Re: OT New HBO Show- Big Love


I could write a book on what I've learned about the Mormon religion and
polygamy, however, don't want anyone to think I am a smart arse. My
reasons for studying the history of Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, et al,
is for two reasons:

1) I found out that my great-great grandfather was a Mormon, went with
Brigham Young and his bunch from Nauvoo where Joseph Smith was killed
in the jail, to Salt Lake City. He then went with the first bunch of
Mormons to San Bernadino California to start a branch there. He was
ex-communicated for some reason, but I was never able to find any
documentation of the reason. Probably because he refused to practice
polygamy - it least I would hope that was the reason. Anyway, he moved
to Texas and that was the end of Mormonism in this family.

2) I lived in Utah for a year in 1990-91. My brother was manager of a
gas processing plant there and talked me into moving up there. I lived
in a tiny town called Hanna - up in the mountains where it was
beautiful. I worked as an MT at the hospital in Roosevelt, which was
fugly country, so I drove the 70 miles one way to live in the
mountains. There were many polygamous families living in that part of
Utah. One family (1 husband, 7 wives, 46 kids) lived in an abandoned
Mormon church just up the road from Hanna (about 2 miles). How could
they afford to live like that? Easy, the men are actually only legally
married to one wife - all of the others claim Aid to Dependent Children
and food stamps. They estimated this family was taking in upwards of
10k each month, not including the food stamps.

As I understand it the State of Utah got tired of paying out all of
this money to the polygamous families in Utah and have started to stop
the welfare to them. So now, what are they doing? One of the leaders
of polygamy, a man named Jelf, from Colorado City, Arizona and who is
on the Most Wanted List by the FBI for incest and giving young girls to
old farts, has built a huge complex between Ozona and Eldorado, Texas,
which is about 100 miles from here. It has caused a really big stink
and Texans are madder than h_ _ _ that they are trying to move in here.
They bought 16,000 acres of land under false pretenses. Their intention
is to set up the complex as a "town" so that they can get welfare for
all of these so-called wives and their kids. Not in this state they
won't. One of the old ranchers said that once we kicked them out it
would sure make a great place for a casino, LOL.

Don't get me wrong. I know a lot of Mormon people who are the salt of
the Earth. Two of my nephews, who are both policemen in Salt Lake
City, are married to little Mormon girls and they are wonderful girls.
They don't know that Joseph Smith was the biggest con artist who ever
came down the pike. Migosh - he was in jail several times for being a
con artist before he found the so-called golden tablets, which were
never seen by anyone's eyes but his, BTW.

Enough said. If you are really interested in Mormonism here are the
names of two nonfictional books that will tell you all you want to
know. One is "Mormonism - Shadow or Reality." It was written by a
great-granddaughter of Brigham Young and her husband, whose
great-grandfather was one of the daddy bears. The other book, which is
a new book, is 'Under the Banner of Heavy: The story of Violent Faith)
by Jon Krakauer. Both are very enlightening.


--
fairjan
.

Relevant Pages