Stolen Innocence: My story of growing up in a polygamous sect, becoming a teenage bride, and breaking free. Elissa Wall

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СКАЧАТЬ was coming and storing food was one way to prepare. It could take several months once we’d settled back on earth after the destructions before we’d again be able to start planting and harvesting our own crops.

      At first, living in the nursery room with my brothers was fun. I was born smack dab in the middle of the younger boys in my family and found myself stuck playing with them much of the time. There were two bunk beds, and we liked to jump back and forth from one to the other. We spent hours doing this or tying sheets across the two beds to make a hammock. As my brothers and I jumped around the room, my ankles would sometimes get caught in the hem of my long dress. Like me, my brothers had restrictions on what they could wear. In order to cover their church undergarments, they wore long-sleeved shirts and long pants, even in summertime. Our wild games made the boys hot and sweaty; they were constantly tugging at their collars in discomfort.

      We were typical, rambunctious kids with lots of energy and not much to do at home all day long. Mom let me read the American Girl doll catalog from time to time, and I dreamed of the day that I might be able to get a Molly doll for myself. Dad provided us with toys to fit his budget, but with so many birthdays in a year, he could not afford a doll so extravagant. Still, our family made a big deal of birthdays. Dad always marked them with a special dinner out or a gift he’d carefully selected, and Mom prepared beautiful hand-decorated cakes. On the months when there was more than one birthday, we’d have one big party with a cake and presents for each child celebrating.

      Dad didn’t allow us to leave the property without an adult, and our school friends lived too far away for frequent visits. With nowhere to go and little to play with, we found sanctuary in the backyard. My brothers and I were always out there, making up games and bickering. Being trapped at home all day forced us to be creative. We’d spend hours playing cowboys and Indians or hide-and-go-seek. On sunny summer days, we would climb high into the branches of the trees around our house and leap out with bedsheets tied to our wrists and ankles, aiming our landings for the big trampoline we positioned to hopefully break our fall. Given the dangerous nature of our play, there were occasional mishaps that would send Mom into a panic, but luckily for us, we got by with a few broken bones and minor scrapes and bruises.

      My sisters were much older than I was, and they rarely included me in their activities. Teressa, who was closest to me in age, was still seven years my senior. I adored her and all my other sisters, and I couldn’t wait until I was old enough to move downstairs with the big kids. Sometimes I’d sneak down to my sister Michelle’s room and slip into bed next to her after everyone went to sleep.

      When I got sick Michelle was always there to take care of me. I’d climb into her bed because Mom’s was often full with some of her other children. Like a lot of FLDS families, we didn’t have private health insurance. My dad didn’t believe in living off the government, so instead of getting Medicaid or food stamps like many members did, we went without coverage. My mother was an herbalist who believed you should use God’s natural remedies before turning to the medical community. Her skeptical view of conventional medicine was shared by most FLDS members, who were quite suspicious of the professional medical community because they were afraid the government was using medicine to spy on people. For this reason, we were also not fully immunized because a suspicion circulated around the community that the government was putting tracking devices in the vaccines, or that they were making the vaccines bad to hurt the people. I rarely went to a doctor or an emergency room as a child, and when I had an ear infection I usually did not have access to antibiotics or other pharmaceuticals. I remember nights when I would cry myself to sleep because my ears hurt so badly.

      By the time I turned five, the financial crunch from the sale of Hydropac was beginning to ease. Dad had found good work as a mining consultant, but the job unfortunately took him away from home to remote mining sites throughout the West.

      My father was somewhat strict and expected a lot from us, but he loved us and we knew it. He would tell us that we could do anything with hard work. Seeing him in the evening was the highlight of our day. We didn’t get to leave the house much, except to attend church on Sundays, so when we heard Dad’s car pull into the driveway, we all raced to greet him in the carport, hoping he would have a stick of gum for us. Dad kept his stash of Big Red cinnamon gum in his Buick Le Sabre and we were crazy about that gum. If we were lucky, sometimes he’d invite us along to the supermarket, where he did all the grocery shopping from a list that his wives would compile.

      Since Dad was often away on business during the week, it was important to him that we spend time as a family on weekends. We would sometimes share quiet evenings in front of the TV, watching Little House on the Prairie or a National Geographic special that Dad deemed appropriate. All the kids would crowd around the TV in the living room to enjoy Saturday-morning cartoons. In college Dad had played football, and he passed his love for the game on to us. On some Saturday mornings, he would take the older children to see his alma mater, Brigham Young University, play football, and when they returned he would recount the game’s best plays to me. I couldn’t wait until I was old enough to go with them. Sadly, religious pressures and new priesthood teachings began to restrict these trips to outside sporting events, labeling them as “worldly” entertainment. By the time I was old enough to attend, our family no longer went. The priesthood expected the members to dedicate their Saturdays to donating labor for the church work projects instead of partaking in family fun. I never got to have my own experience with my dad watching his favorite team play.

      Every summer we enjoyed a one-week vacation in the Uinta Mountains. The endless expanses and quiet solitude gave us a reprieve from our hectic and often chaotic existence. Somehow when we were in the mountains, our problems seemed to dissolve. With room to breathe, we all put our anger aside and remembered what it means to be with family. We had a special campsite there, a big meadow with lots of privacy. Being in the wilderness was the best part of our summers. Since he was a geologist, Dad would teach us about rocks, fossils, plants, and how to be smart in the wild.

      Dad was amazing with a Dutch oven and liked to prepare large breakfasts of pancakes, bacon and eggs, and hot chocolate with mini- marshmallows. After a day enjoying the great outdoors we would have the treat of Dad’s special roast and potatoes for dinner. At night, under a blanket of stars, we’d have big campfires and sing hymns or family songs. My mother has a beautiful voice and my sisters all played violin. Together, they would end the day with the sweet harmony of “Danny Boy,” my Dad’s favorite song. Oftentimes, my dad’s father and stepmother, who were not members of the FLDS, would come on our camping trips. Even though they did not share our lifestyle, Grandma and Grandpa Wall loved us just the same. Mom slept with us in a little pop-up camper, and Dad shared a tent with Mother Audrey. I never thought to question why Dad had two wives and Grandpa Wall didn’t. It was all I knew. Mother Audrey was the “other” mother and that was that. It was never explained. That was just how it was.

      When I was six years old in the fall of 1992, I started the first grade at Alta Academy. My turn had finally come to leave the house for a few hours each day, and I was looking forward to being among my older siblings.

      Alta Academy was a combination school, place of worship, and birthing center for the FLDS people who lived in the Salt Lake Valley. In 1972, with many of his children grown and no longer living at home, Rulon Jeffs had converted his twenty-plus-bedroom white brick residence into a school for FLDS children, moving himself and his wives into a smaller, more elegant Colonial-style house that the people built for him just next door. The school would be called Alta Academy, and it became the center of church life in the Salt Lake Valley. Rulon’s son Warren had just graduated with honors from the local public high school, and Uncle Rulon directed him to serve as Alta Academy’s first principal. To many church members, Warren seemed intelligent and knowledgeable about the church’s religious teachings—the ideal candidate to help mold the young minds of Salt Lake’s FLDS community.

      Uncle Rulon used church donations to fund the conversion of the drafty old house into a school, but much of СКАЧАТЬ