Lost Boy by Brent W. Jeffs

Author:Brent W. Jeffs [Jeffs, Brent W.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-12-08T00:00:00+00:00

My father isn’t sure how many brothers he has. He knows that he’s his father’s fourth son and eighth or ninth child. He knows his father has around six dozen kids. However, because Grandfather kept taking younger wives and having more children—even some who are the same age as me and my brothers—Dad had a hard time keeping track. He thinks he has at least twenty brothers—and he thinks his father had many more daughters than sons. At least that was true among the kids Dad grew up with. But he does know for sure that he was the only one who was drafted to serve in Vietnam.

It was his age and a low draft number—158—that got him. His only other brother eligible for conscription during the waning years of the war lucked out with a high number. The others were spared by the American withdrawal.

Like my mom, Dad grew up in polygamy, with his father’s wives living in separate houses. During Dad’s childhood, Rulon had seven wives—so my dad saw his father only once a week for dinner. Even on those nights, he wasn’t a very involved father. Dad remembers him coming home so late most times that the kids had already eaten dinner and were off watching TV or doing homework. Uncle Roy didn’t restrict media exposure: he trusted families to protect themselves against immorality.

Grandfather’s accountancy practice was very busy and successful, which was what kept him so late. He also founded and served on the boards of several multimillion-dollar companies (most infamously HydraPak, the company that made the O-ring that failed and blew up the space shuttle in 1986).

My grandmother, LaRue, would eat with her husband, who would then read the newspaper or study scripture. She was Rulon’s second wife—ranking high in the hierarchy of Grandfather’s women because she was the one he married legally. But she was not the “Queen Bee” or favorite—that position was held by Warren’s mother, Merilyn. This fact would figure largely in our later lives.

As Dad tells it, Rulon was not the kind of father who changed diapers or rolled around on the floor with the kids. In fact, he would only occasionally discipline his children; usually that too was left to the moms.

But every Sunday, all the wives and children would gather at Mother LaRue’s farmhouse, which was situated on about five acres of land. The boys would play football, basketball, or tetherball and sometimes even Rulon would join in. Dad recalls growing up on the farm fondly, though he will admit when pressed that there were lots of chores that he didn’t always want to do.

Dad reported for military duty on March 19, 1971. Although he’d gone to public school, he had kept to himself there, mainly sticking with kids from the church. In basic training in California, he had his first real experience of interacting with people outside the church—including African Americans. The FLDS—following the lead of the early Mormon church—preaches that dark-skinned people carry the mark of Cain and are satanic as a result.

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