| Fundamentalist leaders taking more conservative stance | |||||
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By Mark Schaffer The Arizona Republic | |||||
COLORADO CITY - Wayne LeBaron sat on the couch snuggling with his new bride and he shook his head at the strangeness of it all. LeBaron, who lives at the foot of a strawberry-colored cliff near this remote polygamist town, knew something was stirring within the ranks of the Old World - the fundamentalist Mormons who control the community. Then the packages started arriving - sent to LeBaron's ranch for safekeeping from the family of his wife, who was raised in Colorado City. Some contained cassette tapes of popular music. Others had jewelry. Still others held containers of makeup, mascara and eyeliner. But all had one thing in common, he said: They are considered contraband by the fundamentalist Mormon leadership that LeBaron says has recently been reverting to an even more conservative religious stance. Colorado City's mayor denies that, and says the town has never been more open to the outside world. But others confirm that at least a significant sector of the town is growing more restrictive - even as its population of plural-marriage families continues to increase. As recently as the 1980s, many predicted that modern America's toys and temptations would swiftly erode the austere frontier values of this isolated community. Today, however, attitudes seem to be heading in the opposite direction. Modern possessions go "All the religious leaders have told the people to get rid of their modern possessions," LeBaron said, "and many are obliging." That directive from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints includes disposing of televisions, videocassette recorders and satellite dishes, confirmed residents of Colorado City. It also included disconnecting Internet connections available in the area. "We wanted to put a TV repeater (relay tower) on a ridge here above town," said Cyril Bradshaw, a longtime resident and retired school administrator. "But the powers that be fought it tooth and nail. Finally, the (Mohave) county put it in a high area 20 miles south of town, but the reception is nil." There also has been a crackdown on dress within the Colorado City public schools, where control is so tight that athletic teams aren't permitted to form and compete against schools in outside towns. Recently, more and more Colorado City schoolgirls had taken to wearing pants beneath their long, 19th century-style frontier dresses, said Nathaniel LeBaron, Wayne's brother. "But, boy, 95 percent of those pants have disappeared over there in recent months," Nathaniel LeBaron said. "There's a lot of repression going on against the modern world." Uncertainty about future The cause may lie in uncertainty about the future within the fundamentalist church, which runs the town through its so-called United Effort Plan. The UEP owns virtually all land and buildings in Colorado City and parcels them out to loyal church members. Rulon Jeffs, the church's 88-year-old patriarch and prophet, reportedly has been ill in recent months. The scene harkens back to the mid-1980s, when the terminal illness of former patriarch Leroy Johnson led to a similar retrenchment and resulted in a split in the church. Secessionist polygamists then bought land south of Colorado 389, built a separate community called Centennial Park and formed a second ward of the Fundamentalist LDS church. But it's in the First Ward where matters have taken a turn for the bizarre, said Don Cox, a Colorado City polygamist who left the church. "The talk around town is that all the true believers in the First Ward are preparing to gather at Berry Knoll (south of town)," Cox said, "where they will ascend into heaven." But Colorado City Mayor Dan Barlow said last week that all the talk of turning the clock back and planning for the rapture of church members is nonsense. More small industries Barlow also said the town has never been more open to the outside world, citing the construction of more than a dozen small industries in Colorado City and neighboring Hildale, Utah. The communities have a combined estimated population of about 6,000, Barlow said, and have been growing at a 6 percent annual rate. In recent years, church members have opened a convenience store, hotel and restaurant and a local bank, known as the Bank of Ephraim, on the highway that skirts the edge of the towns. The area was settled by excommunicated Mormon polygamists in the early 1900s. They selected a valley at the edge of the Canaan wilderness area on the Utah-Arizona state line because of fertile land on the banks of Short Creek. They also chose it because it enabled them to jump across the state line to avoid law officers from either state, both of which outlaw polygamy. Arizona did raid Short Creek in 1953; 23 townsmen were hauled away and sentenced to a year's probation on conspiracy charges. But the political fallout from breaking up families was later cited by then-Gov. Howard Pyle as a big factor in ending his political career. Polygamy popular Today, it appears that polygamy has never been more popular in the two communities. Dozens more huge, unfinished houses have sprung up. Many young men have emulated their fathers and started their own plural-marriage homes. Despite the hordes of children, the communities seem to place little emphasis on summer youth-recreation programs. Boys in long-sleeve Western shirts carry hoes around town, chopping down weeds wherever they find them. Girls in long dresses play hopscotch in yards and accompany their mothers to the Cooperative Mercantile Store. Outsiders - at least, those who aren't quickly on their way out of town - are greeted with uncertain handshakes and icy stares. Barlow said it's a lifestyle that's never received the appreciation it deserves from the outside world. "It's absurd to make an issue of a man strengthening his home with two mothers these days when we have a president like we do," Barlow said. But Cox, who has two wives, 18 children and "more than 40" grandchildren, said he wouldn't do it all over again. "It's pounded into the boys' heads here that the more wives the better," Cox said. "I came here 42 years ago thinking that if Brigham Young said it, it must be true. But it doesn't work because there are too many internal tensions." | |||||
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azcentral.com Originally published August 30, 1998 | |||||
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