Posted on 09/17/2009 7:53:34 PM PDT by Colofornian
Those curious about the polygamous community that has thrived on the Utah/Arizona state line for nearly 75 years may now take a guided tour through what promoters bill as "the largest and most secluded polygamist colony" in America.
"Why the prairie dresses and long braids? No makeup? More than one wife?" -- all questions to be answered during "The Polygamy Experience: A Guided Tour of Colorado City."
The four-hour excursion promises accounts from guides "who have actually lived and loved 'The Creek,'" the historic name for Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., home to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The first tour is set for Saturday.
How inhabitants will react to be putting on display remains to be seen, particularly given those behind the new company.
Among them: Richard Holm, who was exiled from the FLDS faith in 2003 by prophet Warren S. Jeffs and has been one of the sect leader's most vocal critics. Other founders include Heber Holm, Richard's brother, who left the community 35 years ago, but now will return as principal tour guide.
"I admit readily that my name is considered, how shall I say it, it's not highly regarded in the local community at this point," said Richard Holm, once a well-regarded businessman there. "I have no desire to hurt anybody or vilify or be negative in any way. . . We want it to be respectful."
FLDS spokesman Willie Jessop laughed when asked about the tour. "They want to come into the community like it's a spectacle," he said, "when for us, it's like the circus is coming to town. We hope people have more of a life than to be suckered into that sort of scam."
Holm said a 29-passenger bus will ferry tourists from St. George to the Arizona Strip. Guides will discuss the origins of Fundamentalist Mormonism, abandonment of polygamy by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and offer insights into historical and current events in the twin towns.
Holm said the tour route will loop around the walled-in complex in Hildale where Jeffs formerly lived with his wives and family and will make stops at schools, parks, a dairy and cheese store and two cemeteries.
Tourists will stop for a picnic lunch in a park -- or dine at a local restaurant -- before continuing to the community's airport and to Centennial Park, a separate polygamous community.
Holm operated a restaurant and motel in the community years ago and said he toyed with offering a tour back then.
"Thousands and millions go right by that community in a year's time and all they've heard about is negative and it's a closed community," Holm said. "There has been no invitation to the outside world to stop and say hi, get a drink, spend a night and see the beauty of the area."
Holm said the public reaction has been positive. "I have had dozens say that it is a good idea and they would love to go into the community and see what is going on and haven't dared go off the highway with all the reports and rumors and things of that nature.
"I expect in time people will find it is a positive thing," he said -- and even an economic boon, as they find things to sell to tourists.
"The Polygamy Experience: A Guided Tour of Colorado City" is offered by Identity Tours, founded by former members of the polygamous sect located in the twin towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz.
Tours depart at 10:30 a.m. from the Fairfield Inn in St. George on Saturdays.
Cost is $69.95 for adults, which includes transportation, the four-hour tour, lunch and drinks. For more information, visit http://polygamytours.com or call 877-520-9955 or e-mail info@polygamytours.com.
(Well, it is).
Ah, a time machine has finally been invented.
Set your watch by the calendar. It's the 1920s, the 1910s, the 1900s, the 1890s, the 1880s all over again. A living daguerreotype. (You know the original photograph process that would take hours to record...Well, this one's taken about a century or so to develop...But there it is...The signage may say "Colorado City" and "Centennial Park" via this time machine spectacle, but think of "St. George," "Cedar City," "Salt Lake City" and the like.)
And as these tourists view the long dresses and multiple wives, remember, these folk are no more "fundamentalist" than their grandfathers' and great-grandfathers & great-great grandfathers' Mormon ancestors of old.
This modern Twilight Zone tour company has managed to find an inroad into this past. And, as in the Twilight Zone, the past and the future converge:
"Obviously the holy practice (of polygamy) will commence again after the Second Coming of the Son of Man and the ushering in of the millennium." (LDS apostle Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 1966 edition, see pp. 577-579 for context)
"AS fLDS NOW ARE, LDS ONCE WERE; AS fLDS NOW ARE, LDS MAY BECOME"
(Cue the Twilight Zone theme music...and protect your wives & daughters)
I am so grossed out by the thought of being some old man’s plaything. You see it in HOllywood, but those are mainly gold digging sluts so it’s funny. It’s their CHOICE though, but those other girls don’t have choices. That’s the sick part.
That tour will be nation-wide once homosexual marriage becomes legal in most states. Polygamy will naturally be next, mark my words...
This is not funny.
Slippery slope
This is funny.
Thank the Lord we have people who have not hardened their hearts to this -- like yourself.
You have to understand that many LDS who've been aware of what you describe for generations are ambiguously torn. On the one hand, they want to do what you've just done: Condemn this exploitation of young teen & even pre-teen girls.
On the other hand, their very first two "prophets" married 14 and 15 yo girls. They're afraid that what they say in defense of these girls south of their border may be applied to then old codgers like Brigham Young & Wilford Woodruff.
When you realize 38 yo Joseph Smith married 14 yos Helen Mar Kimball and Nancy Winchester...
...and that Winchester was "traded" around so that at 16, she married a 45-wife apostle named Heber C. Kimball...
...who is on record scolding Lds missionaries bringing new young female converts not to get their first picks in ahead of him & other Lds leaders...so as to not "pick off" the more beautiful ones...
...and then you see that women like Nancy Winchester weren't done being "traded" by their Mormon-leader husbands...
...'cause @ age 37, Heber Kimball traded still childless Nancy Winchester to yet another arranged marriage with Amos Arnold -- so that she could indeed have a child...
...you realize, no wonder women are non-entities character-wise in the Book of Mormon...
...the very founder of Mormonism was an exploitive womanizer who ensured women stayed in the deep background even in his Book of Mormon plots. [Compare that to the Bible where prophetesses (Anna, Stephen's 4 daughters) and judges (Deborah) and acts of salvation (Esther) came from the mouths & actions of real women.]
Well, I'm not sure if you're referring to the tour story itself, or my #1 post comments.
If you're referencing this sad tour plan, then, hey, for once I actually agree w/you & for once, I actually would then disagree with Graybeard. (See post #7 as to why I think is seriously troublesome)
But if both you & Graybeard were referencing my "Twilight Zone" comments, well, ya gotta admit this whole scenario is bizzarre. (And that's what people just don't "get" -- how "bizzarre" 19th century & early 20th century Utah really was).
I find humor in it.
Way back machine...
back to the old days in Utah when women were just cows..
and sexually abused by dirty old men who hated the God of the Bible...
I’ll tell you something that’s not funny. Read the book “Escape” by Carolyn Jessop.
I’m sure you have though.
I recently visited Nauvoo. It was a moving experience for me. Early Church members were severely persecuted - and viciously lied about - yet they held their heads high and continued to love and serve each other and the Lord. When I think of the trials and tribulations they faced - including an extermination order issued by the then gov of Missouri - I am so proud to be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The Nauvoo Temple is truly magnificent. I felt the present of the Holy Ghost so strong. I love the Savior and thank Heavenly Father for his glorious Plan of Salvation.
We also visited Quincy, Illinois, a quaint little town. There was a very successful Tea Party there recently, you know. Mormons especially like the people of Quincy because when the early members of the church were persecuted and displaced from their homes and property, the good folk in Quincy took them in and helped them. To this day, the LDS Church is grateful; and when the Nauvoo Temple was dedicated in 2002, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir (called “America’s Choir” by President Ronald Reagan) put on a concert the proceeds from which (a check for $75,000) was presented to the Mayor of Quincy.
I have never been so proud to be a Mormon. The nasty things people say fly in the face of reality.
www.mormon.org
Yahoo! We do agree on something: This tour thing is very disturbing and sad. Kind of like a sick side show. The fact that it’s put on by ex FLDS, is odd at best.
Sometimes, my own "instant recall" scares me...
Author speaks in Redlands about escaping from polygamist cult
The "non-answer" in your post reminds me of the "non-answers" by the "pod people" in the movie, INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS.
I recently visited Nauvoo.
Nauvoo. Well, while, the Invastion of Christ's Body Snatchers didn't begin in Nauvoo, that's where the "polygamy pods" mushroomed.
An Lds apologist at the FAIR conference in August conceded Smith began polygamy in 1831. So that puts the first "polygamy pod" in Kirtland, Ohio. (Did you visit Kirtland, and the failed bank there that Joseph ran as he silently slipped out of town @ night to skip out on?)
Well. Anyway, let's hit the time machine & return to Kirtland, Ohio. It's June 4, 1833. We visit Joseph Smith, Jr. where he's writing out Doctrines & Covenants 97:6: And again, verily I say unto you, it is wisdom and expedient in me, that my servant Zombre [John Johnson] whose offerings I have accepted...
(Ya gotta understand Joseph was going thru a phase where he was naming people these other-worldly names like Ahashdah and Shederlaomach and Mahalaleel and Pelagoram and Gazelam and Shalemanasseh and Mahemson and the like).
All I can say is if you put "Zombre" [zombie] characters in with polygamy pods, that might begin to explain this whole bizarre scenario. (And then you've got grounds for a new creepy cult flick -- kind of a combo between INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS and NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD).
I was thinking I would just listen tonight and keep my mouth shut. Is this a “one-time opportunity” to hear chatter about the Mormon question, or is this show going to play for a while?
True, but they did so in an era when it was not uncommon for rural girls to marry at that age, and it was legal in every state to marry at that age. And at least some of these marriages were probably never consummated. Joseph Smith left very few offspring for a guy who supposedly had dozens of wives (and at least a couple of those wives were past child-bearing age when he married them). The reality is certainly nowhere near as simple and pure as official LDS teaching paints it, but it's also nowhere near as sordid as how many critics paint it.
As for the lack of named women/girls in the Book in Mormon, there's a very good historical reason for that (not one that would find favor with LDS who take all their Church's teachings literally, but one that's blatantly obvious to objective historians). If you're not aware of it, just read up on the history of the Book of Mormon translation/transcription proceedings.
The FLDS community was apparently pretty nice before Warren Jeffs took over. Many people who were part of it before Warren, but are no longer part of it, express fond memories of growing up and marrying in “the Creek”. It was very different from the rest of the state and nation, to be sure, but it wasn’t the fascist hellhole that Warren Jeffs turned it into.
Yes, but review my post #7. Is this tour sad only because these tourists want to see such exploitation still alive, seeded by the polygamy pods of 19th century mainstream Mormonism?
Or is this sad because religious exploitation is fueled by the D&C 132 writing hand & lustful undercurrent of Joseph Smith, Jr.?
Is this sad only in 2009 Colorado City and Centennial Park for you?
Or is this sad in 1843 Nauvoo when Smith married 14 yo Helen Mar Kimball and Nancy Winchester? (And in 1844 Nauvoo when 42 yo Brigham Young married Clarissa Decker?)
YOU: True, but they did so in an era when it was not uncommon for rural girls to marry at that age, and it was legal in every state to marry at that age. And at least some of these marriages were probably never consummated. Joseph Smith left very few offspring for a guy who supposedly had dozens of wives (and at least a couple of those wives were past child-bearing age when he married them)
Let's deal with the last part first. You need to understand that Smith was only "married" to the 14 yo 13 months. And with 8 OTHER teen "unions" -- he was "only" married to each of them anywhere from 11-23 months. (Smith only started to "get on a roll" in marrying 29 wives in less than a 2-year span (Dec 1841 thru Nov 1843)! Five of them were beyond child-bearing years when he "married" them (ages 47 to 58) -- and if he's bouncing around, he could have bounced very easily around most of their fertile times.
If fertility is the only or almost only basis of your non-consummation claim, it's a weak argument. Why? Because it's an argument pulled from thin air.
What's worse, is you first cite "supposed" cultural custom to undergird your claim ("era when it was not uncommon for rural girls to marry at that age") -- and then your very next claim went precisely cultural custom (it wasn't "custom" for newly married to brides to remain virgins).
So what cultural customs are you going to apply and why/why not?
...an era when it was not uncommon for rural girls to marry at that age...
Largely a cultural myth. Posters Ansel12 & Sky Pilot were already addressing this on FReeper polygamist threads in late April 2008 -- maybe May as well.
Ansel12's posted links showed that in the UK, the average age for a woman marrying between 1851 and 1890 was just under age 26. [Ya gotta remember that a lot of Utah brides in the 1860s & beyond were UK converts coming to Utah]
In New England, the average marriage age in MA 1850-1860 was age 23.6. In Vermont in 1858 it was 21.4.
Two other table charts were shown in which one had the average age for 1750-1890 at about age 22 -- only dipping down below that for one decade --1870-1879 (21.7 yrs).
One other table showed the average age for women marrying in 1650 was 20; 1750, 23; 1850, 24; 1950, 20.
Even the LDS prophet who passed the manifesto which began an exit strategy for LDS' war on monogamy in 1890 wrote in his journal: ”I shall not seal the people as I have done. Old Father Alread brought three young girls 12 & 13 years old. I would not seal them to him. They would not be equally yoked together...Many get their endowments who are not worthy and this is the way that devils are made.” (Source: Wilford Woodruff, Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, 5:58.)
The track record on Joseph Smith is fairly clear:
He bedded his adopted live-in servant girl, Fanny Alger, from 1831 on (even Lds apologist presenter conceded this year in August)
Minus his wife's knowledge, he "married" numerous women in 1841-1842 (including a 17 yo, Sarah Ann Whitney).
His wife never approved of SOME of the additional 1843 "sealings"
His wife never even knew about his "sealings" to 9-11 already-married women 1841-1843 (their ages were 20, 23, 23, 27, 29, 31, 35 or 36, 47, etc...hmmm...for some reason he wasn't picking more married women his own age)
I’m certainly not saying he wasn’t sleeping with many of his wives, but probably not all of them, and probably very few for more than a brief period (something along the lines of serial monogamy, though probably more like serial bigamy or trigamy). It’s pretty clear, though, that he wasn’t maintaining a big harem and constantly having sex with a large number of wives. There are a few possible Smith offspring by wives who were also married to other men (several possible ones have been ruled out by DNA testing, 2 never can be confirmed either way because they died in infancy and so have no descendants), but at most he sired 11 liveborn children (6 by Emma), and that’s if the two who can’t ever be confirmed were his and assuming the remaining 3 who haven’t been ruled out are his (though the 4 possible ones for which conclusive DNA testing has been completed all turned out *not* to have been sired by Smith). Even 11 is not an unusual number at all for that era, for monogamous couples, but more likely Smith had 6-8 liveborn children. Contrast that with some of the FLDS bigwigs who have several dozen children apiece — those guys really have been keeping busy impregnating large harems of wives.
How do you know? You're thriving on pure conjecture. Thin air.
What? Were these "wives" collectively interviewed about their sex life & an article ran in 19th-century Cosmopolitan? (Don't think so)
There are a few possible Smith offspring by wives who were also married to other men (several possible ones have been ruled out by DNA testing
You don't get it, do you?
By late 1843, Smith had 30 wives under age 50. Let's just look at the last year of his life with those 30. If he slept each night with a different wife, and did so evenly, that = each wife having him once a month for 12 months.
Are you telling us with all seriousness that Smith couldn't by that time of his life (almost age 40) figure out female fertility so that all he had to do in figuring out which wife to sleep with each night was avoid their fertility cycle that given night?
Even 11 is not an unusual number at all for that era, for monogamous couples, but more likely Smith had 6-8 liveborn children. Contrast that with some of the FLDS bigwigs who have several dozen children apiece — those guys really have been keeping busy impregnating large harems of wives.
All you prove is that Smith wasn't as "pro-family" as Mormon mythology has made him and his religion out to be. Here the women of Smith's day were averaging 3-4 children and instead of allowing them to become mothers, he was hoarding them like prostitutes for monthly sex -- stealing their very fertility.
Bottom line: Smith wasn't into big families; he was into accumulating bed partners. Come on it's so obvious, it stares you right in the face: Imagine you want to take on almost 30 wives in 23 months. What kind of time do you need to exhibit with each one to develop a proper approach to even asking them to marry? What kind of honeymoon time do you need? What kind of first-year commitment time do you need to develop that relationship? Smith's pace was 29 additional partners between Dec. 1841 and Nov. 1843. And just because things were less "culturally so" than what is now, doesn't mean romance or marital focus was totally AWOL in the 1840s.
Smith's pace alone for accumulating partners shows abuse of power, not concern for these women. Not concern for their future motherhood; just how they could serve his "bedhoood."
You would have thought that if Smith taught that "pre-mortals" in heaven were waiting to come down to inhabit bodies, that Smith would have been first in line to accommodate that anyway he could. Nope. He didn't.
“On the other hand, their very first two “prophets” married 14 and 15 yo girls. They’re afraid that what they say in defense of these girls south of their border may be applied to then old codgers like Brigham Young & Wilford Woodruff”
People married at extremely young ages in the 1800’s. We don’t do that anymore and rightly. Now, Christianity has changed time and time again, as has Judaism. Those religions change with the changing times because they realize that certain customs can be discarded when civilization changes and becomes more modern. The fundamentals don’t change, but the requirement of wearing veils and long dresses changes, along with Jewish women being required to wear wigs to hide their real hair from other men.
As we have longer lifespans children have longer childhoods and we are able to make maturely life changing decisions like marriage when we are actually ready, so we know what we are getting ourselves into. Now, in those communes the girls have no childhood and frankly they aren’t making the choice of whether or not they want to marry this guy.
So the mainstream LDS church better get it’s act together and break the grip those perverts have on their women.
Christ ran in and broke up the money changers at the Temple, do Christians go into banks and cause chaos because they disagree with interest rates? No. We no longer go through life with nothing of our own either. As far as I am concerned, these people are pigs and should be shot for the things they are doing.
LDS better start breaking the backs of these cultists or no amount of prayer is going to get them into Heaven. Enablers are just as guilty as the perpetrators.
Right, same Nauvoo where Smith ordered the distruction of a new paper that DARED expose the TRUTH of his polygamy (a Joe Wilson moment), I'm sure they felt the love.
Same place where Sidney Rigdon, railed against Mormon dissenters (including bom witnesses Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and John Whitmer, and other leaders including William Wines Phelps) and non-mormons in his famous "Salt Sermon". Two days after Rigdon preached the Salt Sermon, eighty Latter-day Saints signed a statement (the so-called Danite Manifesto) warning the dissenters to "depart, or a more fatal calamity shall befall you." Feel the love.
including an extermination order issued by the then gov of Missouri
Predating this order was the mormon order to exterminate non-mormons - "And that mob that comes on us to disturb us, it shall be between us and them a war of extermination; for we will follow them until the last drop of their blood is spilled; or else they will have to exterminate us, for we will carry the seat of war to their own houses and their own families, and one party or the other shall be utterly destroyed..."
The nasty things people say fly in the face of reality.
Reality is not the sugar-coated, donny and marie world you seek to 'testify' to SD. Reality in mormon history is ugly, with most of its problems being the result of itself, not others.
I have a couple of questions about polygamy that I’ve never figured out.
1. Birth rates have always been about 50% male, 50% female. If you have men with multiple wives, doesn’t the math say you’re going to have a significant number of single men.
If married men average 2 wives, then 50% of men will be single. 3 wives = 66% single men. 4 wives = 75% single men.
How could any social structure work when at least half of the men are single (not out of choice, but because there are no women left for them to marry)? Large numbers of men with no prospects for marriage would spell big trouble. I imagine at the least they would have to be run off or expelled by the community.
2. How does having multiple wives work...ok, in the bedroom. If you there are 3 wives, is everyone sleeping in one big bed, changing rooms, or what?
Well, let's apply your Q to 19th century Utah culture:
Even between the 1850s and 1880s, when polygamy was at its peak, polygamy was still only practiced by no more than 20% of Mormon males. The majority of Mormon males were -- combined -- either single or monogamists. So, yes, many Lds men gave up married status either permanently or until later in life -- when the law of averages caught up (men died earlier, leaving widows who in turn could then marry a previously unmarried Mormon male).
1. Birth rates have always been about 50% male, 50% female. If you have men with multiple wives, doesn’t the math say you’re going to have a significant number of single men. If married men average 2 wives, then 50% of men will be single. 3 wives = 66% single men. 4 wives = 75% single men.
#1 Lds apostle John Widtsoe said there weren't enough women in earlier Utah years.
#2 Many Lds single men were continually sent on new missions -- thus their presence as still unmarried wouldn't have been noted in Utah culture. (Thus, to only partially address your "social structure" Q -- they weren't around).
Based upon comments by Lds apostle Heber C. Kimball, who had 45 wives, 'twas also obvious that a secondary benefit of doing missionary work was to bring back to Utah a single female convert who then became the missionary's wife.
Hence, starting in the late 1850s, Lds could and did address this lack of marriageable females by proselytism.
2. How does having multiple wives work...ok, in the bedroom. If you there are 3 wives, is everyone sleeping in one big bed, changing rooms, or what?
That depended upon the # of wives. Usually any man that could afford at least 4 wives & accompanying children, ensured he had a large enough house. Even some men with 2-3 wives had larger homes for the times and could easily accommodate all family members.
In cases where 'twas more of a "squeeze" -- say he had 3 wives -- 2 "sister wives" could sleep together in one bed in one bedroom, which often also doubled as a nursery; the third would alternate into the "common" bedroom (his room as family Patriarch).
Your math is not wrong. That is why in mormon utah in the 1800's, missionaries were so agressive to convert women into the faith and ship them to Utah.
Under today's extension of Smith/Young's polygamy, the FLDS deals with it by kicking the competition out as this news article and others similar document.
Even between the 1850s and 1880s, when polygamy was at its peak, polygamy was still only practiced by no more than 20% of Mormon males. The majority of Mormon males were — combined — either single or monogamists. So, yes, many Lds men gave up married status either permanently or until later in life — when the law of averages caught up (men died earlier, leaving widows who in turn could then marry a previously unmarried Mormon male).
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
20% sounds small, but the numbers would still present a problem wouldn’t it?
Polygamist avg. 2 wives = 20% unmarried men.
3 wives = 40% unmarried men.
4 wives = 60% unmarried men.
5 wives = 80% unmarried men.
A 5 wife avg. would be the max you could have, because at that point ALL women are married to just 20% of the men.
A society where a large pecentage of men (lets choose 30% or about 1/3) would not have a reasonable chance of marriage would seem to be an unstable base. When you consider the 20% of polygamist would probable tend to be the rich or leaders in society, and the 30% would probable tend to be the poorer in society, it just seems to me to be a potential powderkeg if it was ever practiced in all of society (in other words, if mormonism ever became the universal religion everyone practiced as its founders believed it would be.)
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