Carolyn Jessop; Laura Palmer Read Online Free PDF Page B

women had been arrested and 263 children had been identified to be seized from their polygamist families the next day. Everyone except the children was to be transported to Kingman, Arizona, which was four hundred miles away. The men went the first day, and buses came to take the children to Phoenix the next. The women were escorted from their homes, leaving behind bread baking in the oven and laundry hanging on the line. They were ordered to the schoolhouse and not allowed to bring even diapers for their babies. When the buses arrived, they were told they’d be separated from their children. The women revolted. The plan was to not only take the children but make them wards of the state and adopt them out to nonpolygamist families.
    Ultimately, the state of Arizona relented. It feared the negative publicity, and it had also underestimated the number of children in the community. They did not have enough adults to care for that many children on the long bus ride to Phoenix, so in the end mothers were allowed to accompany their children.
    Grandma had a brother in Phoenix who pressured the authorities into releasing her and her three children into his care. She told me that she stayed strong by remembering her dream. She had faith that Uncle Roy would find a way to save them, and he did.
    Uncle Roy traveled to Phoenix and began doggedly tracking down all the children and their mothers. He forbade the women to testify about their marriages and started court proceedings of his own to counter Arizona’s action. In a move that perplexed everyone except those who believed Uncle Roy was getting messages from God, Uncle Roy told his lawyers to find the law that said children couldn’t be taken from their families without a parent’s consent. His attorneys scoffed at the notion that such a law existed. Uncle Roy said it did. Sure enough, a law on the books said just that, and the court case ended.
    The Short Creek raid actually turned out to be a boon to the FLDS. It generated monumental sympathy for the cult. Once the court case was thrown out, everyone returned home and the practice of polygamy thrived.
    But the sect became more secretive. People were afraid of the government and became much more guarded about their activities. The dress style became more conservative. No one could show any part of their bodies below the neck. Women were forbidden to wear pants.
    Marriage also changed. Before the Short Creek raid, women were allowed to choose the men they wanted to marry. The problem was that when women had a say in choosing their own husbands, they chose men close to their own ages. Young women wanted to marry young men. That was bad news for an older man seeking younger wives to enhance his favor with God. The powerful men in the FLDS were older. They knew something had to change because when forced to compete with younger men, they routinely lost out.
    They also feared that young men from outside the community would entice young women to live outside once they fell in love with them. The future of polygamy was in jeopardy before the Short Creek raid. Several women were thinking of leaving. Back then many women had family on the outside, so leaving was not frightening. Women had some choice. The men in power didn’t like it.
    The Short Creek raid sabotaged the trust women had in the outside world. They now felt everyone was against them. They’d seen their terrified babies ripped from their arms. Uncle Roy stood up to the state of Arizona and won. He credited the victory in part to the faithfulness of women who would not turn against the system. The women then believed that they must be even more obedient to the prophet in the future. They were thinking of the terror of losing their children, not of surrendering their human rights, which is precisely what happened.
    But change came incrementally. First women were told to change the way they wore their hair and the way they dressed. Several years after the raid, the practice of