Stolen Innocence (15 page)

All that changed with one word from Fred. While it was not against school policy to talk to members of the opposite sex, Uncle Fred insisted that the principal, an FLDS member, suspend me. Suddenly I was cut off from the few friends I had. With a fresh feeling of betrayal and anger, I later confronted my stepsister, and though she denied what she had done, I knew better. With that incident, it became clear that all the things I had appreciated about my new school were fleeting. The priesthood wielded just as much power in the public school as it had at Alta Academy. No matter where I was, Uncle Warren and the FLDS Church permeated every aspect of my life.

When I finally returned to school, I could never speak to Austin again. Everybody was watching us to make sure we had no further contact. In spite of this, I still tried to maintain friendships with the girls and boys in my grade. One of my science teacher’s sons Steven and I had been friends that year, and after I returned from my suspension, he along with my two friends Natalie and Lea were the few kids who did not make comments about my absence.

B
rad had been struggling ever since we arrived in Hildale, and without the twins for support, every day seemed to grow harder for him. In an attempt to lift his spirits, Dad had sent him the four-wheeler he’d bought for him when he was in Salt Lake, along with our belongings, and Brad had happily parked it in the rear lot of Fred’s house. But a few days after it arrived, Brad woke up to find that Uncle Fred had confiscated it. Although many people in the Creek, including some in Uncle Fred’s own family, had ATVs, Fred took Brad’s without even speaking to him about it. It seemed he wanted to punish Brad for any trouble that Fred felt he’d caused. Despite Brad’s petition to have it returned, Fred was immovable on the subject.

This was the last straw for Brad, who had been a constant target of Uncle Fred’s scrutiny since his arrival. It all started when Fred singled Brad out for not adhering to the dress code. The long-sleeved knit pullovers that Brad wore over his church undergarments were frowned upon by church elders, who wanted only button-down shirts for the men. Brad’s looser-fitting pants were also outside the limits of acceptable garments and earned him repeated scoffs from Uncle Fred. His clothes weren’t the only problem though; his attitude also began to get him in trouble. He refused to call Uncle Fred “Father,” or accept him as such, and he started to skip family gatherings. When he was at home, he stayed in his room and listened to unapproved music with Caleb. Whenever I could, I would sneak into their room and join them to hear some of the forbidden CDs.

With so few Wall children together, we had all grown close, however, after the confiscation of Brad’s four-wheeler, we knew deep down that our time together was about to end. When Brad learned what Fred had done, he was furious. The ATV had been the only thing he had left from our true father.

Mom did what she could to hold on to the last two sons she had with her. She would beg and plead with them to read passages from the Book of Mormon and other church teachings, telling them it would help them to understand their mission. She promised to help them find the way by praying for them, but Brad was sixteen and his inner voice was taking him in another direction. He refused to conform to Uncle Fred’s design, and from that point forward things only got worse for him.

One day when I was in his room, several police officers who were members of the FLDS broke the door down and began a “professional” search of his belongings. Supposedly, they were looking for firearms that he was “rumored” to have in his possession, but we all knew that they were searching for anything that could get him into trouble. Despite the authority they had over me, I was furious at the intrusion, and I nervously watched as they ransacked the room, eventually confiscating a small TV my brother had secretly purchased from a kid at school, his CD player, a handful of his “forbidden” CDs, and some sketches he had made of a motorbike.

Uncle Fred’s fingerprints were all over the search, and we all knew it from the moment the police showed up at the door. With the evidence found in Brad’s room, the church elders became convinced that he was in need of reform and decided to send him to Canada.

Having heard the twins talk about their experience in Canada, Brad knew that it was not a place he wanted to go. Not only was the work site in a remote location in Alberta, but he would be living in a portable trailer with other “fallen” kids and few of the comforts of home. With temperatures often dipping as low as twenty-five degrees below zero and much of the work being done outside, Brad would need a strong will and a passion for the priesthood that he simply didn’t possess. He was fed up with the church and those who led it, and he knew that he had to find a way out. The only question was how.

Against his will, he began the long drive up to Canada with the priesthood men in charge of him. They stopped to spend the night at a hotel in Salt Lake City, and not missing a beat, Brad saw his opportunity. With his guardians sleeping nearby, he silently tossed his belongings out of the window, then jumped out after them, landing in a heap on the cold, hard ground. From a pay phone, he called our brother Travis for help.

Over the next few days, they tracked Brad to Dad’s house and Warren himself tried to convince him to come back to Hildale. When he refused, Dad received a call from a church leader, stating that he should take care of Brad and the twins, and that my mother would take care of the girls and Caleb. It was one of the few times that the priesthood had split up children in this fashion.

Brad’s absence hit me incredibly hard, leaving me with an emptiness that I struggled to conceal. As if losing another brother wasn’t bad enough, the school that I had come to love so much underwent a change. Shortly before Brad’s escape, I graduated from the eighth grade, but sadly that marked the end of my public school career and signified the last time I’d see many of the friends I’d made there. All year I’d looked forward to my first-ever graduation ceremony. This would be the first time I’d ever be recognized for having completed something. Standing among my friends in the school auditorium in the beautiful lavender dress my sister had helped me sew, I felt such a sense of accomplishment. Mom had even bought me a corsage at the local florist—another first—and I was so excited to pin it on.

The occasion proved bittersweet. I’d finally found an outlet for my inner struggles in learning, and my inclination toward science had gotten me thinking in new directions. Suddenly dreams I had never had began to fill my mind. For the first time, I felt that I had the power to shape my own destiny, that everything wasn’t predetermined for me. All I had to do was continue to excel at school, and I might be able to reach my goals and chart my own course.

But Uncle Warren would crush this dream, too. That summer, he stood up in church and told the people that they needed to take their children out of the public schools. “The time is short,” he said from the pulpit. “The prophet has directed the people to pull your children out of the schools of the world and start priesthood school.”

He’d already commanded the FLDS people to separate themselves from apostates, warning that anyone caught associating with them would be dealt with severely. Now his directive to pull the children from the schools resulted in the closing of the Colorado City Unified School District and a huge loss of jobs and income for many in the community. There had been more than a thousand students enrolled at the time I arrived, but that number dropped to just a handful in the days following Uncle Warren’s decree.

Of course, Warren started his own private school in Hildale, and enrollment was coveted. It seemed that only the very righteous were admitted. There was also a school run by Fred Jessop called Uzona Home School, as well as several other private schools organized by various local families. As one of Fred Jessop’s children, I would be attending his school, which, oddly enough, he opened in the building that had housed my junior high the year before. Many former teachers from the public school would now work for Uncle Fred, mostly on a volunteer basis, as is expected of FLDS members. At the public schools, the teachers had been salaried and their families were dependent on that income. Though monetary donations to the private schools were encouraged and spread among the teachers, the money was rarely enough to make up for the loss of the salaries.

In order to make sure that no one broke his ban on the public school, Uncle Rulon, through a speech delivered by Warren, stopped virtually all contact between the FLDS people and outsiders. Uncle Warren said that our prophet’s call was “Leave apostates alone, severely.” We were told that the prophet would lose confidence in anyone who associated with apostates. Those who lost that confidence would lose their family and home—both of which were the property of the priesthood. Warren made it clear that the prophet “means business.”

That summer we celebrated Mom’s fiftieth birthday and I turned fourteen, but I found it difficult to rejoice in either event. Our lives were growing more restricted by the week. Everything had become unpredictable, and all that appeared certain about our future was that it would hold more rules, warnings, and fears. Turbulence was spreading, and it was just a matter of time before it came to my bedroom door.

C
HAPTER
N
INE

A REVELATION IS MADE

For his [the prophet’s] word, ye shall receive as if from mine own mouth.

—
D.C. SECT.
21

I
n August 2000, I started the ninth grade at the Uzona Home School, and it was a massive disappointment. For one thing, everyone there was FLDS, and that familiar conformity was frustrating. The curriculum at Uzona also had a stunting effect. With the focus back on religion as it had been at Alta Academy, I realized I would not be able to continue the many subjects I had come to love. Public school had been filled with possibility, but here I felt claustrophobic, knowing that it would never help me to learn in the way that I needed.

Almost from day one, I was on my own a lot at Fred Jessop’s school. None of the friends I’d made at the public school had enrolled here, and starting over was not easy. At home, I didn’t fare much better, as many of the other girls my age continued to treat me poorly. While there were some kind ones who were also suffering from poor treatment by the other girls, the emotional difficulties we were all experiencing made it a challenge for us to really connect and rely on one another. As a result, we all had to fend for ourselves.

This lack of acceptance led me to spend most of my time in my room with my mother, Sherrie, and Ally. The isolation was hard to tolerate, but it gave me a chance to support my two younger sisters. In their short lives, they had been through an amazing amount of hardship and confusion watching our family struggle. Though I hoped that their age had insulated them from the difficulties of the past four years, I understood the hurdles that they would face as they tried to come to terms with our family’s past and shaky future. In response, I had a sort of idealized vision that if I could be there for them, if we could lean on one another to make a close-knit little group within the larger Jessop family, maybe they wouldn’t have to feel the pain and betrayal that had tainted our recent lives. We were a part of a large family and an even larger community, but all we really had was one another.

Eventually I learned that much of the resentment I was feeling from the other girls was due to my domestic abilities, which were sometimes recognized and praised by Uncle Fred. Because there were so many people living in the house, my skills were frequently called upon, as I had to pitch in to get all the chores done. Every mother was assigned to cook a meal during the week, and my mother had Friday lunch. I would help her, and we always tried to make it special, creating a three-course meal or adding a fun theme such as Mexican or Italian. We would serve a soup or salad, an interesting and different main course, and a homemade dessert, like my specialty cheesecake. For us, the fun wasn’t just making the food but also decorating the dining room with our own personal flair, perhaps spicing up the plastic tablecloths with fresh flowers from the backyard and around town. Our goal wasn’t just to make a good meal but to create a pleasant atmosphere, a place that felt more like home.

The vast Jessop family came to look forward to my mom’s lunches. I enjoyed sharing this weekly task with my mom, which offered us mother-daughter time, while giving us a chance to showcase our culinary talents. I took great satisfaction in my work and tried to do everything perfectly. Having carefully watched my sisters and mother for years, I’d honed my own skills and felt fulfilled when others enjoyed our creations. The fact that our Friday lunches had become so popular filled me with a sense of accomplishment, and I liked to stand back and watch as the family fussed over the menu and complimented our aesthetic. But even this effort to please was met with some disdain from most of the other girls and a few of the mothers in the house. I couldn’t understand why something that came from the heart and was meant to delight others could cause such contention.

Unable to find a place either at home or at my new school, I started to spend more time with my sister Kassandra, staying over with her at the prophet’s home whenever I could. She had a cozy room on the ground level with an elaborate daybed and a trundle, where I’d sleep. Over the last couple of years, I had been able to bond with a few of my older sisters, and Kassandra had become a close friend. For many different reasons, she was also growing restless in her home life. Increasingly, Uncle Warren had been encouraging Rulon’s wives to cut ties with their own family and turn their sole attention to Uncle Rulon. Whereas before, Uncle Rulon’s wives experienced special freedoms, now they were pressured to stay at home and pray. This did not sit well with my sister, who was twenty-three, full of life, and reluctant to fully succumb to these new restrictions.