my damn truck. I’m not going to have you and your damn kids trailing me around town, having to go every damn place I go!” Then we laughed some more.

  I’d been taught pride was not an honorable feeling. When I didn’t buy into guilt, I discovered another wondrous sense of accomplishment. With the money I earned from extra housekeeping jobs, I paid off my loan for a brand-new Bernina sewing machine, a grain mill, and a Bosch bread mixer. Then I borrowed the $800 from the bank and bought my own little red Opel!

  *****

  In February 1983, Mark made it home in time for the birth of his pretty and petite second daughter. Diane’s lovely baby girl rounded out her family of two girls and two boys.

  It seemed we were adapting to Mark’s short visits. In fact, I’d become so independent, his short visits became somewhat problematic. I always felt like a single mother, whether Mark was around or not. In his two and a half year absence, I was adjusting to our curse or blessing. Since Mark wasn’t there to help or to hinder, in the parenting department, things were more consistent. Whether good or bad, our days and nights had totally become our own.

  Before long, Michelle was back in my life again. She reminded me of all the right things to do and to be. She encouraged me to hang in there with Mark since I was married to such a kind and loving man. I should show him how grateful I was for his efforts, more than I’d ever shown him before. She passed on lessons she’d been taught in Relief Society and meetings, since I had last attended.

  “They’re just things we’ve heard a hundred times over,” she would tell me. “Pray for Mark, Sophia. Behind every good man is a good woman. If he’s not doing what is right, it’s because you aren’t praying hard enough.”

  I wanted to slap her for repeating that compulsory statement, but at the same time I believed in its craziness; so I did what she said. I began to pray as I’d never done before.

  Because I felt like my teenage boys had slipped off the straight and narrow path to God and were making such unwise decisions, I once again enrolled all of my children in The Group's private school. I hoped the influence there would help transform my boys, who were often angry and rebellious, into exemplary young bearers of the priesthood.

  I also decided, as I had so many times before, if I wanted to be the good mother I ought to be, I would rededicate my life to the Lord. I’d get even more involved in church activities and in my religion. And for the hundredth time in my life, I decided if I was doing what I should, I would be happy. By my example, my teenage boys would have to comply and behave themselves.

  One morning after I dropped the boys off at the RCA building, I kept nodding off while driving back down the narrow, winding frontage road toward home. I only have a few more blocks before I’ll be home, I tried to convince myself. Then I can take a nap with Karleen and Jack.

  Suddenly I heard shouting. “Wake up, Sophia! Wake up now!” My eyes opened just in time to see a huge semi-truck swerve to the side of the road. Almost too late, I realized my car had crossed into the oncoming traffic, heading straight in front of the truck and toward the freeway. “I’m awake now!” I called back at my inner voice. I pulled off the road. In tears of gratitude I thanked my soul, my God, for having rescued my children and me many times before. Like a swift kick in the butt, that experience seemed to grant me the fortitude to carry on.

  *****

  One Sunday morning when Mark was home for a weekend visit, I begged him to Sunday school with me. How stupid of me. Of course he wouldn’t go. I got to hear his list of reasons once again. He didn’t need or want to. It wasn’t for him and never would be.

  All four of the boys argued, whined, and complained about getting out of bed and going with me. But then Jake started to vociferously regurgitate his father’s lengthy list of excuses he felt should exempt him and his brothers from attending church as well. As usual, my stomach began to churn. What if Mark heard Jake’s objections all the way into the bedroom? I tried to hush him, reminding him that his dad was home, but it was too late.

  Mark stomped down the hallway into our front room and began to punch Jake. While Jake tried to defend himself, the rest of the kids and I yelled at their dad to stop. He stopped for only a few seconds, shot darts of disgust at me for interfering, and then started in again. He slapped Jake’s head, back, or arms, saying, “Don’t ever talk to your mother like that, you little shit head! When she tells you to do something, you do it! You hear me? Do you hear me, you fucking little shit head? I’m sick and tired of listening to your back talk and mouthing off at your mother!”

  Mark’s face was blood red. To protect himself from his father’s blows, Jake curled himself into a ball. He wrapped his arms across his head and cried.

  Mark carried on, “You hear me, you fucking little asshole? No more back talk, no more—”

  I couldn’t take it any longer. I grabbed Mark’s shoulders to pull him off of Jake. He shoved me backward.

  “You stay out of this, Sophia!”

  He continued to hit Jake’s chest, head, and back while the rest of us begged him to stop. By then, Mark was so enraged and incensed he didn’t even feel my pathetically weak punches trying to knock him over.

  When Mark finally stopped and left the room still raging, I tried to hug Jake, but he pushed me away and covered his face with his sleeves.

  “I hate his guts! I hate him! I hate him,” Jake bellowed as he ran out and slammed the front door.

  With tears streaming down my face, I followed him out the door. “Come back, Jake! Please don’t leave!” I called until he disappeared from my sight.

  I was worried sick. I couldn’t catch my breath, and I wondered if I’d ever hear from Jake again. I decided I would not speak to Mark until Jake returned.


  Meanwhile, as Mark often accused me of doing, I sulked and grieved over his violence toward his son and his family. I searched for Jake for days. I couldn’t sleep at night, wondering where he was and if he was okay. At last, three days later, he came home. He said he’d been in a safe place with a friend, waiting for his dad to go back to California.

  I was still so devastated about Mark’s abuse toward Jake I couldn’t talk to him for days before and after he took his long journey back to work.

  In trying my best to raise my children, I made a million excuses for Mark’s temper, fits of rage, and his consistent verbal and oftentimes overly harsh discipline. Our children had more than their share of mental and physical anguish. They had written notes to their dad and me, saying, “Yes, Dad, you are right. I am a piece of shit, a dumb, lazy ass, a stupid . . . an idiot.” I couldn’t bear to save those devastating letters reiterating the words they’d heard blasted in their direction so many times over the years they could never be counted.

  I’d hold my hysterical, sobbing children in my arms and push their hair out of their eyes and beg them not to be mad at their father who, “…didn’t really mean to hurt you. He’s just had a bad day. He really does love you. Your dad didn’t really mean any of the terrible things he said. He just wants you to . . .”

  I fed my children too damn many reasons and excuses for their father’s bad conduct. In my ignorance and inability to know what to do differently as their mother, I thought my behavior was acceptable, normal, and justified. In that, the kids and I could continue to forgive and forget as we were always told to do.

  A week later, I finally dared make an attempt to get through to Mark.

  “Beating on someone isn’t ever the answer,” I said. All Jake was doing was repeating your words and actions about not wanting to go to church—behaviors he learned from you. His words of rebellion were exactly yours—the ones he’s heard you say to me umpteen times in his young life.”