Debbie Palmer - Keep Sweet: Children of Polygamy

Debbie Palmer

I want to recognize all the children who continue to live inside closed polygamous communities throughout North America, children who lack the education to make informed choices, who face traumas every day, and who remain unheard and unseen.

I want to acknowledge Dave Perrin, who challenged me to save my manuscript from the fire and agreed to struggle with me through the tears, the horror, the pain, and hope until my initial rough work became this book.

Thank you to Dr. Gary Deatherage, Beryl Mason, Blaine Munro, Sandra Champion, Aunt Carmon, and Lorna, who helped me come to know how to think, not what to think, and to realize that I would not be destroyed by a vengeful God in the process.

To Jon Krakauer, whose work in Under the Banner of Heaven has shone morning light onto communities where secrets and abuses have proliferated in the darkness for decades. To the human rights activists both here and in the United States who are fighting for the education and freedom of children, women, and men who are trapped in the most dangerous and destructive of polygamous groups.

To the child who was my friend Jeanie for being there with me in those early years of travail. To my sisters and brothers whose quiet dignity and grace have inspired and helped me in some of my darkest hoursyou know who you are.

I here acknowledge indebtedness to my abusers, because even while very often they isolated me from flesh and blood friends, they taught me how to read. And finally, thank you to the Creator for gifting me with the strength and the unfortunate privilege to have survived this life with the ability to speak and educate so people who are born on the outside will never underestimate the value of their rights and freedom.

Dave Perrin

My appreciation goes to Debbie Palmer for her courage; to Betsy Brierley for her tireless work in copyediting, research, and permissions; to Warren and Emily Clark for their creative flair; to Elizabeth McLean for proofreading and pertinent advice; and to Billy EddWheeler of Swannanoa, North Carolina, for his assistance in obtaining permission to quote from his song, The Rev. Mr. Black.

I will always remember the encouragement of dear friends and family when the goalposts kept moving and completing this book seemed an impossible task.

Note to the reader

The events in this book are taken from early memories, letters, and journals, and are true as far as the author knows them to be. Most names have been changed to protect people's privacy.

y father had six wives and I have forty-seven brothers and sisters. My oldest daughter is my aunt and I am her grandmother. When I was assigned to marry my first husband, I became my own step-grandmother since my father was already married to two daughters of my new husband. According to the eternal laws of the polygamous group I grew up with, I will be a step-grandmother to many of my own brothers and sisters "for time and all eternity."

Several of my stepsons were assigned to marry my sisters, so I also became a sister-in law to my own stepchildren. After my mother's father was assigned to marry one of my second husband's daughters as a second wife, I became my own great-grandmother. This stepdaughter became my step-grandmother and I her step-mother, so when I gave birth to two sons with her father, my own sons became my great-uncles and I was their great-great-grandmother.

My ancestors were fierce and uncompromising when it came to religion. Once converted and baptized into the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, they became more entrenched in their beliefs with every hardship and persecution brought on by the "Gentiles," a term which is all-inclusive for people who are non-members. Many members of my family and extended family, including the three men I was assigned to by the prophet of our particular group of Mormon Fundamentalists, were drawn by the teachings of Joseph Smith and plural marriage to one placethe Creston Valley in British Columbia, Canada.

Grandpa Romney, Michael Merrick, and Kelvin Whitmer had been having cottage meetings in Rosemary, Alberta, with curious members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints since 1945. Uncle Kelvin was related to a man by the name of Owen LeBaron who had been assisting Saint Joseph White Musser to print and distribute pamphlets outlining their beliefs. According to their testimonies, the sacred principle of plural and celestial marriage revealed to Joseph Smith in the early days of the church was the only way to get to the highest degree of celestial glory to be kings and queens, gods and goddesses. Owen and his brothers worked tirelessly with Saint Joseph White Musser to publish a set of books called Truth to educate as many members of the church as would "answer the call of the elect." This sophisticated collection of stories and mysteriously recovered "revelations" became the main source of information that Owen presented to Kelvin Whitmer and anyone else who would listen.

Uncle Michael was the first one to pray for a testimony. He had a dream about a valley God had created where His chosen people from Canada could live together away from the critical eyes of Gentiles and dissenting relatives in the church. He jumped a train to the East Kootenay region of southern B.C. and got off in the Creston Valley, where he had an aunt. He heard of a piece of land for sale in a part of the valley called Lister, which was only a short walk from the American border. When Uncle Michael set foot on the land in question, he swore it was the place he had seen in his dream.

By 1946 he had moved his wife, Loren, and children to this chosen land where he was determined to raise his children as "calves in a stall," away from the influences of the world. Michael and Loren had both served missions for the church and had been married in the Cardston Temple. As soon as they were settled in their mountain valley, they began searching for someone who had the "priesthood power and authority from God" to perform plural marriages.

They prayed with Aunt Loren's sister Pauline from Idaho and decided God meant for the sisters to both be married to Uncle Michael. They traveled to Salt Lake City and met Saint Joseph White Musser, who assured them he had the required priesthood from God to perform the marriage.

Michael held a high profile in Rosemaryas a dairyman, a teacher, and an elder in the LDS Church. With the same missionary zeal he had displayed during his assignment for the church in Eastern Canada, Michael approached his friends and relatives in Alberta, giving everyone the opportunity to join the Lord's "Work" and continue the sacred principle of polygamy. Before he could convince all the people he felt would join him, stories about evil men tempting the good members of "God's only true church" spread like a prairie fire through southern Alberta.

Michael's uncle, Isaac Merrick, was the same age as Michael. Isaac quickly embraced the law of plural marriage and its promise to become a god and govern over people on his own earths. He had just returned from a mission to New Zealand, where he converted and baptized more people in his two years than any other missionary in the church. He bought into Michael's thinking and was determined to convince the rest of his brothers to join them. Although none of them did, the LDS Church looked on them with suspicion for many years. The oldest Merrick brother, who had been a well-known politician, was excommunicated for refusing to denounce his brother Isaac and his son Michael. Although he was not interested in having more than one wife, he claimed he couldn't denounce his son and nephew because the church still taught the principle of the plurality of wives in the temple ceremonies, and Joseph Smith's revelation had never been repudiated. He maintained that the manifesto given by Wilford Woodruff in 1890 to condemn the practice of polygamy in order to pacify the government of the United States was not a revelation and did not contravene the serious commandment God gave to Joseph Smith to preserve plural marriage.