December 10, 2005

“I’ve decided that I am not a very good writer. I mean, everything I have written in here is so boring and lifeless. I havent wrote anything in here about my family and things that have happened, So I have decided to do better. I am going to tell you EVERYTHING about EACH family member so hold onto your pantyhose! 

My Father has nothing much to tell but…anyway, he is 41 his birthday is on September 24th, he isn’t a particularly “happy” man but he is not a grouchy man either. Just kinda “in between” he is very enjoyable when he is happy. He works at DAGROW TRUSS. He gets um.. “special” messages from Uncle Warren because he works there, and the money they make supports Uncle Warren. Anyway, he is always tired because he works really hard. He leaves for work at 5am and gets home between 8-11pm. Thats a pretty long day! He wakes up every morning to have prayer and class, but, I admit, we don’t get up when we are called so we have to just have prayer, If he gets home on time he does class and prayer at night but he usually isn’t so we just have class with Mother. He is a very good and sober man and he loves his family very much!”

-I am going to interrupt this entry for a moment to talk about my Dad. As a child I never remember him as a grumpy guy. I have clear memories of him always laughing and telling jokes, being the life of the party. He would always wrestle with us kids on the living room floor or play hide n seek. It was always the highlight of our day when he would come home. Sometimes on the weekend he would line up all the girls and wash their hair in the kitchen sink and then comb them as a surprise to Mom, we had pictures of us with really funny looking hair and Mom would tell us it was when Father did it. He was so loving and such a great Dad. I don’t remember the specific time when it all changed but I believe it got a lot worse when our Family moved to Colorado City. From that time on he had much more pressure on him to live up to priesthood expectations, he was told where to live, where to work, how much time to give, how much money to give. I can’t imagine having to go through that. He wanted to be a good man, having people look up to him and I think that’s why I felt he had changed.  Everything revolved around Mother Jenny and he unfortunately left my Mom pretty much ignored and very sad. You could feel the pain in our house. Being a child in that situation all I wanted was to protect my Mother. I hated seeing her so lonely and needlessly strong. As I got older I blamed my Dad and our relationship was damaged because of how he treated her, He use to tell me that my Mom had different needs than Jenny did and she would be fine. Could he not see that hurt in her eyes? I love my Dad dearly. I know he did the best he could or felt he should, That religion can mess up your mind. 

Carrying on:

“My Mother is 35 her Birthday is July 3, she is a happy woman (most the time) Me and her have been having fights alot lately, but as you know, the Mother is the gentle, loving, understanding Parent. The on you tell your troubles to, and in my case, the one you cry to. Just the more… agreeable parent. She doesn’t work away from home but she works as hard or even harder than Mother Jenny. She has 6 Preschoolers to tend, a house to clean, meals to cook, clothes to sew and countless other things. She is GROUCHY when she is grouchy and HAPPY when she is happy. I love her so so SO much and I know she loves me even when she is grouchy at me”. 

-To this day my Mom and I have such a good relationship I love her so freaking much. She is the best Mom a kid could have and the strongest woman I know.

“Mother Jenny is 23 and her Birthday is February 2. She is NOT a happy woman. She is never happy for one whole day. The only day she had been fully happy was when Brandy was born. She didnt want Merilyn OR Sam. She wanted to be the young wife chick and the skinny woman. She was married on December 1 and had Merilyn on September 6 before her first anniversary! She had Sam before her 2nd anniversary. She had 2 unwanted children before her 2nd anniversary.. wow pretty busy, eh?* She’s not very happy or very likable. She have caused many hardships for this Family.”

-Jenny’s first 2 kids are the same age for one month. I know this entry doesn’t have anything nice to say about her but even as a more mature adult I can’t find many nice things to say about her. Reading this makes me wonder if maybe she just wasn’t happy with my Dad but I think her real issue was she just hated my Mom and her kids. She did anything and everything she could to get my Mom angry or jealous. She was such a mean and nasty person. I don’t even know how to explain. 

*about the “pretty busy, eh?” comment. Not many FLDS girls had a clue about sex or how babies are made but I was literally addicted to reading and I would sneak into my Moms closet and read her pregnancy and fertility books. It gave me a pretty good idea of how it all worked. Most girls, even up in their 20’s believed that all you had to do was get married and sleep on the same bed. 

“Debbie is 18 her Birthday is on May 9th. She is the oldest child in our family and she was VERY grouchy she was always yelling at the rest of the children. She loved a clean house and made sure it was kept that way. She never liked me and her and Madie were always picking on me. Debbie was really cute and Skinny. She was very popular, but to me character and personality is what counts and even if you are cute and skinny you MUST have a good character and to me Debbie had a not-so-white character, she hurt so much of people. Anyway Debbie left this Priesthood work on May 14, 2005 with Jeremy Dutson. She moved to Salt Lake then back to St. George and has remained so since. “

-bleh! I feel bad posting this stuff out there. If my Family reads this just try to understand who I was at the time and who I am now! 

-What I meant about Debbie hurting so many people was when she left. Everyone had such hopes for her. I remember people saying that if she only had gotten married she wouldn’t have left. It’s probably true but its only because when a girl gets married she makes “eternal covenants” and by leaving or disobeying he husband she Damns herself to hell for all eternity. Its worth a life of being married to someone you dislike or living a life you don’t want. The few women that had the courage to leave or speak up for themselves were forever looked down upon by the entire community. It was so rare that it happened that everyone knew every single woman who had ever left her husband. 

-I find it sad that I talk about Debbie as if she was dead, using the past tense. I remember writing this entry and considering not including my family that had left already because they didn’t matter anymore because they were apostates and wicked people. It goes to show you how easy the FLDS make it to dismiss and abandon Family Members. The people you should unconditionally love and stand by. It makes me sick. 

“Jack is 16 his Birthday is February 12. He is gone all the time to work and we hardly ever see him. He is a real good lookin guy, he has black hair, light brown eyes and perfect teeth and a huge smile. He is not very nice. Not the sweet, loving, big brother. But he does like me better now. He is struggling real bad right now. He drinks beer and listens to bad music. He and Father do not get along good. Everyone thinks he is gonna leave pretty soon. I hope not! “

– When I say that they “aren’t nice” I mean typical sibling rivalry and older sibling bullying. I just didn’t have another way to put it! 

” Madie is 15, her birthday is August 23. Madie has had a pretty difficult life.”

*I have decided to not include the rest of the information on Madie, she had an extremely traumatic youth and I wouldn’t like to share the details without her permission.* 

“I am 13 and my birthday is on December 23. I am a pretty happy lady, Well at least a year ago I was I am the biggest raunch you have ever seen these days. I don;’t know what happened to me! “

-I am well aware of what “Raunch/raunchy” means but to our family it meant Grumpy lol! 

“Missy is 12 and her Birthday is on August 13. She is my best sister and companion. She is a special person. I take her for granted all the time, she loves me better than any of my brothers and sisters. I love her to the moon and back! She is happy and sweet all the time. but now that she is almost a teenager she has an attitude and cries a lot. Whats pretty neat is that we both started our “monthlies” on the exact same day for the last 4 months! I know you don’t talk about this stuff in public, but your not public. One thing that I adore is she is a peace maker. She hates to fight and loves the peace. We have shared a room for as long as I can remember and we are just inseparable! She is really cute, her hair was the exact same color as mine was, mine is darker hers has a little red in it it is called strawberry blonde. she has dark dark brown eyes and perfect teeth. It looks like she has had braces but she really hasn’t. She is very short she’s skinny and has a very nice shape (already!!) She can comb hair really good, she can do french braids, 2 side french braids, topsie tails, highbraids, everything! To me, She is gorgeous! “

-Missy was my childhood best friend. I loved her more than anything my whole life at the Crick. All I wanted was to protect her and make sure she was okay. We got into all our teenage troubles together. She left with a boy (had sex, had to get married) a while before I did, it was heartbreaking to me. She got sent to Colorado to repent, and that was pretty much the end of our relationship. When I left I went to live with her and her husband for a while. Turns out she married a complete 18 year old douche bag. He treated me like crap and she didn’t dare stand up for me. Just 2 months of living in the gentile world, they dumped me out of their apartment and moved to Wyoming, I was stuck, sitting outside a crappy apartment complex in Colorado in November, no car and no money.  But I am stronger for it. It just makes me sad, reading that entry. I can remember how much love I had for my Sweet little sister, she was my world.

-“monthlies” is Cricker for your period. It was taboo to talk about it. Thank goodness for my Moms Pregnancy and fertility books, I knew all there was to know so I wasn’t scared. All I said to my Mom was, “I have been bleeding for  a few days” and she gave me a box of pads. I remember being sooo excited about Missy starting, I sat her down and told her everything I had read and what experiences I had had. It felt great to help her understand.

“Sharon is 10 and her BIrthday is July 5. Sharon is kind of a raunch. But she is nice to have around when she is happy. She is always giddy and laughing over everything. She is a little weird. She and I don’t really get along very well. She doesnt look like anybody else in the family, She has super dark brown hair and brown eyes. Her skin is super dark, its practically brown, she looks like an Indian! 

“Issac is 8 and his Birthday is on July 27. He is super weird, I can’t really explain. He was such a cute baby, he has strawberry blonde hair and freckles and big brown eyes”

“David is 6 and his birthday is on August 25. David is a CUTE little big guy, he is HUGE he weighs 55 lbs he has broad shoulders short big legs, a big barrel chest, you can tell he is gonna grow up and be a big guy! He has thick blondish brown hair, the softest puppy dog brown eyes.”

“Merilyn is 5 and her birthday is on September 6, Merilyn is Mother Jennys First child, She is a pretty good little thing, she and Dave love to do the dishes and laundry, That’s pretty nice cuz you can just tell them to do it and you don’t have too. She loves to play with the little girls and tends them really well but when her mother is home unfortunately she is a big brat.”

“Johnny is 4 his birthday is on July 10, Johnny is the cutest boy in the family, he has a huge mouth and the biggest smile. He has light brown eyes and blonde blonde hair, He is gonna be so handsome when he grows up! He has the sunniest disposition he is the eternal optomist, he is always smiling and laughing joking and everything. Mother had him in the hospital because of her high blood pressure. She had Candice at the hospital too!”

“All the rest of the kids are little and cute we have Sam, 4. Candice, 2. and Brandy, 2.

So there is that. I keep trying to feel bad about the mean things I say about my siblings but this was 8 years ago and I was much younger then, so forgive me! 🙂 

This is my Mom and all her kids, 10 years ago.

Left to right: first row: Sharon, Madie, Me, Debbie and Missy

Middle: Jack, David, Mom holding Johnny and Candice, then Isaac.