I’ve been doing research again, I love history, it’s not always pretty but it’s always interesting. I’m building on the history of where some of my characters would have come from, and things that would have been in their history.
Back in the “good ole days”, an era we would now refer to as a simpler time, there was a lady who didn’t get to hide out at Pipe Springs, (https://www.julieworthington.com/there-is-beauty-all-around-pipe-spring-national-monument/). She was actually arrested and had her children, eight all together, taken, (kidnapped), from her by state authorities. Her name was Vera Black, she was a wife and mother, very devoted to her husband and family. That was normal in her time, what wasn’t normal was that her husband had more wives than just her. There were people in that time period that thought they had the right to inflict their morality and religious beliefs on people who didn’t live the way they thought everyone should. These self-righteous people who thought they should inflict others with their beliefs decided that Vera and others in her small community shouldn’t be allowed to make their own choices. So, they perpetrated what’s now known as the 53 Raids. Although the children had a home, food, clothing, and were happy with their mother and father and the rest of their family, the authorities charged that the children were abused and neglected mostly because they were “an issue of polygamy”.
Caption: Eight children in all were placed in foster homes after Mrs. Black refused to sign affidavit that she would refrain from teaching them polygamy. She refused on grounds of “conscience and religion.”
1956 Jan. 13
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, NYWT&S Collection, [reproduction number, e.g., LC-USZ62-111157]
The state authorities actually came into the community and without proper legal warrants, in most cases those authorities pilfered through these American citizen’s homes, (taking papers, family photos, personal journals, and anything else they wanted), took their children from them, and arrested many of them.
This place in 1953, was a small obscure town, at that time called, Short Creek. This was before the Jeffs’ cult crap happened, back when things were really wholesome, and good. People of that time lived a simple life, working, and taking care of their families as best as they could in this very rural place. There wasn’t always indoor plumbing, or electricity, in every house. There might have been one phone in the community, but I’ve heard that no one had anyone to call so it wasn’t used much.
I’ve talked to many of the people and the descendants of these people, some are still traumatized today because of what happened all those years ago. They had a wonderful life, they were happy, and then their whole world was turned upside down. Many children had to wait over two years to be reunited with their families, and some were never returned. These people felt like they had to go into hiding to be able to live as families, but even then, the families were all very far apart. All this, and no real laws were broken, other than laws like those prohibiting interracial marriages, or preventing gays from being intimate, they did have laws like that preventing consenting adults from co-habitating together. What it all boiled down to is that these people were just living their lives differently than others thought they should. I’m very glad we live in a time when religious and other beliefs are respected and tolerated… well, I hope we live in a time when religious and other beliefs are respected and tolerated… I guess time will tell.
If you’re interested… this is still being fought over today:
https://ecf.utd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_public_doc?211cv0652-78
There have been a few more skirmishes since this one, but I like what Judge Clark Waddoups has to say.
Vera Black’s court case in the Utah Supreme Court:
http://law.justia.com/cases/utah/supreme-court/1955/8222-0.html
Ken Driggs Atlanta Attorney:
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3520119/AAA-031517-to-Governor-Copy.pdf
https://library.dixie.edu/special_collections/Juanita_Brooks_lectures/1990-twentieth.html
http://mormonpolygamydocuments.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/MF0195.pdf
https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/Dialogue_V24N04_46.pdf
