Merril had heard about the storm in Page and knew I was driving home. He’d called my apartment in Cedar and talked to his daughters there, who said I’d left a few hours before. Then he called my parents to see if they had heard from me. No one had. Merril told my dad there had been a lot of accidents on the road. Dad decided to look for me. He had to make his way through the storm, which was still wreaking havoc in the area. He started following the route he thought I’d have taken and spotted Merril’s van in Hurricane, where it had been towed. He was stricken by the sight of the damaged van. He flagged the driver down and asked if he knew what had happened to me. But the driver of the tow truck had no idea of my whereabouts. Ambulances were coming in from everywhere.
My father got back in the car and told my mother that they’d just have to go home and wait for a phone call with news. When my parents got home at midnight, they learned I was safe and had called about an hour before.
The first thing I did when I got home was hold Arthur in my arms. He was now just over a year and nothing on earth was more precious to me than him. The warmth of his small body against mine began to melt some of my awful fear. It took me more than twenty-four hours to feel warm again. But I still didn’t know about my pregnancy. I hadn’t started bleeding, which I thought was a good sign. Maybe, just maybe, the baby had been spared. When I was stranded, I’d prayed and prayed to God to save my baby.
I went back to school and started studying again. College gave me a focus. The days were fine, but I started having terrible nightmares. I would see the steering wheel spinning out of control and feel the van skidding out from under me. The terror was unshakably alive in me.
I stopped driving, but I just didn’t tell anyone about it. I made up excuses about why I didn’t want to drive. In large families, there is always someone who is willing and eager to drive. I was too traumatized, but no one ever suspected the real reason I never drove. There would be times when I had to drive between school and Merril’s house, but they were few and far between. Once I graduated, I never wanted to drive again.
No one knew how hard I had worked for my degree or how much it meant to me. This was my shining moment. Merril and my father came to my graduation but got there late and missed the beginning. I smiled when I walked across the stage to receive my bachelor of science degree. Marriage to Merril had ended my dream of becoming a doctor—he’d never have allowed it. But I was proud that my marriage had not compromised this moment, and I was grateful in the deepest part of my being that my pregnancy had survived the accident.
I wasn’t sure what the future held. Now that I had my degree, I would have to move back to Colorado City and, for the first time since my marriage, live a day-to-day life as Merril Jessop’s fourth wife.
Morning sickness continued to plague me. It finally stopped the day before my daughter was born. Merril came to her birth; thankfully, no one else did. She was a beautiful baby. She weighed seven pounds and was in robust health. I was as exhausted as I was relieved.
Merril was captivated by the baby from the moment he saw her. When she was three weeks old, he decided her name would be Betty. It was his favorite name and he had been waiting to give it to a favorite daughter.
Merril played favorites with his children. It was always clear who they were. A favorite child always had more status over his other children. They were held up and honored before the entire family. It would be years before I realized how exalted Betty’s status would be in our family and how it would impact on our lives.
When she was born on July 2, 1989, I was simply grateful that she was alive and healthy. Now I had a son and a daughter. Arthur had a baby sister. Within my chaotic world, I had an island of love. I was twenty-one years old.
Move Home
A week after I moved home from college, Tammy and I sat down for a long talk. In nearly four years of marriage, I’d grown closer to Tammy than any of the other wives. Tammy played both sides of the family. She’d flatter Barbara and Merril but often used her power to protect others. In the early years of my marriage her backstabbing was kept to a minimum.
Merril had always been financially stable, but a dispute with the state over land he leased for a gravel business that was not resolved in his favor sent him into a financial crisis. He was hit with a $90,000 fine, which left him on the verge of bankruptcy. The repercussions for our family were terrible.
We were no longer able to participate in the community’s barter system because of Merril’s financial problems. We had been trading cement credit for goods, but lost that purchasing power when Merril was no longer able to provide cement because of his company’s problems.
We paid cash for everything. But there wasn’t enough of it. Merril gave us only a hundred dollars a week to purchase food for a family of six wives and thirty children who were eating at home. (At this point he had ten more children who were married and gone.) Tammy and I were now doing most of the family shopping. Merril’s daughters were only too glad to let us take over the chore. Everyone else in the family would give us their lists of personal items, from shampoo to toothpaste. But we didn’t have enough money to feed the family, let alone purchase extras.
Tammy and I talked about the chaos that had engulfed the household. It had always been bad, but now that we were hungry it was worse. Merril’s teenage daughters, those fabled nusses, were not living fairy-tale lives. Instead they were Cinderellas who were forced to stay at home cooking, cleaning, and babysitting.
They were sullen and resentful. They were also responsible for making the meals, baking bread for the family, doing most of the children’s laundry, and washing all the dishes. What compounded their hostility was that when Merril came home with Barbara on weekends he’d gather his wives around him for a steak dinner. He basked in our adoring attention while we sipped red wine. None of us ever drank more than two glasses—some, barely a half—but it was still a treat.
Drinking alcohol was a point of departure between the Mormon Church and the FLDS. There is a principle in the faith called the “word of wisdom” that bans all alcoholic beverages and hot drinks. I was taught as a child that the mainstream Mormon Church did not start adhering to the “word of wisdom” until after it renounced polygamy and celestial marriage. Those of us adhering to the tenets of the FLDS practiced the older beliefs and felt following the “word of wisdom” was optional. Many of us in the fundamentalist faith drank coffee, tea, beer, and wine, all of which is strictly forbidden in mainstream Mormonism.
The only way Merril’s daughters could express their resentment over being treated like maids was in the careless way they did their work. The house was cleaned sporadically; most of the time it was filthy. The dishes usually got done because one of the wives would get so fed up she’d do them herself. We rarely had enough bread because they never baked enough. With nearly twenty children in grade school and younger, it was almost impossible to keep up with the laundry. It had to be done on a schedule. But that never happened. The children’s bedrooms were a mess. Dirty clothes were strewn everywhere. The house looked like the dumping ground it was.
Despite her pandering to Merril and Barbara, Tammy hated the chaos we dealt with every day. We decided to tackle what we could to bring more order to our lives. “I like to get up in the morning,” Tammy said. “I’m usually up by five, so there is no reason why I can’t fix breakfast every day. I can also bake a batch of bread the night before. When there is no bread in the house, it feels like there’s nothing to eat. While I’m waiting for the bread I’ll mop the kitchen floor.”
“The thing that is driving me crazy is dinner,” I said. “The babies are crying and I can’t feed them because someone is cooking dinner in the kitchen and won’t let the babies be fed until that’s finished. We never eat until after eight and sometimes not until midnight, which is unacceptable.” I wasn’t eager to take on the responsibility, but said I’d make dinner every night.
We still had the issue of money. There simply wasn’t enough cash.
Tammy and I decided to triage the shopping list and purge it of all personal items. People would have to go without. We had children still in diapers, which took a big bite out of our budget.
I planted a huge garden that summer and we managed to eat every meal from its harvest. We bought flour for bread and had some beans in the cellar, bottled vegetables, and fruit. But despite our best efforts, the tension at home because of sheer want kept building.
Rather than appreciating our efforts, Merril and Barbara were offended. Merril made it clear that Tammy and I should have checked with Barbara before we implemented changes in the daily household routine. Merril once refused to eat dinner because I hadn’t checked with Barbara before preparing it. I could not believe the ego of that man.
I didn’t think of him as my husband, a gift from God. I thought of him as “that man,” an egocentric bully whom I had been forced to marry, someone who had control over my life and my body. I hated depending on him financially. I still believed in my religion, but I knew Merril wasn’t following it the way he should. I knew the way he treated me and his other five wives was wrong, and yet he was a powerful man in the FLDS. I felt frustrated and confused.
The breaking point came after a few months of running on empty. We had been out of things such as shampoo, toothpaste, and soap for weeks. Once winter came and the garden froze, the only food we had left in the house was cracked wheat, which we ate for breakfast, and the makings of tomato sandwiches, which we had for lunch and dinner. We’d picked the green tomatoes just before the frost and let them ripen in buckets. Every day we’d sort through them looking for some that were ripe enough to eat. I thought that once Merril realized we couldn’t feed ourselves from the garden now that it had frozen he’d be more attentive to the family. I was wrong.
Merril and Barbara were still living large in Page. Whatever money Merril did make fueled their lifestyles and appetite for dining out and drinking wine. Barbara never had to scrimp or save. Barbara was so selfish, I thought she probably enjoyed eating in fancy restaurants while we were struggling at home.
I was nursing Betty but very worried about Arthur. He was losing weight from lack of food. I also feared that if I didn’t get enough to eat I’d be unable to produce enough breast milk for Betty. I knew there was absolutely no money for formula.
When Merril came home that November we had been in a deteriorating crisis for two months and our food supply was dwindling. Merril called all six wives into his office for a meeting. He decreed that only Barbara could implement changes in family policies or assign jobs. Merril was enthusiastic in explaining that now Barbara would preside over every detail of family life.
“I have one question,” I said when Merril finished. “How can every one of us check in with Barbara before we tie our shoes if she’s rarely at home? I need to understand how this is going to work at a practical level.”
Merril’s neck reddened and his face hardened. He was angry and started scolding me for questioning his decision. Merril hated to be challenged.
None of the other wives spoke. But I knew they were as fed up with the abuse and degradation as I was.
When Merril finished his tirade against me I looked at him and said, “Well, maybe since all there is to eat in this house are tomato sandwiches I will call Barbara while she’s eating a steak dinner with you and ask her for permission to make tomato sandwiches for dinner. That way everything can be done just the way she wants it.”
If Merril had a gun he would have aimed it at me. I was scared of him, but I’d been pushed to the point where I didn’t care. Merril was seething. “Don’t you accuse me! You act like a tomato sandwich isn’t something that is good to eat!”
I’d touched the untouchable and spoken the unspeakable. They were feasting while we were nearly starving.
Everyone else in the room was so quiet I thought they were holding their breath. I was undeterred. I rarely stood up to Merril or Barbara, but when I was pushed too far, I had no fear of confronting them. I was fed up with their cruelty and constant put-downs. Merril’s other wives would complain once in a while, but he always belittled them and made it so painful they were disinclined to do it again. I think what was starting to crack open in me was my authentic self. I had been in survival mode. In a cult, you have two identities: your cult identity and your authentic self. Most of the time I operated from my cult identity, which was pliant, submissive, and obedient. But when I was pushed to the point where it felt like my survival was at stake, my authentic self came to the fore. The worse life became in Merril’s family, the more confidence I found in my authentic self.
In a steady and sure voice I said to Merril, “If tomato sandwiches are so wonderful, then why aren’t you and Barbara eating them for lunch and dinner like the rest of us?”
That was the shout that brought down the avalanche. The other women piled on in what became known as “the famous tomato sandwich fight.” My courage enabled the other women to find their own. They told Merril how unfair it felt to them to turn over whatever income they had and not receive anything in return. Their children were hungry, and they were, too. How could we be asked to sacrifice while Barbara and Merril lived like royalty? Barbara looked appalled and disgusted by what we were saying but let Merril do the talking.
Several wives complained that most of the young children in the home were Barbara’s and that she needed to be more engaged in raising them. In short, she needed to start acting like their mother. Cathleen said she was finished combing out the long, tangled hair of Barbara’s daughters before school each morning. Tammy demanded to know why Barbara only gave orders and never did anything to help around the house. We made it clear that she was not a good example for the rest of the wives.
Barbara started crying when she came under attack from the rest of us, and got up and left. Merril was incensed and scolded us for humiliating her.
He berated us for quite a while until we all just stopped talking. Finally he demanded to know what we thought the answers were if we weren’t going to do what he wanted us to. We said we had to have money to feed the kids and we couldn’t go on indefinitely without being able to buy personal items. Merril finally agreed to give us more money for groceries, but he made it clear that we’d be paying a price down the road for what we had done. His threat was meaningless, however. Merril knew he had pushed us too far; he also knew we needed money to live.
Our morale improved when we were able to buy food again. Sometimes we’d get money for personal items, but often not. It became a running joke among us.
I knew Merril was terribly angry at me for sparking the insurrection. I also knew that he held grudges and when the right moment came he’d lash out at me. I wasn’t proud of what I’d done. We had been reduced to fighting for food. I thought it was completely hypocritical that Merril would let a large family like ours go hungry while he and Barbara were indulging themselves in Page.
I had been substitute-teaching for four months when a permanent job opened up teaching sixth grade. The following year I was transferred to the second grade. There were other, more qualified teachers on the list for openings, but I got it because of Merril’s high standing with the prophet, which was derived from his father’s prominence. His father, who was known as Uncle Rich, was the apostle who was next in line to the prophet.
I loved finally having my own classroom. It was the one and only place in my life where I was in control of my environment on a daily basis. But I hated leaving my children at home in mediocre care. Merril’s teenage daughters were watching Arthur and Betty, but I knew their hearts weren’t in it. Worse still, Merril’s daughters treated my children as second-class citizens, and that upset me. The girls were often belligerent when I asked them something about Betty and Arthur, which increased the anxiety I felt about the overall situation.
Merril had several older daughters—former nusses—who were my age and still unmarried in their early twenties. Tension was building in FLDS communities in Colorado City, Hildale,
Salt Lake, and Canada because there were so many girls who were getting older and were still unmarried. The prophet usually arranged hundreds of marriages for girls every year. But when Uncle Rulon became head of the FLDS he fell behind in arranging marriages. Part of the problem was that he’d always lived in Salt Lake City and didn’t know most of the families who lived in Colorado City and Hildale.
Parents feared that if their daughters weren’t assigned in marriage they would begin to think that they could choose someone for themselves. When complaints were made to Uncle Rulon, he told fathers to place their daughters in marriages themselves. We all knew this was what was happening, but no one spoke of it because it was against the precepts of the FLDS. A man could receive revelations from God about his family, but only the prophet received divine revelations about matchmaking.
Merril took several of his wives with him to Salt Lake City when he went for the priesthood meeting on the third weekend of the month. Tammy and I were sharing a hotel room. The night of the priesthood meeting she came into our room in a daze. Tammy sat on the bed and stared at the wall, trancelike.
“Tammy, is something wrong?” I asked.
She walked over to a table and cradled her head in her hands. A few moments later she pounded her fist on the table. “Yes! There’s something wrong and I’m a bad person for feeling this way.”
I was perplexed and could not imagine what might have happened.
Tammy turned to me with tears streaming down her face. Uncle Rulon had just married Bonnie, who was Barbara and Ruth’s little sister. Bonnie was in her early twenties; Uncle Rulon was in his early eighties.