Carolyn Jessop; Laura Palmer (14 page)

Several months later, we were at the cemetery again. My father stood next to another tiny casket with a wife on either side to bury Lehigh, Rosie’s infant son, next to Nurylon.

Lehigh was a full-term baby but had been born dead a few days before. The doctors said the cause of death was starvation. I don’t know if the placenta failed or how much the trauma of the accident might have affected Rosie’s pregnancy. But we were staggering in sorrow once again. The dirt on Nurylon’s grave was still fresh.

My mother had lost a daughter who would never see her third birthday. Rosie had lost a son who never took a breath of life. Fall was slowly surrendering to winter. I had never felt more alone as I stood there in the windswept cemetery.

Annette’s face looked lifeless as she stood before Lehigh’s grave. I stared at her as our baby brother’s casket was blessed. I had no sense of how emotionally obliterated she was by the accident. But within a year, she fled the community for the party scene in nearby Mesquite, Nevada. Annette’s long blond hair and exquisite blue eyes made her look like a beauty queen, masking her despair and making her popular with those who were just out for a good time.

She disappeared for a few years. It was the only way she felt she could cope with her overwhelming guilt. In time, Annette was able to remake her life and is a loving and excellent mother to four beautiful children.

Cathleen and Tammy Marry Merril

M
y semester ended in December and I arrived home late on Friday night. I was extremely tired and delighted to learn Merril would not be returning from Page until later Saturday. The next morning I learned that Merril and Barbara had come home during the night. When I saw them in Merril’s office that morning, they were drinking coffee and talking. Their suitcases were packed. They were heading to Salt Lake City.

Merril’s wife Ruth was with them. It seemed odd that Merril would take Ruth, too. She and Barbara were sisters, but they had a tremendous rivalry. I was suspicious but didn’t ask questions. It was a relief to see their van pull out of the driveway and know that I had the weekend to myself—or, I should say, to myself and about fourteen children. Merril had thirty-three, but the rest were older or away for the weekend. I was in charge of everything, but that was still relaxing for me because there was no tension—at least not in the form of confrontations with adults. I knew Merril’s daughters would take advantage of his absence to ditch all their chores and hang out with boys on the volleyball court. They knew I wouldn’t report them.

Faunita, the other wife who was left behind, was a total recluse. She had ten children, but five were grown and gone. She slept all day and stayed up all night watching television or some of the hundreds of movies she’d recorded on video. She loved Shirley Temple and John Wayne movies. Merril had long since lost interest in her. He never treated her like a wife and they never had sex anymore. She talked about that openly and to everybody.

I spent much of the day doing laundry, which was slow going because we had an old-fashioned industrial-size washing machine. It didn’t rinse the clothes. I had to take each load out, rinse them, and spin them in a spinner. Then I hung them on the clothesline to dry. This was very labor-intensive. We had an automatic washer and dryer, but with the volume of clothes that had to be cleaned it was too time-consuming to do dozens of loads of laundry.

Once the children’s laundry was on the line, I vacuumed the house, mopped the floors, and dusted. The toddlers tagged along behind me. I loved to cook and was looking forward to making a good dinner and baking cookies for the kids. During the week, when Merril’s daughters cooked, we’d eat only what could be thrown together in a few minutes—big bowls of pasta, or rice and raisins with cinnamon sugar and milk. We cooked with little meat. It was mostly used for flavoring sauces or gravies. Nutrition was abysmal. After dinner, I told the children we’d pop popcorn. I looked forward to getting to bed early.

The phone rang just before I started dinner. Merril was tense and abrupt. I was startled because he never talked to me this way. He told me that as soon as he arrived in the city, the new prophet, Rulon Jeffs, sent him to pick up one of the former prophet’s wives, Cathleen, and marry her.

Rulon Jeffs had succeeded the prophet Leroy Johnson, whom we called “Uncle Roy.” He’d died three weeks before, on November 25, 1986. He was beloved within the FLDS community, which he had led since 1954.

The late prophet had about fourteen wives, and Cathleen was the youngest. She had dark hair and green eyes and was thin and attractive. I immediately thought that Merril would probably want to develop a relationship with her, which meant he might ignore me. Even though I hadn’t wanted to marry him and didn’t love him, let alone like him, I still believed in the FLDS doctrines and wanted to uphold them. I still believed Merril was the revelation the prophet had received for me. I was destined to bear his children and love and serve Merril Jessop without question until the day he died.

Photo Insert

Linda and I are sitting on the doorstep of our home in Colorado City. I’m on the right and about three years old. Linda is five.

Here I am with my two sisters after we moved back to the community from Salt Lake City. I’m on the left, Linda’s in the middle, and Annette is to her right.

This is my beloved sister Nurylon at two, a few months before she was killed in an auto accident.

Here I am at fourteen.

This is my high school graduation in 1985. I’m holding my newest brother, Carl.

My college graduation in 1989, a proud day! I am also pregnant with my second child.

This is my father with his two wives. Rosie is on his right and my mother, Nurylon, is on his left. I’m third from the left on the back row and pregnant. This was taken four years after I married Merril.

My mother, Nurylon, is in the middle. My sister Linda is on the left. I’m pregnant with Betty.

Here I am at twenty-two, feeding Betty.