Table of Contents
Page 2 Epigraph
Page 4 Introduction
Page 6 Prologue
Page 14 Chapter One
Page 25 Chapter Four
Page 41 Chapter Five
Page 67 Book Outline
Page 78 About the Writer
Introduction
Dirty Halos is the story of Amber Dawn Lee who spent her teen-age years as the sister wife of Prophet Arvin Shreeve, God’s appointed leader of the polygamous Zionist Society in Ogden, Utah. It is a tale of trial, inspiration, and redemption.
Interest in true stories about polygamy has never been greater. Books concerning polygamy have done extremely well. Escape, by Carolyn Jessop, was a New York Times bestseller. At present, there are three cable series about polygamy: HBO’s Big Love, Lifetime’s The Nineteenth Wife, and TLC’s Sister Wives. The WE channel documented cult life in its Secret Lives of Women. Recently, Oprah Winfrey did her complete show on the survivors of a cult led by Arkansas religious zealot Tony Alamo, who forced them into marriage when they were children. Media attention for Dirty Halos will augment marketing efforts and drive book sales. Amber has appeared on “Good Morning America” and just shot an episode of the reality show “I Survived” on The Biography Channel. She has since declined other TV and radio talk show offers pending publication of her book.
Amber plans to use her book to become a spokesperson for a movement to promote the empowerment of women trapped in sexual bondage, an informed voice to speak for their freedom. Her media appearances have given rise to a growing network of women victimized by polygamy and sexual slavery. She has begun her own organization to help sexual victims deal with their past abuse, and to create support groups to enable them to function in a world they often don’t understand or trust. Amber’s continued faith is their inspiration; her personal redemption is a model for their healing.
Dirty Halos will be approximately eighty-thousand words with a Prologue, thirteen chapters, an Epilogue. The finished manuscript can be ready within six months. It is an important book—the heroic and moving journey of a young girl from dependence to self-reliance, from sexual slavery to freedom. Amber is a heroine and a survivor. Her story will provide inspiration to women everywhere, and insight into a world few ever enter.
Dirty Halos
Prologue
The sight of the parched brown terrain of Utah seven miles below made my chest tighten and my hands sweat as I flew cross-country in the first jet plane I had ever taken. I wondered how many people had flown this same route from Los Angeles to New York City during the years I was held captive there, gazing down the same way I was, never suspecting what was taking place.
It was July of 2008 and I boarded the Delta 747 in Los Angeles clinging harder to my faith than my carry-on luggage. The idea of flying frightened me deeply. Having grown up in a polygamous cult, flying, or anything else modern, conflicted with everything I had been taught about the real world. Over the past years, to survive my confusion I read as much as possible about the world, which I was just coming to understand. Crumpled up in my pocket was a quote I liked from Mother Theresa, whom I had never heard of until fairly recently. It read, “I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish He didn't trust me so much.”
In the years since I escaped from the Zionist Society in Utah where my adoptive parents left me in 1985 when I was thirteen, I had been forced to rethink everything about my early life. As a child, you believe what you’re told—and old lessons die hard. The Zionist Society was run by “Prophet” Arvin Shreeve, a sixty-one year-old retired landscaper whom I was taught was God on Earth. Arvin held unquestioned power and control over the cult’s one hundred and fifty members. There were thirty husbands, called the Priesthood, who had at least three wives each. The Prophet had twenty-five wives whom he called his “Sister Council.” His wives ranged from a four year-old girl to his first wife who was a senior citizen. All were held in sexual and emotional bondage. At fourteen, I was made a member of his Sister Council, which means “wife” in the language of The Principle, polygamy.
I know now it also means “slave.”
I was almost thirty-six when I flew to New York, and reminders of what I had lost and gained were all around me. I had a cup of coffee, a drink once forbidden to us, to relax, and looked for some way to still my inner turmoil. I found it when I saw the Moving Map on the personal video screens and asked the Flight Attendant how to get it on mine. Maps fascinated me; the world was such a different place than I had been taught. I only attended public school sporadically till about the third grade, and then for only a few weeks at a time; just long enough for Social Services to forget us so my parents could yank me out of school again. Home schooling by my mother consisted solely of singing, scripture, and penmanship, so I had only the most rudimentary knowledge of the world. I hadn’t known there were fifty states. I had no idea where Asia was, or how small Europe was, compared to North America. The earth was one big hostile evil territory except for our “perfect” compound of tidy beautifully landscaped homes in northern Utah, which they taught me stood at its center.
We had been flying for about forty minutes and Los Angeles was still on the map. Old warnings reasserted themselves. Fear rose in me like a child’s dread of thunder. I had been taught that Los Angeles was going to fall into the ocean due to its wicked ways. New York City, where I was headed, was ruled by the Devil.
My past reached up for me with bony fingers when the moving map had shown me we were flying over Utah. It troubled me that however many times airline pilots had announced that they were flying by Salt Lake City no one, not once, had ever suspected what was happening to me, and all the others like me, held in sexual slavery only forty miles north. No one had known, so no one had called the FBI or any other law enforcement group to break up the Zionist Society I belonged to, or the scores of other splinter cults just like it which had broken off from the mainstream Mormon Church to practice The Principle of Polygamy.
Why had no one come down and saved me?
I gripped the armrest of my seat with white knuckles. When the flight attendant rattled the cart full of little liquor bottles down the aisle, all I could think of was how badly I wanted a drink. I had used alcohol after escaping from the cult, my way to escape the past. My craving was to disappear into a fog, the only relief I could find from the guilt and pain the cult had inflicted. I had been sober for a long time now, but at that moment the truth was I didn’t want one little bottle. I wanted the cart.
The man in the seat next to me was reading an article in Newsweek about NASA and future lunar landings. So, there really had been one, I thought. I was taught that the landing on the moon was a hoax created by the government to control people because no one could fly that high except God and spirits. The government made the film of the landing in a movie studio to manipulate us.
We were taught that the planes traversing the skies over the compound in Utah were full of Russian terrorists coming to attack us. We had to be watchful because the Russians were part of the shock troops of the Apocalypse that God was going to send. We practiced “stopping and rolling” as a way to avoid the atomic bomb that would end it all. I was so terrified by visions of Russians coming to attack our compound that ten years later, when I first saw “Rocky IV,” I had to hide my eyes when the Russian boxer came on the screen.
I was terrified by the bumps and jolts during the flight. Every one brought back my fear of death and not going to heaven and being consigned to hell. Dread of the End of the World resurfaced and so did the question I had unwillingly asked myself countless times over the years: “Heavenly Father, did I make the right decision to escape? Was it really right to seek a life away from the Society?” Had I made the wrong decision? Were the evil spirits that my Sister Wives taught me were all around us following me? I prayed to expel them from the plane and tried to remember that the bumps were simply turbulence. I found myself praying to be close to God and for Him to please forgive me for breaking up His Zionist Society.
I took deep breaths and settled down for a time and tried to remember it was just brainwashing. But when the end of the world is at stake, you can never be too sure.
At that moment, I could not recall a single moment in my life when I was not afraid of going to Hell. From my earliest moments, I was warned that such was my fate if I was disobedient. In the cult, fear of the end of the world and going to Hell was the Prophet’s way to control everyone’s emotions. We were taught that spiders, rats, mice, and snakes were all signs of the devil. That if our neck was stiff it meant we were being stiff-necked, a sign that the devil was controlling us and we needed to be more flexible—in the language of Polygamy, to be more sexually submissive to the Prophet and the elder Sister Wives.
We learned that children were to be seen and not heard, and we had to be spanked every day; that men held unquestioned authority over women in every area of life; and that children sleeping with their arms over their head meant the devil and evil stress had entered them. For that, they woke us up in the middle of the night and poured spoonfuls of molasses laced with cayenne pepper down our throats.
My Sister Wives taught me that Evil spirits could be ordered to leave by raising the right hand in an L-shape sign but that only the male Priesthood and Prophet Arvin Shreeve could command them. They said that Evil Spirits were all around us everywhere. Only the Prophet could save us and keep us from Hell.
I prayed silently through another jolt and let the captain’s calm voice warning us to stay buckled in comfort me, trying not to confuse it with the Prophet’s voice—so wise and kind and gentle even as he beat and raped me. It made noticing the young couple sitting in front of me most painful, the way they nuzzled each other’s necks for comfort and all the small tender and romantic things young people do when they sit side by side. It was so innocent and sweet. I wondered if the girl had experienced anything close to what I had, and that brought tears to my eyes.
On the other side of the plane, a young boy sitting next to his mother was playing with an electronic Game Boy. I hadn’t seen one until I was in my twenties. All of the female children’s toys in the cult were very simple and related to chores or womanhood. We had tiny vacuum cleaners, cooking pans, and a fake sewing machine. If we ever had a real attachment to a toy, like a doll, it was taken away. I had a rag doll. Her name was Christine Anne. She was given to me before I became a member of the cult. As a child, I took her for walks in the fields so I could imagine my biological mother coming to find me. Christine Anne was my companion. She was the most important thing in my life for reasons no one knew. I did not let her out of my sight. But the Sister Council said I was too old for a doll. I was a teenager with a doll and they told me, “Just leave the doll in the closet. It will be here when you get back. Set it right here in the closet, dear.” One night when I went to the closet, my doll wasn't there. I began crying and screaming. No child in the cult was permitted this kind of behavior. We were always all reverent and sweet. When I found Christine Ann gone I started crying, which was totally unacceptable. How could I be in a place of perfection and be crying? But I was crying for protection. I was crying in confusion. Everything was so organized. Things were always where you put them. We never lost anything.
After my doll was gone, it was almost like the happy wild-haired rag doll in me was gone, too…
But, I reminded myself, you’re here now. No longer a sex slave and a victim of rape, praying for God to save you. I was scarred and tattered but I had made it out of the darkness. I was enrolled in college. Although I was a battered woman, I had broken the cycle of abuse and raised a healthy daughter who was free of the evils I was forced to endure. Up until this point, I had never spoken of what had happened to me in the cult. Now I was going to talk to the entire nation. That was the reason for this trip to New York, to talk about my experiences in the cult on national television.
Was anyone going to understand? Could anyone understand? Did I even understand it all?
At that moment, I started to see beyond my doubts and fears. Maybe I had a purpose. Maybe there was a reason for what had happened to me. Rather than wondering why no one had ever come down from the bright silver planes overhead to save me, maybe I was the one to take up the fight.
I was not a saint. My halo was dirty. But I had called the authorities to save me and the others and it was that act which ultimately led to the destruction of the cult. I had to take it further so that anyone who was willing to listen would hear the full story, no matter how hard it might be for them or me. For, in the end, mine was a story of inspiration. In the end, I found the light. I came forth a new person and if I could inspire women in sexual captivity to break free from their captors, then all that had happened to me did indeed have a purpose.
My name is Amber Dawn Lee and I am the survivor of a cult of evil men and women who were ultimately brought to justice and forced to pay for their crimes.
What follows is my story.
Chapter One
Dallas, Texas
My biological mother was a wild and untamed creature of the 60’s named Beverly Rose Lee. If anything can give you the flavor of those times, and my mother’s predilection for crazy, it would be my birth name. I was born Cannabis Everheart, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on November 27, 1971. The first name on my birth certificate had obvious roots in the drug culture, in which my mother was a star. My last name came from the fake ID she borrowed from a hippie friend to satisfy the county hospital records.
My mother changed her name and social security numbers more times than her baby’s diapers. During her life, she used Beverly Jean Lee, Beverly Moore, Beverly Moorestein, Beverly Lee, Beverly Nagy, Beverly Stein, Beverly Jean, Jean Lee, and many other combinations sometimes using Rose, her stripper stage-name, with those last names, too. I never knew or met my father. I didn’t actually meet my mother till I was in my twenties. She told me only that my father’s name was Michael Stein and he never even knew I was born. I also learned I had a brother by another father, but I didn’t meet him until much later.
I was born in the dead of winter, but one month later my mother hitchhiked in the snow from Ann Arbor to Dallas, Texas, carrying me on her back like a papoose in a leather “child-board” with beads and fringe. It had a rabbit fur lining with pockets everywhere. When I was older, I used to sneak into the closet to look at it. To me it was beautiful, forbidden, and special; something my mother touched and carried me in.
In Dallas, my mother struck up a friendship with a woman named Patricia McElroy. Patricia was in her mid-thirties and owned the Abovo Head Shop on Oaklawn Street with her husband Ross, who was English and ten years her junior. The whole McElroy family worked there—Ross, Patricia, and Patricia’s three children from a former marriage: Lee, Lisa, and Nancy, all in their late teens. ‘Abovo’ meant “from the beginning,” according to Patricia, in what language she never disclosed. It was on the logo that hung in the front window—an egg with psychedelic colors streaming out of it. They sold posters and pipes and roach clips, black lights, candles, beads for wearing, and longer strands for curtains—the stuff the 60’s were made of.
My mother asked Patricia to care for her month-old infant while she went to San Antonio, ostensibly to look for a job. In the climate of the times, head shops were like inns for travelers, or information kiosks, places where people went to get connected to what was happening in the area. The McElroys often helped or boarded drifters, so Patricia agreed to baby-sit me while mom was away.
My mom never came back.
It turned out my mother was on the run from a cult-like group called the “Rainbow Children,” a hippie movement started in Europe a few years before, that still exists today. I have no idea why they were after her, but it’s a safe bet it had to do with drugs or money. Mom was heavily into drugs and living the hippie lifestyle. Lots of hippies grew up, cleaned up, and went to work for corporations or banks. Mom wasn’t one of them. She continued to drift, stripping to get by. When she got pregnant, had me, and ran out of money, she turned to crime. For practice, she and some friends robbed a 7-11 somewhere in Texas and got away with it. The effort emboldened her. Her last attempt was in Dallas. She tried to rob a bank with a shotgun. The robbery failed and she was arrested and sent to prison.
My mother’s arrest made front-page news. When I was shown her picture in the paper as a kid, long before I ever met her, the only thing my childish mind focused on was how cool it was that she wore a tank-top to rob a bank. From that day on, I thought of her just like Bonnie of Bonnie and Clyde. I wondered what my mother felt when she was robbing the bank. What had she thought about going to prison and leaving me? Did she love me and ever wonder where I was?
Maybe it was crazy for me not to be angry with her. I mean, she dropped me off at a head shop and never came back. I was certainly told terrible things about her. None of it mattered. My sense-memory of my mother was quite different. Maybe those few weeks of riding on her back papoose-style gave me at least a little of the love and security all babies need. My mother was my comfort and protector. Subconsciously, I “remembered” her holding me and I derived comfort from that when I was trapped in the cult. I was always waiting for her. During the crisis points of my life, I believed she would be the one to come and save me. My parents, Patricia and Ross, never spoke kindly of my mother. They said she was a stripper and a whore and a thief and a drug addict and an alcoholic. They said the only decent thing she ever did was to leave me with them so I would have a better life.
Being an infant, when everyone went to the shop to work, I went with them. Patricia sat me on the counter in the shop in a little rocker and all the customers who came in cooed at me. I was a pretty baby and smiled easily. The McElroy kids, Nancy, Lisa, and Lee all worked with Patricia and Ross at the head shop and were old enough to think it was fun to have a little baby around. The shop carried leather goods and the family decorated everything themselves using box-cutters to slice fringe on vests and purses, and a machine to tack studs onto headbands and pants. There was a photographer who worked there and he had a dark room in back, so when he took pictures of the kids he developed them himself. Nancy and Lisa said they felt like fashion models posing in cute outfits. The kids even did a Halloween commercial for the shop that ran on TV and they felt like celebrities.
Dallas in the 60’s was a close community and the McElroys were friends with the other head shop owners in the area. There was lots of trading products among shops depending on what was selling. No drugs were sold in the shop, just the paraphernalia that went along with them. After work, the family went home. Nancy told me Ross and Patricia and all the kids used to smoke pot in the house together. Ross and Patricia said they wanted them to use their pot because they knew where it came from. The family sat around and laughed and played Scrabble and made up funny words. There was pot in the spaghetti sauce and in the kids’ brownies for lunch at school. It was a no-pressure hippie lifestyle—just fun and dreams.
According to Nancy, life up to that point in the McElroy home and the head shop was happy and sweet. However, in 1973, the McElroys gave up their hippie life and joined the Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-day Saints, or LDS. A group of Mormon missionaries in Dallas sparked their conversion. They started taking lessons. They quit smoking. They quit drugs. They quit drinking. This was the early 70’s, remember, and they were just coming out of being “free,” owning a head shop, and being hippies. Now they were Mormons. Nancy later described it as a kind of, “We found God so we're going to change our entire life and praise Him now.”
After their conversion to Mormonism, Ross and Patricia changed dramatically. From gentle adherents of the 60’s they became stern, church addicts. The elder kids’ upbringing in the free-love generation was casual and laidback. That abruptly ended. Overnight, it was all structure and rules and no tea or coffee or smoking pot.
In the world of addictions, you might suppose a dependence on God is better than one on drugs. It turns out that God can be just as dangerous.
When the McElroy’s straightened up, they felt I should be officially adopted. My mother was serving time. She was not going to come back. Patricia had a letter my mother wrote asking her to please take care of me and, for some reason, to raise me Jewish. The only reason I can think of for that was my father’s name of Stein might have been Jewish, but I’ll never know. The McElroys never hid the fact that I was adopted. My mother signed over her rights to Patricia when she was in prison, and Patricia did the legal paperwork and changed my name to Amber Dawn McElroy.
After their conversion, Ross and Patricia had two more children, Celeste and Aimee. With just two years separating us, Celeste and Aimee were constant companions as we grew up. My sisters and I were good children. We were prayerful children. We had an extreme faith in God. We were taught to be reverent, quiet, and sweet—being sweet was a huge thing. I looked different from my two younger sisters. I was thin with long brown hair and blue eyes, like my real mother. My younger sisters Celeste and Aimee were blonde and plump. It made me feel different. I was more of a chameleon and blended in.
For the first few years of my life, Celeste, Aimee, and I spent most of the time just running free in the neighborhood around the Dallas home owned by the McElroys, riding bikes and playing kid games. We baptized cats in the kiddie pool. We played in the mini-rivers in the street after the rain. But there were deep problems in the McElroy family. Patricia and Ross began to believe in a lot of things that were hurtful, things they carried to extremes. The older children, surprised by the severity and harshness of the religious conversion, moved out, went to college, got married, and so on. They might have laughed and smoked pot as kids, but we were the “new” generation. We had to “honor our mother and our father” to the point of treating them like Gods. We were never permitted to question them or to ask “Why?” If we hesitated even for a second when we were ordered to do something, we were spanked. Ross and Patricia often quoted the adage that children were to be seen and not heard, and they punished us to enforce it.
If my parents asked a simple question and we said, “Yes,” or “No,” it was the wrong answer. It needed to be “Yes, sir,” or “No, sir,” or “Yes, ma'am,” “No, ma'am.” If we forgot, or talked back, which they called ‘being sassy” or being ‘a smart aleck’ we got spanked severely. For most of my young life, my sisters and I were spanked at least once a day. Not just a regular spanking. We were hit with belts, spoons and serving objects. Several times, Ross picked me up and threw me across the room and choked me until I begged for forgiveness. The worst was having to pick our own switches off the apple trees out in the back yard so Ross could whip us with them.
Ross pulled my pants down or lifted my dress to spank me. It was degrading and accompanied by constant emotional abuse. Switch. “You're just like your mother.” Switch. “You look like your mother.” Switch. “You're going to end up like your mother.” Switch. “You're worse than your mother.” He said it over and over when he spanked me. My little sisters were warned they were going to end up like me. The only place I could hide was in my mind. I went into an inner fantasy world where I could talk to my mother. Every beating made me feel as if all I wanted to do was be my mother, and to say, “You're right. I’m my mother's daughter, not yours.”
Spanking was bad, but afterwards we had to stand in the corner with our noses up against the wall for three or four hours. Ross often humiliated me in front of the family. He made me wear funny clothes in front of everybody. Once, he took me to the mall in a two-piece bright orange clown suit with big white polka dots. Other times he held me down and cut off the front of my hair so it was just a fringe. His strange punishment system got even stranger. My favorite thing was to get my picture taken by him because he loved taking pictures—a skill he learned from the photographer at the Abovo head shop. When I was good, he took my picture and Celeste's picture and Aimee's picture. It was positive attention. I dreamed of being a famous model and having my mother see a picture of me. Maybe she would recognize my eyes as hers, and come reunite with me. But when I misbehaved, Ross refused to take my picture. Oddly, I have an old worn picture of me in tears, and on the back my mother wrote, “This is Amber crying because Ross had taken a picture of everyone but her.”
By the time I was seven, Ross and Patricia’s religious zeal had grown to where it took over our lives. Punishments were daily. Religion and scripture was all that was discussed, all the time. Ross, especially, felt he had the inside track on knowledge and insight. He and Patricia began to question the mainstream LDS Prophet’s wisdom. They were unhappy that the church allowed black people to join—dark skin was supposed to be a curse. They grew convinced of a Jewish conspiracy—Jews were devils and we should all be frightened of them. Russians were just as bad. The government was evil and could not be trusted.
In 1978, deciding that the Mormon faith was deeper elsewhere, and with the older kids gone, Patricia and Ross sold the head shop and moved to Logan, Utah, with Celeste, Aimee, and me. Patricia had funds from her previous marriage and from the sale of the head shop, so when we went to Utah we had lots of money. They bought a beautiful, white, five-bedroom, colonial home built in the 1800’s that was, to my seven year-old eyes, a mansion. It was large and charming, and at first, we had everything we could possibly need.
I took with me to Utah many memories of our house in Dallas. In one, I am standing in a patch of sunshine streaming in the kitchen window watching Patricia do the dishes. I can feel the sun warm the back of my neck. I have to cran my head around to watch her because my nose is supposed to be pressed up against the wall. I have been crying but I am assured by her that good days are ahead.
I believe her.
I always called our home in Utah just ‘the white house’ and, for a while there, in Logan, things were fine.
Chapter Two and Chapter Three
Chapter synopses begin on Page 67.
Chapter Four
My parents’ greatest fear was that Social Services would find us again and put me back in school. I was about eleven. My sister Celeste was ten, and Aimee was nine. After all my father’s business failures, we were broke. The money from the sale of the white house went to pay debts. We were soon going to be homeless, as well. At the end of the summer, we had to move out of the back room in the second-hand store. Ross and Patricia took us to a tent in the woods, and made camp. We had no bathroom or running water. We were cold, tired, filthy, and often sick. After a few weeks, our bodies were like sticks.
Every time I told Ross we were hungry, he said it was just the “Adversary” in me and beat me to get it out. I wanted so much to go back to the White House and be safe and warm. Ross wouldn’t relent. The world was evil and his job was to keep us from it. Good Mormon children obeyed their parents without question. We had to thank him and call him, Sir. He and Patricia were going to save us despite the sinful world and our wicked natures.
Sitting in the forest with only the sounds of the birds and the wind, there was so much time to think. Many of my thoughts were about my biological mother. When the mountains covered in color and the weather was still warm enough, I would walk to the stream by the tent and dip my hand into the moving water. I watched it wash over my fingers and hoped it would carry part of me outward and that somewhere in the world it would lead to my mother and she would touch it and feel that I needed her.
I saw a movie twenty years later that was very popular in the 60’s called “Elvira Madigan” about two star-crossed lovers who give up everything and live in the woods. Anyone who thought it was so beautiful and romantic to wither away together and die of starvation, I can tell you the feeling was anything but romantic.
My body hurt all the time. I was underweight and my long brown hair, which was down to my waist, was matted and split. My breasts were tiny and I still hadn’t gotten my period; the result of malnutrition. My younger sisters Celeste and Aimee teased me, calling me “immature bony maroni.” We didn’t have food stamps any more. Ross cancelled them so the government wouldn’t “get in our business.” For most of our meals, Patricia mixed together bags of nuts and raisins. They supplemented our diet with Spirulina tablets. Spirulina was a feed enhancement made from algae and used in fish and poultry farms. The tablets were supposed to fill us up and take the place of meat, which they wouldn’t allow and couldn’t afford. Our only other food came from what Ross foraged from the dumpsters at the stores on the other side of the woods. We often walked to the market and one of us girls would dive into a dumpster and burrow in the trash. Our favorite find was day-old doughnuts. Eating doughnuts made us feel normal.
Days were long. We were up at first light and slept when it got too dark to see. We had almost nothing to do to pass the time, no radio or television. The only saving grace was that Ross let me go to the Logan Library and check out two or three Nancy Drew books at a time. Reading was a virtue his stringent Mormon philosophy could accept. I suppose it was strange that he would take us out of the world and not let us go to school, but let me go to the public library. When we went, he would check out Readers Digest and my mother would read the Book of Mormon.
Over the course of my life, I have often thought of my parents as evil and misguided. My conflict is that I also thought of them as loving and giving. I will always remember the Thanksgiving dinner on the plank in the second-hand shop, the movie theater we owned, the White House in Logan, Ross singing to us, and the open affection between him and Patricia. In the end, I suppose they were always looking for something they never found; aging hippies who wanted what all hippies did, the ultimate cosmic trip—freedom.
The cults, like the hippie lifestyle, were a way out of the world and its materialism. They wanted to serve a higher power. They wanted free love and spiritual bliss. Sure, they were neglectful parents, certainly abusive, but in the end what they sought was an ideal shared by so many that it characterized a generation. Sadly, they traded freedom for slavery, even though I don’t think they ever thought of it that way. In their vision, they were shunning worldly values in search of enlightenment. Polygamous cults were like hippie communes; filled with the promise of a new world order. It’s not so hard to see why they were attracted to them. Follow Bob Dylan; Follow the Prophet. Sadly, they ignored the message for the messenger. Like so many, they failed to see the real world, and condemned us to evil in the process.
Reading Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, and occasionally books like Little Women; it’s hard to imagine the picture of the world they gave me. I was part of an uncompromising Mormon family living in a tent in the woods, reading about my heroine Nancy Drew driving her roadster and solving cases and hanging out at the sweet shop with her boyfriend, Ned. She had a real house and her dad was great, and everybody admired her. How could it be real? It was as fantastic as any tale of dragons and princesses normal children got, the perfect 50’s existence where everyone had everything and every problem got solved. To sustain my famished inner self, I stayed immersed in the fantasy. I was there with her. I withdrew into the stories. I hated being interrupted while I was reading. Reality for me wasn’t a nice little-girl’s bedroom and being called to dinner by Mom. It was starving in the woods and hiding from the government.
For months, my mind was in Nancy Drew Land and my body was homeless. I hated Ross and Patricia for that; hated them because they brought us to where our family had nothing but hopelessness. It was a turning point. I started to feel like I was smarter than my parents because how could they not know something was wrong? Even at that age, I did. Every day my dad would talk to my mother about his latest “get rich” idea, like selling Aloe Vera, or Fuller Brush products. He said we were going to be millionaires and live in a mansion. He talked to us like anything was possible. He said I would grow up and have my own car and our home would be so huge that we could live there forever and never leave. It was frightening because I realized he was in a dream world. I had to do something. I couldn’t exist this way. I had to take care of our family. I had to help.
Winter hit, and the snows came. I worried we were going to die from exposure. The sky was dull gray and the trees all around us were frosted with ice. The snowy ground soaked up through the holes in our shoes. All the clothes my sisters and I wore were from second-hand shops or garage sales, mostly layers of motley fabric. The hunger was worsening. I couldn’t take it any more.
One particularly cold night, I snuck out of our tent and walked by moonlight through the woods to a K-MART store that had a payphone outside. I had some change saved. I had planned to use it to buy a Snickers Bar. I used it instead to call the only adult I knew well enough other than my parents, the only person who might help me, Helen Lithgow. No matter what else Helen had done, no matter how crazy she was, she had a house and it was located in Paradise, Utah, right outside Logan, and it was warm and I could get out of the cold.
I called her and begged her to take me in. I told her I wanted to bring my sisters as soon as I could, and asked for her help convincing my parents to let us.
“Ross and Patricia are going to be very angry with you,” she warned.
“I don’t care,” I said. “We can’t live like this. We’re going to die unless you do something.”
“But what about obeying your parents?”
“Helen, dad says I’m the trouble maker in the family anyway,” I said.
“They don’t want my interference,” she insisted.
“Helen, please. Just let me come. Maybe that will start something. I can’t go back to the tent. I’m freezing and I need food.”
Helen considered that for a lot longer than I would have liked, but at last she said, “All right, you come to my house and I’ll do what I can to get your parents and sisters here.”
I hitchhiked to Helen's house in Paradise, and ate and slept. Although Helen and my parents shared the same strict dietary notions, she had a basement full of food storage and barrels of wheat, which I cooked. It filled me up with plump bliss. At that moment, I wish I could say I cared about my family freezing out in the woods but I was so happy just to be warm that if Helen hadn’t gotten in her station wagon and gone to get them, I might never have seen my family again. I felt terribly guilty about that, abandoning my sisters and disobeying my parents, but the tiny spark in me that wanted to survive told me to keep going. It was the first time I felt it, a sense that I had something inside me that told me right from wrong. Thankfully, within a few days, my parent gave up the idea that they could survive the Utah winter and Ross agreed to move the family into Helen’s house until they decided what to do for the future.
#
Life in the Lithgow household was crazy. Fourteen people lived in the two-story home. It had an upstairs kitchen and living room, with a big old piano, and basement bedrooms off a long hallway. We had six adults and ten kids. There was me, my two sisters, and Patricia and Ross. Helen was married to a man named Bill who was always out working, essentially supporting us all. Helen had two older teen-aged sons, Bruce and Eric; and two young daughters, Laura and Andrea, who were pretty much my age. Laura Lithgow was tan, with long brown hair and light colored eyes. Her voice was deep, and cracked when she laughed. She was always laughing and her smile was contagious. She was my first best friend and always a comfort to me.
Within days of our arrival, the King family, from another part of Utah, moved in with their two small children and an infant. They all lived together in the last of the bedrooms which they converted from the playroom where I played dolls with Laura and Andrea when I was younger. Kurt King was a big and coarse man, with a hot temper. He reminded me of Tarzan or Thor from a fairy tale book, a ruggedly masculine man who always talked about sex with his wife, Janay. Janay always had a baby on her open breast. She carried on conversations while the baby tugged at her nipple for milk. I pretended I didn’t notice.
I was still too young to understand sex, but adding to my discomfort with the King family was their lust. It was very much out in the open and I was never exposed to that before. The affection between my parents was a lot more loving and my sisters and I only saw them hug and kiss and say they loved each other. After the King family moved in there were constant sexual noises coming from behind their door. Since they lived in the same room as their small children, they must have been having sex with them in there. When we heard them moaning, all the kids made faces and “icky” noises.
The house contained two different worlds. For the kids, it was Playland. Our parents provided no structure at all. We woke up when we woke up and ate when we were hungry. There was no sitting down to meals or family dinners, no schooling, no homework. We played games or did light work in the fields, like moving water pipes for irrigation, as weather permitted. At night we put on shows in the house.
My favorite thing was to organize plays and put them on with the other kids. We performed for the adults, to everyone’s applause and delight. I was the director and was so serious about the productions that I flew into a fit if someone missed their lines or forgot the words of a song. My original adaptation of The Sound of Music was my proudest moment. Besides winning a poetry contest during a brief stint in second grade, it was my biggest accomplishment as a child. I took our “entertainments” as I called them, so seriously that I built a small space underneath the stairs to get enough privacy to plan. I had a bed of rolled-up sleeping bags, a small shelf, and light from a lamp plugged into an extension cord running down the hallway. I read a lot and sewed by hand there. The house also had real sewing machines. We girls used them to make clothes and costumes and Andrea would even sew outfits for the dolls in the house.
When I wasn’t “producing,” I was exploring. I knew it wasn’t so nice, but I explored every space in the house from parent’s rooms to the other kid’s closets. I was especially attracted to Bruce and Eric’s room. Helen’s elder teenaged boys fascinated me. Unlike the younger kids, Bruce and Eric got to go to public school and were hardly ever home. When they did come, it was like they brought little pieces of what was going on out in the world with them. They had music and schoolbooks. They wore Polo shirts with shaker sweaters, 501 jeans and penny loafers.
I had a crush on Eric Lithgow, and even though he completely ignored me, I fantasized that when we grew up he would marry me. The music blasting from his bedroom—Journey, Ratt, Kansas, and Toto—was my only connection to the outside world and I was mesmerized by it. Their life was so different than mine. I lapped up every story they told about basketball games or girlfriends or dating. The way they lived reminded me of my elder siblings back in Dallas who lived the wild hippie life before Ross and Patricia became Mormons.
The adults, on the other hand, spent almost all their time arguing about religion, fighting over who had discerned the real truth of what Heavenly Father wanted for us all. They say nobody wins an argument about religion or politics. It was certainly true in the Lithgow household. The adults stayed up half the night arguing about which scripture meant what, and how Polygamy was the answer because it was the true revelation, and who was the correct Prophet to put us closest to God. The only calm was when Helen Lithgow retreated to her bedroom to hang upside down on a gymnastic device. She said it took away evil spirits.
It was Helen who first introduced the idea of polygamy to the other families. Nobody rejected it, but the various ideas of how to practice it precipitated yelling and screaming. It upset me. It wasn’t a reverent discussion. It was just the opposite. The opinions at the Lithgow’s were passionate and fiery and it often sounded like hell was breaking loose. We were all scared of Brother King because he was so violent. His rage was so different from the way I understood religion. I thought, “The devil’s here, the Adversary is here. This is not right.”
When the war raged, I retreated into my tiny space and relegated my thoughts to a journal. I was increasingly angry about life in the house and I suppose some that filtered down to my sisters and the others. I was ashamed of such rebellious thoughts but I was almost a teenager. I wanted a home of our own. I wanted to go to public school and meet kids my age. I spoke up to Ross about it and got beaten for defiance, as usual, but it got me thinking. My first revolt against my parents had gotten us indoors and protected from the Utah winter. I wanted more.
Things got worse in the pressure cooker environment. Space in the house was at a premium, and even my little hideaway under the stairs was threatened when a fourth family moved into the house and raised the total number of people living there to twenty. The fighting got more intense. They all wanted a “better world.” They all wanted to find an enclave where they could create a “New world Order.” The issues were which group was the correct group, the Prophet’s interpretation of scripture, and who was most in line with fundamental beliefs? More than once, I heard them say that the Mormon Church could not be trusted. There were a number of reasons for this, including its eliminating the “white only” rule for the priesthood. Mormons believe that marriages are sealed in a celestial marriage which binds the family together forever. Those that are not sealed are terminated upon death. After a century of relegating black people to a secondary status, the church now taught that black people who received the testimony of the Restored Gospel had “their family ties protected and in the justice of the Lord they will possess all the blessings to which they are entitled in the eternal plan of Salvation and Exaltation.” That didn’t sit well with the attitudes of my parents and the Lithgows and the Kings. They had such a pervasive anti-government bias that any church’s acceptance of the laws of the United States was proof positive of its corruption.
Back then, I could quote chapter and verse after all the bible training we received, but most of the arguments went over my head. Even reconstructing them is hard after such a long time, but one that raged for a long time was about “the mark of the beast.” According to the Scriptures, the mark of the beast is received on the right hand or forehead. According to Brother King, the mark of the beast was something we did not want because, by using it, the government could control us instead of our being guided by the Prophet of whatever group we joined. He said modern technology would allow this mark to be directly linked to a computer chip put in all the babies born in public hospitals. It was the reason Janay gave birth in the bedroom of the Lithgow house without a doctor present. She screamed for hours and I remember how scared I was.
Ross claimed everyone would be forced to take this mark in order to buy or sell anything, meaning: to be able to live. According to the Book of Mormon:
He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor,
free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on
his forehead so that no one could buy or sell unless he
had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number
of his name. This calls for wisdom. If anyone has insight,
let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is man's
number. His number is 666. (Rev. 13:16-18).
However, this mark must not be received under any circumstances because the devil would control people through it.
“A third angel followed them and said in a loud voice: 'If
ANYONE worships the beast and his image and receives
his mark on the forehead or on the hand, he, too, will drink
of the wine of God's fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. There is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and his image, or for anyone who receives the mark of his name. (Rev. 14:9-12).
Ross and Brother King argued about when the mark would be issued. It was a critical distinction. If we were deceived, we would miss the kingdom of God and suffer eternal torment. One evening, Brother King and my father were so hot in their convictions I thought that they were going to kill each other.
I was so scared I ran in the living room. “Stop yelling at each other,” I cried. “Who cares what the truth is? Can’t everyone just stop fighting?”
Brother King was furious. He yelled at my dad, “Amber is a brat, and you have no control over her as a priesthood man should. She is disobedient and causes more trouble than a child should be allowed.”
I ran into the bathroom downstairs and slammed the door. I stared at my reflection in the mirror for a long time. I prayed through my tears to Heavenly Father that my real mom would not get caught by Satan and forced to get the mark of the beast, so she could go to heaven. There was a knock on the door. It was Eric. I said, “Sorry, here you go,” and walked out. I wanted to stay with him and talk and ask him if he had a girlfriend. He wouldn’t. I was invisible.
The fighting, the chaos, and the contentions went on. They were always nitpicking about what this time-line meant or that scripture meant. It was a constant, how many angels can dance on the head of pin? Rage simmered. Once, my dad got a bloody nose after he pushed Brother King against the wall. The worst of it was that religion was still a truly reverent idea to me. I loved the bible and I loved the Book of Mormon. I loved Heavenly Father, and I loved Jesus Christ. I was so happy in the Mormon churches in Texas and Logan. I played in the pulpits and loved singing in the primary choir and playing violin for the congregation. I loved listening to sermons. I belonged.
At the Lithgow house, my only refuge was my tiny enclave under the stairs. I prayed, “Please, Heavenly Father, don’t let Brother King beat up and hurt my dad, and please let my dad be quiet for once in his life and maintain peace. Heavenly Father, just let me keep producing and creating shows to put on for them so they will have something to entertain them away from their obsession with this new thought and new religion…”
When I needed peace, I walked in the fields around the house and imagined my mother coming to find me. I had a cat named Rigazzo who was my best friend. I had my doll, Christine Anne, who was my companion. I kept myself busy, sewing with Laura and Andrea. We had a rope that we swung from to land on an old trampoline in the yard. We did flips on the trampoline and played outside in the barn.
It got worse as the winter wore on. The adults became increasingly angry. They started fighting over money and space in the house. Just when I thought someone was going to get murdered, out of the chaos, they reached a decision. The Lithgows, the Kings, and my parents, had already visited the Fundamental Latter Day Saints (FLDS), a polygamous community in Utah. They went to its meetings and read its materials, but decided not to go there. They felt that the real truth was in the mountains of Montana with a group called The Apostolic United Brethren (AUB). The AUB was a polygamous fundamentalist church within the Latter Day Saint movement, led by Prophet Owen Allred.
It should be understood that if someone desired to join a polygamous community, they did not look in the Yellow Pages. There was a constant word of mouth information flow from people who were looking for the polygamous lifestyle, and those living it. These groups did not welcome people strolling in. The communities might be below the government’s radar but they were still illegal and therefore guarded and clandestine in nature. My family had three girls, and that would have enticed any group, but if we were not being sent by Helen Lithgow who had already gained their trust and been admitted, we would never have been allowed anywhere near the mountain retreat.
All three families decided to join the AUB’s Pinesdale community. The Lithgows planned to build a house there, and a log cabin was added to the plan in anticipation of the rest of us moving up. Laura, Helen’s daughter, would move to Montana right away. Laura was the closest person to me and I didn’t want to be without her. If she was going, so was I. We were the oldest girls, and the most mature. I told my parents I wanted to go with her, and they agreed.
It all sounded great. We were going to live in a nice place where the spirit was strong and we would have our own families to stay with and lots more room. Laura left a few weeks before I did and I waited expectantly to follow, convinced I was on my way to a far better life. To this day, I wonder if my parents understood where they were sending me; and would they have let me go if they did?
No matter. I was on my way to Montana to join my first cult.
Chapter Five
A thin, gray-whiskered man named Jake, wearing a white shirt and a plaid woolen jacket, drove the white van that picked me up at the Lithgow house in Utah and drove me to Montana to join the community at Pinesdale. I wore ‘60’s style jeans with boots, a frayed denim shirt with stitching on it, and a thick blue pea coat. My long dark hair was tied back and my breath frosted in the cold air. The rest of my second-hand wardrobe was in an old suitcase Helen had given me.
Along the way, we picked up three other girls. We exchanged names and where we had come from and so on. One had a small boy who smelled bad and had a lot of gas and a runny nose. I sat by him in the van, and had to stick my face into the cold wind outside to get fresh air.
We drove all night and stopped in Missoula, Montana. Missoula in the early 80’s was a nice town in a big valley and the Clark Fork River running through it. It made me think of main streets and general stores and pick-up trucks. I looked up in wonder at the mountains in the distance reaching up into the sky, peaks in the clouds. One of the girls said, “You know, if you look up into the mountains nobody would ever know that anyone was up there. You can’t see a thing.” It was true. The mountains were so densely forested, we couldn’t see anything but trees.
We drove out of town into thick forest on roads that turned from asphalt to dirt. We rose higher and higher into the snowy mountains until, after about an hour of windy bumpy roads, we came around a bend and I was startled to see an entire community set out before us. There were about forty houses with smoke curling from their chimneys. They were mostly log cabins and trailers, makeshift structures spread over the mountainside. The church looked like a giant gymnasium. The pungent smell of burning wood wafted over everything. Chickens ran around free or perched up on the piles of chopped wood. It was odd to see them in the snow. A little way from the houses was a pond for ice-skating, and an entire hillside for sledding.
At Pinesdale, women and girls wore long dresses or skirts, and kept their hair long. Men and boys wore long pants and shirts, with hair trimmed short. Polygamy meant almost nothing to me as a twelve year-old. The closest I can come to my understanding at that age was, it was kind of like being sent to camp. It was supposed to be fun. I had never thought about living there permanently—not unless, in my fantasy, my true love Eric Lithgow moved there, too, and married me.
The Apostolic United Brethren as a whole had several thousand members. Its headquarters was in Utah with communities in Wyoming, Arizona, Missouri, and ours in Pinesdale, Montana. We had about two hundred people. Prophet Allred had seven wives and forty-eight children, but only some of them were in Pinesdale. To insiders, the AUB was a bit more moderate than the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) headed by Rulon and Warren Jeffs; and the Mexico and Utah cult headed by Evril LeBaron, but there was always conflict between them. In an interesting bit of history, the AUB’s founder, Prophet Rulon Allred received death threats from the LeBaron group in the 1960s, and on May 10, 1977, two women disguised by wigs and sunglasses, visited Allred’s AUB office in Murray, Utah, and opened fire with handguns. Allred died of his wounds the same day, and was later succeeded by his brother, Owen. One of the women was later identified as Rena Chynoweth, one of LeBaron's wives. Although acquitted by a jury, Chynoweth later confessed to the crime. LeBaron was eventually convicted of association with several other murders, including that of his daughter, Rebecca.
The Pinesdale group practiced something called the United Effort Plan (UEP). The leadership routinely sent its young men on two-year work missions to jobs usually controlled by the priesthood leaders. Their paychecks went back to the priesthood. In exchange, the boys were promised a wife and a building lot on priesthood-owned ground in Pinesdale. This was for the common good, a “united effort” to build a stronger community. In reality, the land never belonged to the men and if one was disobedient, the priesthood could not only take away his wives, but his home as well.
Pinesdale wasn’t just on the edge of the world. It was off the map entirely. We were several thousand feet about sea level, surrounded by forest, with only dirt or stone paths between houses. Smoke hung over the valley and there was always the sound of hammering and sawing, and the clacking of chickens strolling by. We were told not to wander off because there were bears in the woods. The entire time I was there, I was always afraid of being attacked. No resident was ever allowed to go down to Missoula or any of the other towns. A few of the men did the shopping for the entire community. Each home submitted a grocery list to them. I never heard of a woman being able to leave for any reason. I thought about what would happen if I decided to run away, and immediately knew the answer. I had nowhere to go.
Pinesdale had one school. It was called the Pines Academy and was in a double-wide trailer home where we were split up into a younger and older group. It was a one-room schoolhouse. Boys sat on one side and girls on the other. There were pictures of Jesus Christ on the wall and scripture texts to be memorized.
It wasn’t mandatory that we went to school. When we did go, we studied LIFEPACs—home-school workbooks with a curriculum of bible based content for grades 1-12, with a study of the Old and New Testaments. Every morning we went to school there was scripture first, and then we would open our LIFEPACs and get to work. Each LIFEPAC was individual so we worked at our own speed. There was never a rush. In addition to the workbooks, home economics was taught to the girls. I never understood much in the workbooks except coloring, but I excelled in sewing, bread making, and patchwork quilting.
We never did the Pledge of Allegiance.
At Pinesdale, young girls of marriageable age were expected to present themselves to the priesthood for placement as a wife in a family. All marriages were controlled by the priesthood; neither the boy nor the girl had a choice. In some cults, reluctant girls had been known to disappear and resurface years later with one or two children. There were stories of girls held prisoner in their bedrooms for weeks or months on end until they consented. We never met the prophet, Brother Allred, at our “orientation” in his house, but some of the sister-wives spoke to us about him with awe and reverence. The women were doing chores and tending children. I looked at all those women and wondered, “Who sleeps where? Which one is his favorite? How come they’re not all mad at each other like the adults at the Lithgow’s?” Actually, it was in his house that I saw my first argument between sister-wives. They were complaining about sleeping arrangements and that the Prophet wasn’t doing his duty with one and all.
Sex is the coin of the realm for powerless women. Command stems from one’s ability to attract the man of the house. It is a constant source of friction between older and younger—and often more attractive—sister-wives, or the newest sister-wife. Women don’t compete with each other—they compete for the Prophet’s attention and use it to command others who receive less. Control over the Prophet also meant living in the best home, being able to buy better fabric at the store, getting a treat of candy at the grocery store, and sitting in the front row at church.
At Pinesdale, everything seemed to be prearranged when I got there. Laura and Andrea Lithgow and I were placed in the home of Jack Romero and his wife, Gayle, and their children. Jack was tall and dark haired, in his forties, younger than many of the husbands, but still old as far as I was concerned. As for Gayle Romero, you could read her life by the lines on her face. She was the same age as Jack, but more dry, with light eyes and red-brown hair. She dressed in long modest “Little House on the Prairie” dresses, and always smelled of molasses and cayenne. To me, her eyes danced as if she were one step ahead of us all. I trusted her. I loved her. She was like a mother to me, until she betrayed me.
All the girls wore the traditional “Hobby Holly” dresses and, underneath, the sacred Mormon neck-to-ankle undergarments ordered by the Prophet for all female members. The garments were intended to keep our bodies modest and sacred. I spent a lot of my time with Laura Lithgow. Laura was like my sister. We were becoming young women together and we often planned what life would be like when we grew up. We did the silly things girls our age did, like washing and combing our waist length hair, or looking in the mirror and comparing noses. She would always say, “My nose is perfect. It’s better than your nose.” I would tell her, “But your eyes aren’t as pretty as mine.” Even wearing traditional Mormon garb, we imagined what it would be like to use makeup. We wondered how mascara worked. We play acted about how we would look if we were ever allowed to put it on. Laura’s older sister had taught her to put on mascara when she came home, and I was jealous. I wanted to be like her.
My other friend was Traci Romero, who was Gayle’s daughter but not Jack’s. Traci had red hair and so many freckles that when I tried to count them, I couldn’t, not even when I tried connecting the dots with a pen. The last of our group was Andrea Lithgow. Andrea was fair skinned, with sleek blond hair and long, lanky legs. Laura and Traci and I slept together in one bed at night, all piled together for warmth. It was so cold that it didn’t matter who slept where, as long as we were close together.
The Romero home in Pinesdale sat at the top of a steep hill on the side of a mountain. The house was covered with snow, pitted brown from the dirt road around it. It was treacherous going because of the ice. When we went out, we often got on a sled or inner tube to slide down the hill. Most frightening was coming up by car because if the tires slid, it rolled backwards. I never thought of the house as pretty. It was a makeshift structure with rooms added on, lacking any style. It was always gloomy inside. The walls were paneled with dark wood and the spaces for sitting and storage were small and cramped.
Jack and Gayle slept together in a bedroom that smelled of old incense and sweat, downstairs, at the end of a dark hallway. A sixteen year-old girl named Kathy had her own room next to theirs. Four years older than Laura and me, Kathy was a tall, tan, willowy girl with strawberry blond hair, green eyes, and a pert nose. She always smelled like buttermilk. She was my vision of a California girl. She spent more time alone with Jack than anyone. At that time, I had no idea what it meant.
The rest of the bedrooms were full of boys. I never spoke to the Romero boys in their home or called them by name. It may seem odd that I could live in a house and not speak to the boys who lived there, but this was a fundamentalist Mormon household and from Day One girls were taught to be “seen and not heard” and to have no interaction of any kind with boys. We were quiet, respectful, well mannered, and separate. We had good attitudes and quiet smiles. Beatings will do that.
Laura, Traci, and I shared a room with a bed, dresser, and wash- stand. Our window looked out to the pine forest. It was neat as a pin and we were told to keep it that way. We shared a closet, too, which was good news for me because I had no suitable clothing of my own. Laura and Traci were told to share their long dresses with me, which they grudgingly did.
The living room had an old orange and brown couch and two armchairs. The fireplace always smelled of wood ash, an odor that tinged everything, including the window drapes. There was a brownish carpet on the floor, and a row of snow boots by the front door. To be sure we never strayed outside the community, we were sat in a circle on the carpet and told horrific stories of bears in the woods attacking women and giving them hickeys.
I was happy to be away from Ross and Patricia. I didn’t feel afraid or alone. I didn’t miss the chaos of the Lithgow household or my parents’ abuse and desperation. I had no desire to return to the beatings or the desolate life we led in Texas and New Mexico. I accepted my situation gladly, with good manners and a happy attitude, as I was taught. Perhaps here, I could be normal. I could find peace. But from the moment we arrived, Gayle Romero scrutinized every little thing I did. If I slept with my arms above my head, she woke me up in the middle of the night and told me to put my arms down. She gave me spoonfuls of molasses to get the devil out of me because the Adversary was in me. The molasses would keep my hands below my head. Gayle decided my skin was too pale compared to the sunburns the other kids got sledding. She would pinch my cheeks and tell me, “You’re so white, you need some color!” I got fried wheat and cabbage soup to bring color to my skin. It never worked. I suggested maybe I could use a bit of makeup. In horror, she told me it was the Adversary suggesting such an idea, told me to pray for forgiveness, and fed me more wheat.
Food at the Romero’s was almost as bad as when I lived with my parents or the Lithgows. Gayle told us she was trying to put vitamins in our bodies. I thought we were going back to starvation. Once again, we had to eat the Spirulina—algae—tablets to make us feel full and give us the nutrition we needed. We had to take spoonfuls of cayenne pepper and swallow it with vinegar and honey because it was supposed to be good for us, too.
Our diet was based on the “Word of Wisdom” in the Mormon religion, which says, “Eat meat sparingly.” Like everything else, it was taken to the extreme. Back at the Lithgow’s, my dad had found a book called “The Breatherian.” It scared me because its theme was that our bodies didn’t need food if we just breathed right and drank certain liquids. The author claimed to have given up eating completely. My parents believed this and, as we were too poor to buy any food except Spirulina, nuts, and raisins, anyway, it fit right in. I’m surprised I didn’t develop an eating disorder. Later on in life, from all that malnutrition, Andrea did. So did Celeste, Aimee, and Traci.
Time had no meaning in the life at Pinesdale. There was no separation of weeks and months. Monday was just like Thursday or Friday. We woke, we played, we did chores, and, on occasion, went to community square dances. A lot of our time was spent trying on long dresses to decide which one to wear to the dances. The only day of the week that was different was Sunday, when we went to church. Time began, or ended, that day. Everything in between was the same. It is difficult to judge how much time I actually spent there. Like going away for the summer—as I have been told by people who did—my memory kept only a series of events in a place, which are unconnected to time.
Jack was still spending time with Kathy in private. The other girls and I had no real idea of what they did together. We assumed she was going to be his sister-wife but, to us, that was still an academic distinction. There was a total disconnect between sex and love and marriage for us. We had no talks about “the birds and the bees” with our parents. We had no social interaction with boys. Besides, if Jack and Kathy got married, there would never be a public announcement or a party. Marriages were arranged by the Prophet and performed in secret. Only when we saw a young woman leave her own family and begin sitting with another family at church did we realize that a marriage had taken place.
One day, Kathy came into the house to change clothes in her bedroom and we struck up a conversation about what we were going to wear to the next square dance. When she took off her shirt, I noticed she was covered with hickeys.
I asked her, “What happened? Are you okay?”
She said, “A bear attacked me.”
I knew that couldn’t be true, even though we were warned that bears did such things.
“Kathy, if you were attacked by a bear you’d be all clawed up, not covered with hickeys.”
“I’m not supposed to talk about it,” she told me.
“How come?” I asked.
“Because this is what the Prophet has chosen for me.”
“Hickeys?”
“They’re not hickeys.”
“Hold on. My sister and I used to give each other hickeys on our arms for fun when we were younger, then rub them off with quarters. I know hickeys, Kathy.”
“Amber, forget about that. I am going to marry Jack.”
Something inside me rebelled at the thought, although I could not have put into words why it bothered me. In the cult life, you never ask the question, “What’s wrong with that?” You ask, instead, “What’s wrong with me for thinking something’s wrong with that?”
“Are you happy?” I asked Kathy.
Some emotion flickered across her face but I couldn’t read it.
“I know the Prophet is happy and I am going to Heaven,” she said. “Someday, you will be called, too.”
She must have seen my reaction. It was like being told one day I’d eat bugs. It was a mistake. You had to be careful in cults. You could never really have a natural reaction. Emotion had to be guarded, lest someone think the Adversary was present in you. It was not my place to question Kathy, or Jack, or the Prophet’s will for them. I backed off and didn’t say anything more. However, Kathy must have noticed my unease. She went straight to Gayle and told her my reaction to her and Jack.
The next day, Gayle sat me down and explained that theirs was a polygamous house and this was the lifestyle of this entire community. She told me about how marriages were arranged under the Prophet’s guidance and that we all followed his leadership. I hated it when they talked to me like I was a child.
“Kathy understands that and she is going to be welcomed into our family,” Gayle told me. “She’s assured of going to the highest kingdom, the celestial kingdom in Heaven. The Prophet is very pleased with her. If you are a good girl, you will go to Heaven, too.”
“I want to go to Heaven, Gayle,” I said.
“Then you must listen to what the Prophet and Jack tell you to do.”
“I will.”
“Then Heavenly Father will be well pleased with you.”
After she left, I wondered if she meant I was going to be a wife to Jack like Kathy was going to be. Was that what they expected of me, to marry Jack? I was frightened but I was also attracted. I was a girl. I desired to be a woman and everyone knew that all women became wives and mothers. In a way, it was what I had been trained for my entire life. Certainly, no one had ever suggested I go to college or have a career. Marriage and motherhood were the goals of my womanhood. I was not the equal of a man. I was female. I was an obedient child. I would be an obedient adult. I had to accept what Heavenly Father, the Prophet, and my parents chose for me. I did wonder if I could find a way to talk the Prophet into letting me marry someone younger who might be a Polygamist, too, but I could at least be his favorite wife. In any event, I told myself I was going to be a good Mormon child and accept whatever the Prophet desired of me.
If I had, everything might have been so different.
Jack Romero was still having encounters with Kathy, as demonstrated by her daily supply of fresh hickeys, but now I started to be aware of the increasing interest he was taking in both Laura and me. Jack would stop me in the hallway and stroke my hair or tell me how pretty I looked. And I realized Laura was often alone with Jack while the rest of us did chores or played outside.
I asked Laura, “Are we both going to marry Jack?”
“Who say’s you and me get the same husband?” she responded.
“Of course, we will,” I said firmly. “We’re best friends.”
I shrugged off thoughts of marriage and went back to being a twelve year old. I played and sewed and went ice-skating. Sometimes I went to school and worked on my LIFEPACs and Home Economics. I still didn’t understand math but I could avoid it by turning to the next page in the workbook. I liked being with kids my age, skating and sledding. Twelve year-old kids are desperate for that kind of contact. Kathy’s hickeys faded from my mind. Jack was just a minor presence. My body was still malnourished and pre-pubescent and any thought of a sexual encounter wasn’t in the realm of possibility for me. At least, that’s what I thought.
A few nights after the conversation with Gayle about Kathy’s marriage to Jack, and polygamy, and my joining the family, I woke up alone, in darkness. Someone was in my room. It was Gayle Romero, wearing her robe and bedclothes. She turned on the small light on my bed stand and sat on the bed beside me.
“Here, Amber, swallow this. You have evil spirits in you and we have to drive them away.”
It went down hard but, as always, I did as I was told.
“Sit up, Amber. Jack wants to speak to you.”
Gayle got up and Jack Romero sat on the bed. He was dressed in long garments, like thermal underwear, with a flap that opened to expose his manhood held closed by a button. I was still groggy from sleep and my throat hurt from the sting of the cayenne and molasses.
“Amber, I have prayed to Heavenly Father and I have received his revelation. The Prophet has also confirmed that you are to marry me.”
I was afraid. “Do my parents know?”
“Amber, we don’t question the Prophet’s will. You know disobedience is a sign of the Adversary.”
“Yes. I know that.”
“And you want to go to the celestial kingdom?”
“I’m a good girl, Brother Jack.”
“I’m glad to hear that, Amber.”
I thought for a moment. “Will Laura marry you, too?”
I cared about that, staying with Laura.
Jack said, “Yes, I will marry Laura, too.”
Part of me was relieved. It would still be me and Laura. I was sad that he wasn’t going to marry Traci, too. Even though Jack was her stepfather, she was also our friend. I didn’t want her to be left out.
Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. At least Jack wasn’t in his seventies or eighties like some of the men. I thought, if I marry you, and Laura marries us, then we will all be together. He was touching me now. I giggled because something struck me as funny. “So I would be Traci’s mom?” I asked.
He just laughed and then something happened.
It wasn’t complete sex. He touched me and kissed me and I felt him against me. I was afraid. Even though I knew I wasn’t supposed to, I pulled away. He pushed back the bedcovers. His lips were sucking at me and I thought of all the hickeys on Kathy. His hands were on my leg and he was very close to me and it was very uncomfortable. I felt squirmy. I remember that feeling of squirmy, like wanting to take my spirit outside of my body and go away, but I couldn’t move.
Gayle was standing in the doorway, sort of in silhouette because it was dark in the room. She smiled as if to say, “This is okay. Don’t worry. Just let Jack do what he wants.” Every time I looked up, Gayle smiled. It was all okay. One of our lessons was that we were all the same age in Heaven and, if that were true, Jack was not really old. In fact, Jack was a great warrior in the war in Heaven before we all came to earth. He himself told me a long story about how he had fought in the war and worn shiny armor and had a big bright sword. He wasn’t really who he was. I had to see the heavenly version. He was really an angelic warrior, not a man. I could not see or judge him as a man.
In the morning, I was very upset to find I had hickeys all over my chest and my neck. I tried to get rid of them the way I did as a kid with my sister, rubbing them with a quarter, but Laura and Kathy saw them. I was still sick and afraid. Surprisingly, they made a celebration of my hickeys. I stood in front of the mirror with Kathy and Laura on either side of me smiling and excited, twirling and braiding their hair. In some odd way, I had graduated. Now I was one of them. They were treating me like an adult.
I found out from Laura that she had been doing things with Jack, too. She never said what, specifically, she just smiled at me. We were all in on the big secret. We were happy we were all going to be sister wives together. Kathy laughed about telling me that a bear attacked her. The camaraderie took away a lot of the sickness that I felt from being with Jack. I was closer to accepting what he wanted from me. I would be a part of a real family. I would do what was expected. I had been trained for obedience all my life and this was the test.
To look especially pretty, I borrowed a dress from Laura whose collar had a little bit of lace around the top. I tried to feel good about things. When I walked outside, I noticed there was a subtle difference in the way people related to me. I didn’t know if it was my “guilty conscience” at work, or if they were in on the secret, too.
I suppose, if everything went as planned, I would still be in Pinesdale, married to Jack Romero, a sister-wife with a bunch of children. I came that close. But something inside me seemed to pull back. I didn’t understand what it was. I was supposed to be happy and fulfilled. I was going to marry a man in good standing with Heavenly Father, a warrior of God who had fought battles in His name, a solid member of the community. What was wrong with me that I had such misgivings? I didn’t want to kiss Jack. He smelled like burnt coal and his bony hips poked me when he hugged me.
One afternoon, a few days later, he stopped me in the hallway and kissed me. I was embarrassed and I squirmed because I didn’t want the younger kids to see.
“Amber, lift up your skirt,” he said.
I pulled my long dress up, showing my panties. He smiled at me and walked away, pleased that I obeyed.
Jack came to visit me at night. I tried to pretend I enjoyed it. I got very upset. I walked around the compound wondering what a “normal” girl would do. Maybe I was just supposed to lie there quietly while he touched and sucked at my mouth and breasts. Kathy and Laura seemed to enjoy parts of it, at least. I think Kathy liked it more than Laura did. Laura just wanted to grow up. What was wrong with me? Did I have too much of the Adversary in me, even with all the cayenne and molasses that had been poured down my throat?
The next day I got Kathy and Laura and Traci and organized a skating party. Kids were watched all the time, even at the community square dances, so opportunities to congregate in a mixed group of boys and girls were rare. One of the few times we managed to do that was when we went ice-skating.
One of the Johnson boys, named James, was going to come skating with us. He was tall and lean with freckles and sandy blonde hair. He wore suspenders and moon-boots everywhere. It felt more special to me skating with him than with the other kids. James flirted with me, and I flirted back, the extent of which was to smile to show I liked it when he skated close. I was pleased someone my own age was interested in me. We never touched. We never kissed. It was tame stuff for teenagers anywhere else, but relationships even as innocent as this threatened the entire cult.
Young girls naturally prefer to be with boys their own age. James was just a boy; but boys frightened the old men who led Pinesdale or any other polygamous community. What teen-aged girl wouldn’t prefer a boy her own age to dance with, or ice skate with, or share that first kiss with? Polygamous cults often expel boys when they reach their teen-aged years to ensure they can’t compete for the hands of young girls. The FLDS cult in Colorado City, Arizona has expelled so many male teens, they have come to be called “The Lost Boys” by the social workers who have to place them in half-way houses. Later, when I became a member of the Zionist Society, Prophet Arvin Shreeve ruled that only mothers with female children were permitted to become members. One mother who wished to join the cult had to abandon her male children before she was allowed in. It seems hard to believe but she, and many others, did just that.
Sin was everywhere; we had to be obedient or we would be punished, but a part of me refused to believe this was right no matter what punishment and training was brought to bear. Scripture after scripture was quoted to tell me and the other girls that the old men we would marry were really warriors of God, angels in their own right. We must not see them as old or unattractive. They were not mortal men. The Prophet told us that, and he was God’s appointed angel on earth. We would all see the truth when we got to Heaven.
Over the next few days, I organized Kathy, Laura, and some of the other girls into skating parties, and even held ones at night. It was all to see James. I didn’t understand why I blushed when Laura said his name, or why I wanted to be in his company so much. I surely didn’t understand the warm glow in my middle which was happening for the first time in my life. It reminded me of my crush on Eric at home. It was fun. It was nice. Just skating near James was enough to awaken something in me. The “pulling back” that I felt when I thought about Jack touching me was absent when I was near James. I couldn’t admit it to Laura, or Kathy, or Traci. I could barely admit it to myself.
I wanted James to kiss me.
I snuck out of the house one night because James said that he might be going to the pond. I remember skating circles around the boy. That was enough. I was wallowing in sin. I lived with the guilt of that feeling every minute. I was a bad girl. I had Satan in me. I prayed for forgiveness. I prayed for revelation. I quoted scripture to myself every time I had a “bad” thought. I avoided the gaze of the sister-wives at the square dances and church, worried that they knew I was unworthy and corrupt. I hoped they wouldn’t tell Jack Romero because he had a bad temper.
Finally, when I couldn’t keep my feelings inside any longer, I talked to Kathy and Laura. They listened, then told me my feelings were sinful. They quoted scripture and the Prophet but, like the snake in Eden, the thought was out. It was the first time that we gave voice to the feeling that something was wrong. Whatever was bothering me—still something for which we had no name—started to bother them, too. We began to question what was going on with Jack. In the beginning, they wore their hickeys with pride, a badge of honor. Now, for the first time they seemed to find them awkward, and the many “love-bites” painful.
I had a lot of influence over Kathy and Laura and I got them to sneak off with me to the pond to meet the boys. I worked out plans for us to marry boys our own age. We talked about the ones they liked. It was all adolescent fantasy, to be sure. “Laura, James can steal one of the cars and be ready when you and me and Paul”—a boy she favored—“meet you out on the road. We’ll go to Missoula and get jobs and live in a big house all together. Or, maybe Kathy and all of us could live in the empty Lithgow house at the bottom of the hill. No one would know we were there.”
I wanted to tell James. I wanted him to run away with me so I wouldn’t have to marry Jack. I managed to maneuver him aside at the next skating party. It was a cold, windy night but the million stars you see that high in the mountains made it light enough to see clearly.
“James, come with me.”
He was instantly afraid. “Where?”
I pulled, maybe “dragged” is a better word, him to the woods by the edge of the lake.
“Amber, you’re going to get us into trouble.”
“No, we won’t. It will be fine, you’ll see.”
“What do you want?”
I told him my plans.
He shook his head. “Amber, we can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“We just can’t,” he insisted, turning to go.
“Wait, James.”
I lifted up my long skirt the same way Jack asked me to, and showed him my underwear. He stared at my cold blue legs for a long moment before he skated away really fast. I stood there frozen and confused. Why did he skate away as if he hated me?
There were no passionate good-byes. No Elvira Madigan embraces. James just turned and left and went back to skating with the other kids. I was devastated. Even the devil had failed me. I watched everyone skating in circles, laughing in the night. I didn’t feel like I belonged anymore. I felt rejected and afraid. I watched James skate over to Kathy and talk to her. They both looked at me and whispered things. I felt exposed. I tried to skate around in circles. A knot crept up my tummy. No one liked me. I couldn’t get anything right.
My interest in James proved to be my undoing. Something as big as disappearing with a boy alone, for even a few minutes, was a huge sin. I don’t know if Laura or Traci told on me for leaving the skating pond with James. It could have been any of the kids. Sin had to be reported. It could easily have been James himself, worried he would go to hell for disobedience. Laura told me that James told Jack that I lifted my dress. It didn’t matter who told. I was done for.
The next night when I came back to the Romero house, the adults were waiting for me in the living room with chairs arrayed on the brown carpet for a big family meeting.
“Sit down, Amber, we wish to speak with you,” Gayle said.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Is everything okay?” I started crying before another word was spoken. I knew it wasn’t good because when I looked at Laura and Traci, they looked away.
“We are very unhappy with your behavior and disobedience,” Jack said sternly.
“I didn’t do anything,” I said.
“You did. We took you in and you repaid us by worshiping Satan and losing the spirit.”
I was scared. Really scared. “What did I do?”
“You took James into the woods and lifted up your skirt and showed him your panties to entice him.”
“I never…” I stammered.
“We have several witnesses who reported you.”
“I never did that,” I protested. “Never. We just talked.”
“We don’t believe you. Several people have reported you.”
I sat there in the condemning glare of all those adults and continued to profess my innocence. But I knew I wasn’t innocent. We were taught modesty and chastity our whole lives. I cried as they spoke because I knew I wouldn’t be forgiven.
“Amber, the Prophet said that you have to go. You have committed a sin. You exposed yourself. You showed your panties to a young boy.”
I started to cry. I was going to Hell. “I don’t want to go. Please, I just got settled. I don’t want to leave. What about Laura and Traci and Andrea? Will they go with me?”
Suddenly, the things Jack had done to me were unimportant. I remember thinking, my parents are gonna be so mad at me if they find out. I had no place to go. Returning to the Lithgow house with all the fighting, and Brother King always giving me creepy looks like he wanted something from me and hated me at the same time, was inconceivable. I didn’t want to go back to that. I wanted to stay with Laura, Kathy, and Traci. They were my friends and, at that stage, all I wanted was to be with my friends.
No use. The Prophet had decided. His word was law.
I had the Adversary in me and I guess there wasn’t enough molasses in all of Pinesdale to get him out. I was a disruptive force. I had too much influence over the other girls. I had sinned. I was disobedient.
“The other girls don’t concern you. Pack your things. You’re leaving.”
They turned from me as if I was made of stone. No one dried my eyes. No one told me I would be fine. Laura and Traci were not allowed to comfort me, either. I had transgressed. I had failed.
The next morning I got back into the same white van that had brought me to Pinesdale. It was filled with girls. I thought, “We are the rejects of this group. Now, they’ll bring out more girls from Utah.” It was the truth. I had seen the white van constantly going back and forth with different people, taking those who had been rejected from the community, bringing new members who were coming to join. Anyone who didn’t make the grade was taken back to Utah in the white van. It was a culling of the herd. Weed out the bold, the ones who see through the rhetoric, or who want a real relationship with their peers, or with their children, or who just won’t stand for sexual slavery, and what do you have left?
The ones who will.
Book Outline with Chapter Synopses
Prologue
Chapter One Texas The Abovo Head Shop
Chapter Two Utah The White House
Chapter Three Utah Poverty
Chapter Four Utah The Principle
Chapter Five Montana The First Cult
Chapter Six New Mexico A Call For Help
Chapter Seven Utah The Zionist Society
Chapter Eight Utah The Sister Council
Chapter Nine Utah The Prophet’s Wife
Chapter Ten Utah The Prison Door Slams Shut
Chapter Eleven Utah No Innocents
Chapter Twelve Utah Escape
Chapter Thirteen CA Reborn
Epilogue
-------------------
Prologue— In proposal
Chapter 1—In Proposal
Chapter 2
The time in Logan, Utah, is a happy one for Amber. She loves the White House and playing in the fields with her sisters. Here, the McElroy’s fanaticism is somewhat muted, as are the daily punishments. Ross works for a cheese company and his salary is adequate for their needs. Amber enjoys going to church with her parents and sisters, playing violin for the family, and singing in the choir. The church life allows Amber and her sisters to be a part of the community. However, a stubborn refusal to accept societal restraints rears its head in the McElroy household. Amber and her sisters are taken out of school and Patricia takes charge of their home schooling, nothing more than scripture, penmanship, and singing. There is no training in math, a lack which haunts Amber all her life.
It is important to paint an accurate picture of Ross and Patricia McElroy. It would be too easy to see them as rabid martinets, simply beating the girls to be obedient. More accurate is the idea that they are, and always have been, wedded to the hippie ideal of freedom, carried to an extreme. Societal values are not just to be spurned—they are evil. The innocence of hippie spiritualism becomes religious intolerance—believe, or you are doomed. The paradigms of the 60’s are squashed into a structure tighter than a noose. Discussions about the Cosmic Spirit become diatribes on Mormonism. Ross and Patricia’s relationship is affectionate and they have some good qualities. Their failures as people and parents all have the same sad ring of a time that never fulfilled its promise.
Life in Logan begins to sour when Ross is fired from the cheese factory for failing to get along with his bosses. Patricia continues the girls’ home schooling. Ross starts businesses; selling Fuller Brushes, peddling inventions; all fail. Ross, foolishly generous with money, soon runs out of it. The last of the money goes to buy a movie theater. Amber works selling tickets, but it’s hard to make change because she can’t count. There are some good times, still. They show “E.T.” and everyone loves it. Ross creates promotions with “give-aways.” One is a bicycle that Amber wishes she could have but it must go to promote the business, which is worsening. Finally, against advice, Ross screens a movie that alienates the town. Soon, the theater is empty. Ross loses the theater and the last of the McElroy’s money.
Impoverished, they have to sell the white house when water and electricity are cut off. Beatings come back in force. Amber is spanked daily for her “rebellious” nature—asking for food and heat. Finally, a neighbor calls social services and reports the spankings and malnutrition. The Department of Social Services (DSS) demands the girls be put back in school, and arranges for food and clothing. It makes Social Services the only “protector” Amber has ever known. Ross puts the girls back in school just long enough to satisfy social services, then takes them out again. The McElroys are forced to sell the White house, but debts consume the profits and the family is forced out on the street. Before they leave, Amber finds the Raggedy Ann doll she names Christine Ann on her front steps, anonymously placed there with a note saying, “From someone who loves you.” It means everything to her. She will never know who sent it.
Chapter 3
The McElroys go on the run with their children from social services, clinging to a stern religious anti-government lifestyle. They live in the back room of a second-hand store, then a storage unit. Ross and the girls rummage for food in dumpsters. Thanksgiving dinner is a meal of old donuts served on a plank.
At church, the McElroys meet Helen Lithgow and she introduces them to an even more radical Mormonism. “Helen to this day sends me papers about things like Proctor and Gamble is owned by the devil. Helen preaches fundamentalism and The Principal—polygamy. The McElroys congregate at the Lithgow house, intrigued by the new lifestyle, but at this point, Social Services again steps in. Amber is taken to a group home in New Mexico. She officially becomes a ward of the state. The McElroys kidnap her and bring her back to Utah.
Chapter 4— In Proposal
Chapter 5— In Proposal
Chapter 6
Amber leaves the Pinesdale cult and rejoins her parents in New Mexico. Ross has no job and no money. They are living in a decrepit trailer without power or running water. Social Service intervenes when Ross keeps Amber and her sisters out of school. He sends them back to placate the authorities. Amber loves school but gets a terrible case of lice and Ross washes her head in gasoline. He claims it is a sign that the school is from the devil and takes Amber out again. She is now thirteen, a teenager, interested in a better life. She wants to leave the McElroys but they prevent her from going. She runs away. Ross finds her, locks her in the family trailer, and beats her. He boards up the windows and sleeps by the door to keep Amber from escaping. Amber calls social services—the only protector she has ever known. Ross and Patricia are furious when Social workers raid the family trailer.
As soon as the social workers leave, Ross puts the family in an old car and flees to Utah to join Helen Lithgow where she now lives—the Zionist Society led by Prophet Arvin Shreeve, a 61 year-old landscaping contractor. “We left in the middle of the night because Social Services became involved in our lives and kept coming over. That's when Ross locked me down in the trailer and beat me with the wire hanger. Ross and Patricia were very angry and didn't know what to do so they packed us up again and fled New Mexico. At that time, Helen Lithgow’s family and Jack Romero’s family (from Pinesdale) had bought brand-new homes in the Shreeve community. My parents decided to join the group and took us to live with Helen till we could get a house of our own.
The Shreeve compound was the most beautiful place I had ever seen. It was paradise. We weren't up in the mountains. We weren’t in a trailer. We were in the suburbs. The landscaping was beautiful. Laura, Andrea, and Tracy were already there and they were wearing dresses; regular, pretty normal dresses, and they had makeup on. I was reunited with them. It was perfect...”
Chapter 7
Amber describes the Zionist Society of Prophet Arvin Shreeve, how the Shreeve compound looked and functioned. It is beautiful at first glance. Prophet Arvin Shreeve is a landscaper and the women tend the lawns and gardens. Cults are like Venus Flytraps—alluring outside, deadly inside. Each home has a cache of hidden guns and secret rooms—preparation for the end of the world. It’s a Survivalist mentality. Security is absolute. No one is allowed to leave the compound of homes on its cul de sac without permission. Members spy on other members. Women must always be with two other women, so they can’t have secrets. Women can’t drive. There are daily rituals to prepare for the Apocalypse. Amber learns the most basic lesson—she will go to hell if she disobeys the Prophet.
Amber and the other girls are taught the cult beliefs (outlined in Prologue). They are given manuals to study called SWOL, which they are told stands for Such The Way of Life. “There was a closet full of materials for the cult’s ‘Interviewers,’ members who screened new people—called “Investigators”—who walked in and wanted to know what the cult was about. The SWOLs were manuals on how to lie to them.” Eventually, Ross argues with the Prophet. The McElroys, including Aimee and Celeste, are thrown out. Amber refuses to go—no more poverty and abuse. It’s a bad choice. She has been fooled by the cult. The McElroys leave her there.
Chapter 8
The Sister Council takes over Amber’s indoctrination. Amber does not yet know the cult is a “false paradise.” The Prophet is God’s most favored man. We explore the families and their belief system, clothing, customs, rituals. Amber and Laura Lithgow share a room. She and Laura and Andrea are close companions. All three girls are about the same age. They wear modern dresses and make-up. They are assigned chores on a printed schedule covering every hour of the day. They sing hymns and read scripture. Other families are like guards—if anyone walks down the streets of the compound alone, they report them.
Amber is excited to find beautiful sexy lingerie in her dresser drawer, all hers. The Sister Council prepares Amber, dresses her, applies make-up. Amber gets her “color-palate,” peach, chosen for her by the Prophet. She is thrilled to wear lingerie and not Mormon undergarments. For the first time in her life, she has a modern wardrobe. The Sisters put Amber on a strict diet because the Prophet demands attractive women. In short order, Amber is made-over from a wild child to a sexual play doll.
She is told the plan for her is to join the Sister Council and be married to the Prophet.
Chapter 9
Sister Sherrie Kapp (later arrested and sent to jail) is in charge of Amber’s sexual training so Amber can serve the Prophet. “Rape in the Dark” is the favorite game, along with going on “dates” to other houses in the compound for ice cream and sex. Amber is taught sex by the other women, and sleeps with them individually and in groups. Amber is taught to kiss by Sherrie, and how to bring pleasure to a man. Dildos are used on her for vaginal and anal sex. “Sherrie started teaching me during these lessons every day on my schedule and I would have to go meet with her for my lesson of the day. The lessons started with basic general kissing, how to French kiss, and then I practiced on her. I was told not to worry that it was wrong. This was the way it was supposed to be. Heavenly Father (God) wanted us to be prepared for our husbands because we need to create children. The lessons went on, step by step, from touching your breasts, to fingering yourself, to fingering each other, to dildos and machines and vibrators.” There is much more…
The chapter ends with marriage to the Prophet, and rape.
Chapter 10
The prison door slams shut. Amber is married to the Prophet and every facet of her life is controlled. She explores the mindset of the cult, and the relationship of the husbands/men/boys. It a New world Order where all the families combined their food, money, and property, to be divided by the Prophet. Amber’s day is spent on scripture, sewing, cooking, gardening, and sex. The other girls receive their sexual training. Despite the Prophet’s blessing, Amber is troubled when biological sisters are made to sleep together. She struggles with the conflict of her conscience and the demands of being a sister wife. Survival comes first.
“All homes had guns, survival gear, hidden rooms, and in one there was a bomb shelter. The point at which I felt like I truly “got” life there happened one afternoon when I was visiting Helen Lithgow. Arvin and a few of his men were drawing up plans to build a secret room to hide in. Secret rooms were required in every home in order to make them “Celestial” and safe. Helen was making a salad in the kitchen and I was helping her cut beets. I wanted to follow the men, but I had my assignment so I stayed with the salad. Even so, I kept peeking at the men as they shuffled from room to room. I wanted Arvin’s approval desperately. Everyone there wanted his approval. His approval meant you were right with God Our Heavenly Father. Being approved of meant that you could ignore everything bad happening.
Arvin stood at the top of the stairs talking about floor plans.
He said, “The city has the floor plans to this house, but they would never look for a secret room if we escalate it from this point over to that point over there.”
He often took out a yellow handkerchief from his pressed Khaki pants, wiping sweat from his leather-tanned head. I walked out of the kitchen holding my stained hands behind my back. I had one shot at speaking, but interrupting their spiritual guidance of building plans was not allowed, especially by a child. I had been told that there were spirits from the other side of the veil giving directions to the prophet as he worked. Only he could see these spirits because they were from the highest kingdom. I didn’t want to interrupt a spirit if they were talking, but I took my chance.
I stood beside Arvin, swallowed, then said, “If you build a room in that space above the stairs no one would ever suspect it.”
He looked at me, and looked at the coffin-like space. “Amber, dear, there would only be room for one person in that small space.”
“Or two people lying down,” I answered.
He smiled at my flirtation, patted me on the bottom, and I flushed red with glee. I was getting it. I understood how things worked, how to seduce his attention and love. I felt proud of myself. I felt happy. I felt like I was his favorite. I went back to cutting beets for Helen, but not before I closed my eyes to pray.
“Thank you Heavenly Father for letting him notice me, and thank you for letting me be in the highest Sister council on earth.”
I had a victory. The Prophet loved me.
Amber and the other girls work in Shreeve’s lingerie Business. All the women are scheduled to work in the basement sweatshop sewing sexy lingerie for strippers. The garments are sold by Shreeve and the men of the Society for profit, marketed under the brand name “Sweet Things.” Amber and the other girls model lingerie, coached by local strippers who come to the compound to buy the clothing.
Amber’s sexual relationship with Shreeve has no love. It is obedience, and brutal sex. Young and pretty, Amber is brought to him most often. It gives her power. Sex is the coin of the realm for sister-wives. There are group sex orgies with the other women, and performances for Shreeve to watch and masturbate, or direct and join. He has the girls do strip-shows wearing lingerie. (Shreeve’s activities are detailed in reports filed by Phoenix Sun journalist, Mike Watkiss, who has agreed to contribute to this book.)
The Prophet is pleased with Amber. She is now his most favored sexual partner. She rises in the household. After so many name changes in her life, Amber is given one more, Regima, her angel-name in heaven.
Chapter 11
The spark inside Amber that let her survive the woods of Utah, the trailer in New Mexico, and the Pinesdale cult in Montana, reappears. She nurses a growing belief that the cult members are evil and what they are doing is wrong. Worse, what she is about to be made to do intensifies her desire to be free. Sherrie and the other sister wives decide to train Amber to be in charge of the SWOL (Now, Amber is told it really means the ‘Sexual Way Of Life’). The Sister Council puts Amber in charge of sexually training the new girls who come to the cult. Amber is already a victim; now she must be a victimizer. The impact on Amber is devastating. Her innocence is gone. She feels guilty over what she does with/to the other girls. It’s like an assembly line—girls are brought in, made over, dressed, and Amber must help prepare them for sex with the Prophet or their husbands-to-be. Her activities are detailed here. The girls range from teenagers to much younger. She is deeply ashamed. These are the hardest memories.
Amber complains to Helen, the only adult she feels might listen. Helen tells Shreeve. Amber is punished. She threatens suicide. One other girl has already killed herself. Christine Ann, her precious Raggedy Ann doll is taken away. Laura and Andrea, her companions, have no sympathy. They are solid cult adherents. Laura has begun a consuming sexual relationship with one of the older sister wives. Laura stabs Amber for trying to sway them from the cult. Life grows more oppressive. There is constant work on the grounds and in the lingerie assembly line, sewing garments for the business. Desperation fuels Amber’s desire to escape.
Chapter 12
Amber wants to escape but she is a prisoner, watched 24 hours a day. Weighing heavily on her is the belief that she risks going to hell if she disobeys the Prophet. Everything normal is reversed. She has been taught disagreement is evil. Despite that, her conscience tells her she can not “train” any more girls for this life.
Amber finds an old rock and roll cassette in the sweat shop basement and plays it—the first non-religious music she has heard in years. As if a sign, she is sent to market with two other women (without underwear because Shreeve ordered it that way) and Amber hears the same song on the radio. To her, it means she has the right to be free. She waits and plans. No one will help her. She can not get out alone.
The telephones are guarded. Minutes alone are precious. Amber creates opportunity by reworking her schedule and visiting the Prophet in the main house for sex. When the Prophet is asleep, the phone is free for a time. After several failures, she is able to use the phone. Who can she call? Social Services has saved her before. But she has no phone book or directory. It takes her precious minutes for Information to find the number, but she gets it and makes the call. Social services tells Amber they will get her out, but the social worker doesn’t know when. Amber explains she is risking her life. They must come right away. No use. Amber has to wait until an official request is made to the authorities to come for her. Just as Prophet wakes, Amber manages to tell the social worker about the hidden rooms in the houses so she can be found if they come and she is “missing.” If anyone is listening, she will be locked up.
It is a tense time at the cult. Reporters have been nosing around, most notably, Mike Watkiss. Amber states, “Watkiss is the one who would not quit until it was shut down completely.” Watkiss is informed of Amber’s call.
Trapped inside the cult, Amber is terrified. If the Prophet finds out she has called the authorities, she will be punished, possibly killed. Others have disappeared for less. Shreeve would not let her reveal the truth to the authorities or testify in court. Finally, after a week of fear and hiding and trying to please the Prophet to distract him, she faces the growing suspicion that the cult members are on to her. She makes a chart of the hidden rooms so she can be found if she is locked up. She tries to make a second call but the phone is now hidden. After a week of terror, Social Service workers and police come for Amber. The Prophet and his cult members go for their guns. There is the threat of violence. Amber manages to convince the Prophet the raid originates with her parents back in New Mexico. Social Service workers support the ruse. The Prophet allows her to go, warning Amber to stay silent. What he does not know is that with Amber’s helping Social Services and the police, the destruction of the cult has begun.
Chapter 13
The Shreeve trial is national news. The Prophet and eight of his sister wives are arrested sent to prison for child abuse and pederasty. We have court records from the Second District Court in Utah; and award-winning journalist Mike Watkiss of the Phoenix Sun, a crusader against religious cults, has agreed to contribute to the book.
During this time of struggle, Amber gains the beginning of a self-image for the first time. “I never even thought about going to college. That was what other people did. I didn’t know how they were doing it, or what they did there. It scared me but it gave me emotional stability. I began to understand the full extent of what had happened to me. I rediscovered my faith in God. Despite obstacles, my life came together. I began to believe I could write. I did well in my courses. I began to work in TV production. Most of all, I was proud I was able to raise my daughter to never experience the horrors I did.” With a new lease on life, Amber begins to work on her story to expose the reality of cult life. She has a chance, at last, to find peace.
Epilogue—Amber’s message of inspiration and redemption.
About the Writer
Bart Davis is the author of ten novels, four non-fiction books, two feature films, and many print articles. He is a graduate of the Bronx High School of Science, and Stony Brook University from which he holds a BA in English and a Master of Social Work Degree (MSW).
Bart’s books have been published internationally and translated into Japanese, Italian, Chinese, Norwegian, Hungarian, Bulgarian, German, Dutch, Portuguese, British, and Korean. His novels include the five-book Peter MacKenzie series, and the bestselling A CONSPIRACY OF EAGLES. His tenth novel, THE MIDNIGHT PARTNER was a Literary Guild Alternate Selection and a Doubleday Book Club selection. He also collaborated with Madison Square Garden’s official photographer on the non-fiction SHOOTING STARS, foreword by Senator Bill Bradley. (Simon & Schuster ‘92).
Bart’s screenwriting credits include the feature film FULL FATHOM FIVE adapted from his novel; and the feature film LOVE OR MONEY which he co-wrote and associate-produced.
Bart has written for the New York Times and NEWSDAY and his work has appeared in Psychology Today and People magazine.
Involved in his community, Bart has served on the Board of Directors of the Science Museum of Long Island; coached soccer; and lectured at universities and schools, including Stony Brook, UMASS at Amherst, and the United States Merchant Marine Academy. He is a member of the Dean’s Advisory Board of Stony Brook University’s School of Social Welfare, and was the first president of its Alumni Council. In 2001, he received the school’s Distinguished Alumni Award. He is currently Chairman of the Franklin College Family Association, which his daughter attends in Lugano, Switzerland.
Bart has also produced jazz concerts in Europe during MIDEM ’03 in Cannes, France, featuring the legendary Herbie Mann as well as Marcus Johnson, and Prix Victoire winners. He also produced the Opening Night Concert of the 2003 Cannes Film Festival.
Bart speaks French, and lives with his family in New York and France.
He is a member of the Author’s Guild and the WGA East, and is represented by Mr. Robert Gottlieb, chairman of the Trident Media Group in New York. His non-fiction book Closure has been chosen for the permanent collection of the new Family Center in the World Trade Center, and placed in the permanent collection of the newly christened U.S.S New York.
BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR
Non-Fiction:
• The Woman Who Can't Forget: The Extraordinary Story of Living with the Most Remarkable Memory Known to Science--A Memoir, by Jill Price with Bart Davis, Free Press, 2008; Recorded Books, 2008.
• Closure: The Untold Story of the Ground Zero Recovery Mission, by Lt. William Keegan Jr. with Bart Davis, Touchstone Books, 2006
• Holy War on the Home Front, by Harvey Kushner and Bart Davis, Sentinel/Penguin, 2004
• Shooting Stars: From the Lens of George Kalinsky, by George Kalinsky with Bart Davis, Simon & Schuster, 1992.
Novels:
• The Midnight Partner, Bantam Books, 1995. Audio Book/1995
• Voyage of the Storm, Pocket Books 1995.
• Atlantic Run, Pocket Books, 1993.
• Destroy the Kentucky, Pocket Books, 1991.
• Raise the Red Dawn, Pocket Books, 1990.
• The Doomsday Exercise, Bantam Books, 1989.
• Full Fathom Five, Bantam Books, 1987.
• Takeover, Bantam Books, 1986.
• A Conspiracy of Eagles, Bantam Books, 1984.
• Blind Prophet, Doubleday, 1983.
All books have been released internationally
Reviews for: The Woman Who Can’t Forget
“The Woman Who Can’t Forget is fascinating…Price and Bart Davis have skillfully placed Price’s life experiences within the context of science.” —BookPage
“Her insights into the nature of memory, forgetting and the formation of our sense of self will resonate with a wide audience.”
—Publisher’s Weekly (Starred/boxed review)
“…a media sensation the moment it hit the shelves.”
—Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Barnes and Noble Best Books of 2008
—#4 on Personal Stories List, Best of 2008
Reviews for: CLOSURE
“Only those made of something stronger than steel will fail to be deeply moved by this book.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A very powerful and personal testament.”
—Booklist
“A work whose tone of modest moral authority restores…dignity to “closure” itself.”
—The New York Times
“A sound and distinct contribution to the literature on 9/11.”
—American Library Journal
No comments:
Post a Comment