Teressa’s rebellion invited pressure to marry. Now I see that it was a common practice that a girl who had “problems” with obedience should be married and made pregnant as soon as possible to help pull her from her wicked ways and push her to conform to the FLDS ideal of womanhood. Our mother and some of our older sisters began urging Teressa to “turn herself in to the prophet for marriage,” but true to herself, Teressa refused. In response, my parents coaxed her into a meeting with Uncle Rulon and Warren. During the meeting, my sister sat stubbornly silent, refusing to answer Uncle Rulon’s questions. She’d warned my parents that if they forced her to see the prophet, she wouldn’t speak a word. Offended by her behavior, Warren later ordered her off church- owned land, allowing her only to go to the community in Bountiful, Canada, to work, repent, and learn about her proper role in our society.
Not long after Teressa was sent to Bountiful, my twin brothers Justin and Jacob joined her there. They had continued to question elements of our religion, and in order to prevent the situation with the twins from getting out of control, they too were sent to Canada for reform. As with Teressa, my parents hoped that time away would solidify their beliefs and bring them home more faithful.
The three of them went to work at a church-owned post and pole manufacturing mill in remote Alberta, almost seven hours north of Bountiful. Once there, they were all put to hard manual labor alongside other boys and occasionally a girl or two who had been sent there to reform. “Work them so they can’t find time to get into trouble” was the saying. Their primary task was to turn trees into poles. This was rigorous for all three of them, but especially hard on Teressa in her long prairie-style dresses. Frequently they worked the night shift, even in subzero temperatures; and there was little safety equipment. They received no pay, only room and board.
There was little attempt to hide the purpose of subjecting Teressa to this regimen. The point was to break her spirit by working her into submission. Marriage was dangled in front of her as the only reprieve from the work. It was a battle of wills and they were determined to undermine hers. After many months, Teressa finally gave in and it was announced that she would marry Roy Blackmore, the eighteen-year-old son of my sister Sabrina’s husband and one of his other wives. While it was an unwanted marriage for her, at least her husband would be her age, not to mention the fact that at the time, Teressa wholeheartedly believed Uncle Warren’s prophecies that the end of the world was imminent. Convinced that she was not worthy of eternal salvation, she believed she would have only two years in the marriage before the destruction of the world landed her among the wicked in hell for all eternity.
It had taken the bitter cold of Canada, manual labor, and intense pressures, but finally Teressa had been broken. She was seventeen years old when she got married, and the most beautiful bride I’d ever seen. She had golden blond hair and fiery blue eyes. She was stunning on the surface, but beneath that veneer, I knew she hated that they’d defeated her.
I was only twelve when Teressa was “sealed” in marriage and became a permanent member of the Canadian FLDS community. Being the pesky little sister, I had never been able to have a close relationship with her. I secretly idolized Teressa and wanted to be just like her. Watching her spar with the members of my family, I learned that it was important to stand up for yourself if something was wrong. Though she had eventually given in to marriage, she advocated for her beliefs and her personal rights, even though her opinions went against the church. Her actions were bold and insubordinate, but I was old enough to recognize that there was something admirable in them. I didn’t know it at the time, but seeing Teressa’s defiance through the eyes of an impressionable young sister changed something in me. Only years later would I find out just what that something was.
On July 7, 1999, I celebrated my thirteenth birthday with my family in Salt Lake City, not knowing that it would be the last time that I would ever observe any event with my father.
I was now the oldest girl in the house, and I took on many of the domestic tasks previously performed by Teressa. With no school to attend, I began to do a lot of the cooking and cleaning, often busying myself with chores and the care of my mother’s two youngest daughters, Sherrie and Ally. Many times I lovingly tended to Mother Laura’s little boy, but I had to be careful about the way I treated him. Mother Laura was still playing the role of mother bear and remained highly protective of him. While her behavior could be frustrating, Mom encouraged me to see that Laura’s actions were understandable. She had been the same way with my brother Travis, ultimately quitting her job at Dad’s company so that she could care for him and her other kids during the day.
A sad look came over her eyes, as she no doubt thought of Travis, who wasn’t faring well. His living situation with the other boys who had left the FLDS had eventually deteriorated and become unsustainable. Most of the boys forced out of the community were mere teenagers themselves and had been raised in such a closed community with little real education. While they banded together to help one another, there was little they could do beyond working menial jobs. Finally it got to a breaking point, and when Travis decided he could no longer live like he was, he returned to Salt Lake City for a fresh start. Years of hard work as a member of the FLDS community helped him land a construction job, and he again moved into a house with other former FLDS boys. The move did little to change his fortune, and the hard times that had begun in southern Utah continued back in Salt Lake, leaving him in need of help.
Because he’d left the church in the middle of his “reforming” in Short Creek, he was now labeled an apostate. To be an apostate was even worse than being a gentile. Gentile was the term given to all non- FLDS people, no matter their religion, but an apostate was someone who had lost faith or had left the church, turning their back on the priesthood. Apostates were viewed as one of the worst kinds of evil. FLDS teachings demanded that all members abandon people who choose to apostatize—even members of your own family. The severity of this requirement was such that we had to be extremely careful about our association with our brother. We’d been warned that the punishment would be harsh, but none of us knew exactly what that meant. Still, we were not prepared to abandon a brother and son completely.
After months of being away, Travis became a presence in our lives again, and periodically he would stop by to check in on his younger brothers and sisters. Usually, he would come just to say hello, but he would end up staring at our dinner with hungry eyes. Mom and Dad couldn’t stand to see their child in that condition, and on occasion they would allow him to have a plate of food, despite the risk. No matter how much he was suffering, Travis couldn’t bring himself to ask my dad for help. Mom and I would sneak him care packages during his forbidden visits home. Though it went against the church’s teachings, we couldn’t stand to see him starve.
It was devastating to watch the members of my family being slowly destroyed in the name of our religion. Even as our home life spiraled out of control, Dad continued to hold our annual camping trip and picnics in the mountains in an attempt to recapture the good times we all remembered. But the realities of our situation were glaring, and the absence of so many of my siblings made it hard to enjoy the trips as I had in the past.
The sad truth, as I learned later, was that our family’s struggles were making their way to Uncle Warren’s ear. Mom had again been talking with Rachel in secret, confiding about how my father was not in full control of his family. Rachel naturally took my mother’s side without seeking out my father’s perspective, eventually concluding that Dad was not leading the family correctly and that he had no power over what was going on under his roof. In turn, Rachel often relayed stories to Warren, a practice that grew more frequent after Rulon’s stroke had put our prophet in the backseat while he recovered.
When Rulon Jeffs became the prophet, he expanded the prophet’s role regarding marriage beyond simply revealing who was allowed to marry. Before Uncle Rulon, if a couple was having marital problems, they would be encouraged to handle them on their own, save for serious matters such as adultery and apostasy. Rulon began performing a sort of marriage counseling supposedly aimed at resolving marital conflict, but it was less about solving problems and more about control over husbands and wives.
With his new practice, the prophet became privy to members’ most intimate secrets, and Rulon was not afraid to put this information to