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

  The first glance led me to believe the woman in the duplicate pictures wasn’t me. I had never before seen Sophia in the reflection of my mirror as I saw her in those photos. I was stunned by her deep blue, sensitive eyes. They held compassion for the Sophia of years gone by. I saw the pretty woman Mark and others had asserted—one I never recognized before.

  I was a forty-year-old woman the first time I allowed myself the gift of physical acceptance. The woman in the pictures was the beautiful woman I was learning to love, honor, and appreciate. In her, I could see and feel her love for life, others, and me, clear to the depths of her soul. Tears of overwhelming gratitude and wonder traveled down my cheeks, into my mouth, and onto my lap. My soul reminded me she’d believed and trusted in me when I felt no one else did.

  Looking back, I’m reminded of the constant opportunities my soul was giving me to learn. The principal’s demand felt rude and demeaning, yet having my picture taken turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

  *****

  Dad entered Mom’s kitchen, where she and I had been visiting. “Oh, dear, my troublemaker is over here again!” he said, sounding frustrated and cynical. He filled his glass with water, plucked an apple from the fridge, and went back to his headquarters which consumed all of my mother’s living-room space. A few years previous to this, Dad had allowed Mom to move back upstairs—this time on the south end of the fourplex, after one of his wives passed away.

  We ignored Dad and kept gabbing while we ate Mom’s delicious tuna salad, thickly spread on whole-wheat toast.

  “Mom,” I said, “in Leviticus 19:18 it says, ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself.’ Well, you’ve probably quoted that one to me at least a million Allred-exaggerating times in my life. What do you think those words really mean?”

  “Well . . .” Mom hemmed and hawed for several moments. “I guess it means, uh . . . well, it means to treat other people at least as good as or better than you would treat yourself.”

  “That’s exactly what I thought you might say, Mom. So how is it you can truly love your neighbor as yourself, if you don’t love yourself?”

  I waited a few seconds before I pointed at her and then myself. “You and me. We have to come first! You learned it backwards, and then I believe you taught it to me backwards. It’s supposed to be the other way around.”

  “I guess I’ve never thought of it that way,” Mom said.

  “Before you die, Mom, I’d love it if you learned to love yourself as I am finally learning to love myself. It’s really the right thing to do, you know. Believe me, God wants us to love ourselves first. In fact it’s necessary! Every day I am finding the more I genuinely love myself, the more capacity I have to love and to offer others.”

  Mom looked at me sadly.

  Changing those concepts was as difficult as learning a new language. All of our lives we’d been taught one way. We were to think, believe, and act the same: one thought, one mind, one straight and narrow path to the kingdom of God. That was pretty much it. If we obeyed, we might make it there someday. Asking my seventy-five-year-old mother to learn something outside of her fundamentalist box was like asking her to forget the English language and start speaking Latin. Still, her heart was open to my ideas because she saw tremendous changes in my life.

  “Sophia, you have a glimmering, bright light shining through your eyes every time I’ve seen you lately,” Mom told me excitedly. “It’s like something wonderful has happened to you and you’re coming alive. I don’t see any signs of the depression you were feeling. What is going on?”

  My new, positive attitude was starting to show as I took what felt like baby steps to happiness. This emerging insight and outlook were sometimes too freaky for those who knew me—my friends, family, and children. Either I was ostracized and called a weirdo, or I was described as full of the Spirit of the Lord—or the devil, depending on who was speaking.

  I was so grateful Mom wanted the kind of happiness and energy I was discovering. It was something she’d seldom felt or claimed as her own.

  “It's okay,” I continued. “Don’t be sad now. It’s not your fault you believed it wasn’t good to love yourself. It’s what you were taught by your parents, so you wanted us to believe.”

  Immediately Mom’s cheeks turned bright red, and she looked like she might cry. Her chest heaved up and down until I worried she might explode with emotion.

  “How can I ever love myself, Sophia? I have such a profound hatred for myself, sometimes I can hardly bear it. I’ve always felt it there—it won’t go away!”

  Mom pressed her palms to her forehead.

  “My father always hated me!” she cried out. “He always treated me worse than garbage. He never had one kind word to say to me, not one. As hard as I try, I can’t remember one kind word that ever came out of his mouth about me. I always wondered why.” My precious mother began to gasp for air, as I cried with her. “Why? Why did he hate me so much?”

  For a few more minutes, mother spoke about some of the falsehoods and garbage she had embraced her whole life. “My dad always put me down! Even as an adult I could never please him. He hated me. He . . .”

  Her grief and tears turned her words to mumbling before she started to choke. She drank some more of her water and then grabbed a handful of tissues from the box on the table. She balled up the soft paper, blotted her eyes, and blew her nose.

  Before I realized what was happening, Mom got quiet. I was sure she could hear her dead father’s voice yelling in her head, “Keep sweet, Vera! Keep the Spirit of the Lord. It’s a matter of life and death!”

  Mom swallowed hard, took in several long deep breaths, and then muttered, “I’m so sorry, Sophia, I have no right to talk about my father that way. He was a good man. I know I shouldn’t ever bring up the past. All it does is cause trouble and hurts me and others even more.”

  “I know it hurts to talk about it, but the more you do, the sooner the pain starts to dissipate and go away. Talk about it as many times as it takes to eradicate the heartache you’ve held inside all these years. Then you learn you are worthy of love from yourself, your dad, and everyone.”

  Mom wiped her eyes and face. She looked around the corner to see if Dad was nearby, and then she whispered insistently. “Your dad says we shouldn’t live in the past. The past is done and gone.”

  “That’s just my point, Mom. As long as that sickening garbage is inside of you—and it is—you are living in the past! It’s not healthy to keep shoving it back down by claiming you’ll lose the Spirit of the Lord. What you hold inside becomes poisonous. You have to purge it, so you can heal.”

  I put my arm around Mom’s shoulder. When Dad came around the corner he looked at her swollen, red eyes. Then he looked at me in anger.

  “You see, Sophia?” he snapped. “Every time you come over here lately you get your mom all riled up over something or other! Then she gets all upset or mad at me and I have to deal with it.”

  “You don’t understand,” I tried to explain before he was off, sidestepping us again.

  My father didn’t have the courage or know-how to deal with Mother’s heartache and guilt. All he knew how to do was persuade her to keep the lid on tight and pretend there was nothing brewing. It was much easier for him, and the rest of us polygamists, to move into a realm of make-believe. There couldn’t possibly be any real problems or troubles in the prophet’s plural kingdom! Outbursts by any one of his nine beautiful, perfect, sweet wives were trivial. And they knew they should deal with their sins of the flesh by more fasting and praying—more pleading with God to take away any feelings that weren’t conducive to godhood. With my father’s wives trying to handle their own issues, he could be encouraging his church members to bury their never-ending issues, and get on with life. With most of them he would have a say, and with the majority he would surely be heard.

  Just before I left, I said to Mom,

  “Ever since Dad became Uncle Rulon’s right-hand-man and then The Group’s leader, most
of us kids have no longer had a dad. When I was a little girl he’d hold me on his lap and rub my cheeks with his whiskers and tell me how much he adored my dainty little neck. I miss the times when our family was smaller. Dad only had fifteen kids’ names to try to remember back then. Now he doesn’t know who I am, and he doesn’t seem to care.”

  Mom tried to cover him with her usual cloak of charity, like we were all supposed to do. “You know his calling as our prophet takes precedence. He has to—”

  I knew where she was going. I’d heard it a thousand times and had explained it too many times to my own children. As I walked away I told Mom, “Just because Dad’s calling is God’s will, it doesn’t give our dad back to us, nor does it stop the longing.”

  On the back road toward home, I started to giggle. I realized my dad did know something about me. Since I started wearing a little makeup and was the first girl in The Group to get my ears pierced, Dad knew me as his daughter who wore “Indian war paint” and “fishing lures for earrings.” At least I had a distinction from his other fifty-plus adopted and biological kids! And it was truly an honor to have a title, even if it was Troublemaker.

  CHAPTER 37

  Religious Perpetrators

  1992–1993

  Nothing turns my stomach or tears me apart more than the mistreatment of children. Everyone, it seemed, either knew or believed that Gregory Maynard had committed and allowed horrendous acts against women and children. We were haunted and sickened by such despicable and criminal behaviors, and wondered why Maynard had been able to be an abuser for so long.

  Now, the other man on the priesthood council whom I had despised my entire life, Jon Thomas, was also accused of vicious and terrible acts. The story going around was that he had raped and molested some of his own children, as well as many others outside his family over the last twenty-plus years.

  Shortly after this horrific news, and while I was caring for my aging mother, I was jolted awake by my father’s loud, haunting cries. I crept out of bed, trying not to wake Mom, shut the bedroom door behind me, and tiptoed down the hallway toward the kitchen. I heard Dad’s tormented, drawled-out words.

  “She tried to scream, but . . . and then he threatened again . . . to kill . . .” Dad stammered between his sobs. I peeked around the corner. He was crouched over his old black tape recorder in front of him on the kitchen table. “My dear God . . . Oh dear God!” he cried out. “What have we done? What have we done?”

  My father’s body trembled in horror.

  When he mentioned the name Laura, I felt faint and nauseous. I realized Dad was recording a journal entry and I wasn’t supposed to hear it. But I was riveted.

  My father tried again to compose himself and speak clearly. “She told me when he withdrew his bloody penis he pointed to the huge knife by the side of the bed and once again warned her she would be killed if she ever told anyone.”

  This was only a portion of Laura’s account of her father’s monstrous deeds. Her father was Jon Thomas.

  My remorse was unbearable. I felt extremely dizzy and fought to keep my breathing under control. Then my legs collapsed underneath me, and my head hit the wall and then the floor.

  Suddenly Dad was sitting next to me. He pulled my limp body to his chest and leaned against the wall. We both sobbed for a while. My body was boiling over with anger at Jon, and compassion for Laura. I was sure the pain would devour my heart.

  Through blurry eyes, I saw my mother leaning on the wall next to her door with tears welling in her eyes. Then without warning, my forsaken, dejected little girl and young woman who had never been respected enough to be listened to finally let go of her rage.

  “I told you I’ve known ever since I first saw Jon Thomas when I was just a young girl he was a creep! Even then I felt he was looking through my clothes. His presence always made me feel sick. I told you it was nearly impossible for me to sit through his monotone, tedious, sanctimonious sermons while feeling something was evil about him. Mark and I both knew something wasn’t right. We felt the same with Gregory Maynard. But who are we? Just stupid, idiot peons! Our complaints and opinions held absolutely no value to you or to Mom! No, something was defective about us. You once told me Jon had a few problems, and the brethren had to call him to repentance for going over their heads. ‘Oh, but don’t worry Sophia, it’s nothing serious you should fret about. Pray to have an understanding spirit, to help soften your heart toward Jon. We don’t always know or understand what it is we feel. But we know he is a man of God.’ You taught me to ‘listen to the still small voice’ of the Holy Ghost. Then you told me not to!”

  While Dad listened to me, tears continued to stream down his pale cheeks. For a long moment, he stared back at me through red eyes. Then he dropped his head and shook it from side to side.

  “I just don’t know, Sophia. I just don’t know anymore.”

  “Dad, if Mark and I—just dumb little peons in The Group—had this witness, then why didn’t you, and Uncle Rulon, as prophets? Why did Joseph Musser call Jon Thomas in the first place? Why would God ever ‘call’ vile abusers to be His ‘chosen’ people’s leaders? You believe those men were called in the name of God, right? And all of you—including the council members—upheld, defended, sustained, and harbored those two evil men, and believe me, there are still more evil perverts in The Group, yet to be discovered.”

  *****

  In my childhood, I endured only a minimal amount of terror, sexual, physical, and verbal abuse as compared to so many children in polygamous families. Though my own memories haunted me, my greatest anguish was for Laura, after hearing Dad talk about some of the barbarities she’d suffered from her own father.

  I remembered with agonizing clarity, years before at girls’ camp, when she had awakened us with her bloodcurdling screams and fits of terror. She couldn’t tell a soul what was wrong, fearing she or someone else would be killed. She had no way, no words, no clue how to plead for help and safety. In my ignorance, I believed the opinions of my parents and others over my soul’s warnings. I was told I was the one with the “evil” attitudes toward Jon and Gregory. It was I who was told to pray for help and understanding. But the reality was I hadn’t learned to honor my soul above everyone else, and I let Laura’s despicable father take her away into the night.

  “As if you could have stopped him, Sophia,” my therapist told me a few weeks after I heard Dad’s recording. “You need to forgive yourself for not knowing what to do differently. None of you were taught how to defend yourselves or anyone else! No one, even in your own family, noticed your subconscious disappearances as something to be wary of. And even when many of the victims themselves continued to tell their own parents about the abuses, they weren’t believed by those who should have made a difference.”

  For many days and nights I continued to feel a sense of responsibility and remorse beyond description. If only I could have known what to do, maybe I might have made a difference for Laura and others. I had to make amends. I sent a long letter, asking her to please forgive me, as I was working on forgiving myself.

  Beautiful, courageous Laura said she had nothing to forgive me for. With love, she encouraged me to get my own forgiving done very soon.

  I was breaking the Fundamentalist, womanly, sister-wife rules of servitude and obedience. I was no longer adhering to the creed of, “therein holds my womanly virtue and value.” Jon Thomas’s countless sermons about our womanly duties—of blind obedience to our husbands and priesthood leaders—made me sick enough to vomit. I was thankful I’d already begun to honor my soul.

  For years, we’d heard of all sorts of promises and blessings, including more plural wives and endowments for “worthy” recipients. While in reality, those “approbations” were quite often given to those who were good at “kissing up” and winning spiritual “brownie points.” They were for abusers, adulterers, men who were laundering money, embezzling tithing funds, trading daughters, and marrying relatives. Those “gifts” went to men who
already had more children and wives than they could or would financially or emotionally sustain. The blessings had been and were still for all of the Jons and Gregorys who had been sheltered and protected under the auspices of religious piety and kinship.

  My list of reasons to leave Fundamentalist Mormonism had become longer and more valid than my motives for staying. I’d begun to see the numerous flaws in a religion said to be perfect; I was beginning to discover and honor my soul’s integrity; and lastly, I was discovering the meaning of real happiness.

  For too many years, I’d observed the mostly unhappy, but righteous loved ones all around me. I noted too many broken and changed rules, deceptions, and lies. In the end, it was the false God of my fundamentalist religion who had called Gregory and Jon to be leaders, and it was their sadistic behaviors that finally spurred me to completely abandon the God of Fundamental Mormon beliefs.

  How could I trust the God of my childhood who “called” those evil men as council members?

  My childhood soul had spoken the truth to me since I was tiny. My adult soul saved the lives of my children and me. She honored, loved, and valued me. Even as a child my soul whispered in my ears to tell me I was valuable and good when no one else did. My soul was always truthful. When I listened to her rather than to my people-pleasing ego or the good intentions of the Samaritans in my life, my soul prodded me in the right direction. She awarded me with love, truth, and happiness. She knew where I’d been and where I needed and wanted to go. My goddess soul would be the God I would trust—at least for the present time.

  I’d spent too many years of anguish, watching myself and others constantly fail a life fraught with impossible rules, and laden with bribes and threats. I decided to choose heaven. I quit attending church meetings on a regular basis. Without the constant coercion for blessings we could never earn, and the fear of damnation expounded from the pulpit, Sundays with my family became mellow, joyous, and rewarding.