1944 & 1953 saw Police Raids on polygamists. These were traumatic reminders that they couldn’t trust authorities. Dr Cristina Rosetti details more on these police raids and why fundamentalist Mormon communities became wary of outsiders. We’ll talk with Dr Cristina Rosetti about the schisms that happened following these raids. Check out our conversation…
Don’t miss our other conversations with Cristina: https://gospeltangents.com/people/cristina-rosetti/
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1944 & 1953 Raids
Cristina 00:34 Yeah, so he goes. In 1944, there was a raid in the community. Many prominent people go to prison in the raid. In both 1944 and 1953, both men and women go to prison. That’s something a lot of people forget about. Women go to prison to for polygamy.
GT 00:55 But, they’re more going after the men than the women. Aren’t they?
Cristina 00:59 They are. But women go to prison for polygamy. Women are fined. There are some great pictures of very cute, dressed up, fashionable, stylish women sitting in their prison cell, looking very proud of themselves for it. I think that is something that is so important. In this period, to go to prison for polygamy is to be persecuted for your religion. You’re Joseph Smith. Even in some way to be excommunicated for polygamy, too, at this time, for some of these people, it’s a badge of honor. You were willing to lose everything. You were willing to even put your blessings on the line for the cause of God. I mean, you’re making a lot of martyrs out of this. So, in 1944, he goes to prison. A lot of the leadership go to prison. One of the things that happens in the prison that will eventually create early fissures in the fundamentalist movement, is all of the men know that they can get out if they just sign a loyalty oath. Half of them decide to do it. Musser is one of them. Musser signs the loyalty oath, of course…
GT 02:22 With no intention of being loyal.
Cristina 02:24 No. He’s never going to. He’s going to keep getting married. He’s certainly going to keep telling people to get married. He has no intention of ever aligning himself with the Church, or with the state. But he signs the oath, because this is a man who’s a polygamist. He has a lot of wives, a lot of children. How are you going to support people, if you’re sitting in a cell? He also is running. They’re all running a fundamentalist religion. They need to get out of prison. And so Musser signs it. He knows he’s never going to live it. But some men, they were like, “No. We’re not going to be a Wilford Woodruff of another age. We’re sitting in prison for the cause of God.” This causes a lot of tension that it becomes, these men who were willing to cave even though they still were polygamous, and the men who decided to stay. You can sense that if you get out of prison later than your friends and you come strolling back into town, there’s going to be a little bit of resentment that they all got out. So, this will create fissures. Even today, a lot of people who grew up FLDS, or grew up Centennial will kind of make comment of, like, “Musser, who signed the oath.” There’s a little bit of hostility because their men, the people who become FLDS and Centennial Park did not sign the oath.
GT 03:46 Okay, because I thought Bryan told me a lot of those people were independent fundamentalists and not FLDS.
Cristina 03:55 Yeah, so the notable people who didn’t were Charles Zitting and Louis Kelch. Those are the two big guns that didn’t sign the oath. A couple things come together to create the major schism that will happen after the raid, the big raid, which we’ll come back to. After the raid, [there are] a couple of major significant questions. What does the president of the priesthood do? Do you oversee eternal matters? Or do you also oversee temporal matters? What do you do? Slowly, people are starting to sign over their property. People are starting to do consecration. There’s an interest in United Order. The United Effort Plan starts. Some men, Louis Kelch and Charles Zitting say, “We’re not signing over our stuff. We signed up to keep polygamy alive until the end of the age, and nothing more. We’re not….
GT 04:52 We’re not forming a new church.
Cristina 04:54 We signed up for one thing. Those two men also were like, you all signed. What’s going on? You all caved. No. So that becomes a problem. Those two men, especially Louis Kelch, Louis Kelch is really seen as the father of the independent movement, because of that idea. He was like, I signed up for polygamy. I signed up to believe in the Restoration, and to keep it going. I didn’t sign up for anything else. A lot of independents will similarly say, “We’re doing polygamy. That’s it,” just like Louis Kelch did. Zitting, similarly, was deeply concerned with how the temporal affairs were working. So, that becomes a problem.
GT 05:34 A lot of these people, because I know there’s been a fundamentalist belief that, “Hey, go join the LDS Church. Get baptized. Serve a mission. Get your endowment. Get sealed to your first wife and then back to us.”
Cristina 05:51 That was really trendy in the 60s and 70s, and the 80s. I don’t see that. I’ve talked a lot about that. That was a thing that happened. I would make the argument. I mean, nothing was set in stone. I would make the argument that that’s dying off. I think that’s a particular…
GT 06:14 Yeah, because of the 1978 revelation.
Cristina 06:16 I think 1978, but also, the endowment changed again, recently. I think that the idea of stay LDS, have your kids go to primary whatever. I think that’s a fundamentalism of a particular generation. I think that’s like a Gen X/Boomer way of being fundamentalist. I think the millennial generation are just like, “No, we’re fundamentalists. We’re just going to be what we are.” I think more and more now we’re starting to see that there actually is a generational divide on how to be a fundamentalist.
GT 06:50 Okay.
Cristina 06:51 But, I think that story is still to be told, I don’t want to make a definitive claim on that.
GT 06:55 Well, that was my question. The ones who refused to sign the loyalty oath in 1935 or whatever…
Cristina 07:05 [In] 1944.
GT 07:06 Oh, 1944, okay. They became both independents, that’s the Louis Kelch…
Cristina 07:13 Charles Zitting.
GT 07:14 Charles Zitting, so they’re the independents, and then there are also the FLDS. Is that right?
Cristina 07:21 Yeah, so the big split–really quickly, there’s a raid in 1953. That’s, I mean, the 1953 raid…
GT 07:28 Well, there’s a 1951 split, too.
Cristina 07:30 The 1951 split is kind of 1951-52. That’s an ongoing thing. The 1953 raid is really a defining moment, because that puts a line in the sand of who was there for that, who lived through the raid.
GT 07:50 So that was interesting, because we went there and there was a big schoolhouse. I did a little short. I don’t know if you knew that. This is where it was. And so, this is the one, I think, for…
Cristina 08:03 That’s where the children were bussed.
GT 08:04 What’s that?
Cristina 08:04 Yeah, that’s where all the children were bussed away.
GT 08:07 For us modern people, in fact, I even told a friend this recently, you remember the Texas raid where they were separating mothers and children and everything. It was a big mess. That’s the 1953 raid, basically. They’re putting children and mothers on busses.
Cristina 08:26 One hundred and fifty-three children were taken. I mentioned this yesterday at the tour, but it just needs to be repeated. Monogamist children were taken. Children of monogamous parents were taken. So, when people come in, there’s an assumption between both Arizona and Utah, there’s an overarching assumption that if you’re in Short Creek, you’re a polygamist. Because that’s the perception from the media. It’s the perception from everyone. Just children are taken. It doesn’t matter who your parents are. It doesn’t matter. A lot of those kids never returned. They were put in foster care, and they were just shipped off to Arizona.
GT 09:01 And so Short Creek was intentionally put on the Utah-Arizona border so that if the Arizona people came, you just go to Utah, literally across the street, and vice versa. If the Utah people came, you go to Arizona. When they did this 1953 raid, the Utah and Arizona justice systems coordinated so that they could get everybody.
Cristina 09:26 And they come in. It’s dark. It was interesting, because it was dark, and yet, the fundamentalists knew it was coming. They knew. I mean, they knew but they couldn’t save their children, which is a more traumatic reality. But all the men knew and they were like, “Get the kids and we’ll notify you. We’ll tell you. You’ll know. There’s TNT that goes off as a sign that the ATF is coming in. It’s like this big…
GT 10:00 So, it’s the federal government, too. It’s not just Utah and Arizona.
Cristina 10:03 ATF is always there. When has ATF ever done a good job at a raid on a religion? Waco? Really successful. {sarcastically} Am I right?
GT 10:15 Were they involved in the FLDS raid, too?
Cristina 10:18 ATF, yeah. Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is a necessary component of a raid on a religious community. (Tongue in cheek.) I said this yesterday. When has a federal raid on a religion ever succeeded in doing its job and not creating…
GT 10:36 A problem.
Cristina 10:37 … more of a problem. The 1953 raid was a traumatic raid for people. It was deeply remembered. It caused a lot of retrenchment. A lot of people took their kids out of school. People started working from home. It created a lot of the isolation that Short Creek is today known for. In later years, Warren Jeffs ends up weaponizing it. There’s a lot of talks of him like telling children to close their eyes and imagine being taken.
GT 11:05 In the middle of the night.
Cristina 11:06 In the middle of night. And so, he’s creating a culture of fear and isolation. That isolationism, if you weren’t in Short Creek, if you weren’t there for the raid, you don’t feel that. This is part of the reason why there is such, there, eventually, is such a different experience of being a fundamentalist in northern Utah.
Musser/Barlow Factions
Cristina 11:24 But when there is a split that happens in the community, it’s because of the loyalty oaths, because of the question of what does the President of the priesthood do? There also, around this time, in Short Creek, John Y. Barlow’s the guy in Short Creek at this point. Woolley has died. J. Lesley Broadbent has died. Barlow is now the leader of the community. And he was the head of the community for everyone, even for Musser. Because Musser never lived in Short Creek. Musser lived in northern Utah. Even John Y. Barlow was the guy, even though we have one instance where Joseph Musser is a little annoyed at how the property was working. He goes to Barlow with Louis Kelch, the guy that creates the independent movement. He goes to Barlow, and he’s like, “Do you have the keys? Do you?”
Barlow says, “No.” And so that’s a little weird. People who are part of the Short Creek group, would say, “Of course, Musser is going to say that.” But Musser is faithful to Barlow. But the problem is, with all of these issues, and then under Barlow, as well, this is when we start to see placement marriage. It’s also when we start to see pretty young marriages, but placement marriage, especially.
GT 12:44 And so Barlow, Bryan told me, he’s a real autocrat. I’m tired of this committee stuff. What I say goes.
Cristina 12:53 Yeah, we start to see events. Under Barlow is when we start to see the slow shift to one-man rule. Now that won’t be fully solidified until Barlow’s successor dies and Rulon takes power. That’s really when it’s known as being one-man rule. But up until Barlow, there’s a council. The council decides together. This is how it’s going to be. Slowly under Barlow, I mean, how do you get five people to vote on the same thing perfectly all the time?
GT 13:22 Right.
Cristina 13:22 You know what’s easier?
GT 13:24 One-man rule.
Cristina 13:24 Doing it yourself. It’s going to be easier. I mean, how do you get [people together?] What are you going to do? And so, we start to see the slow shift and placement marriage is really an obvious visual of this, of this guy is deciding who’s going to marry who in the town.
GT 13:40 So, he’s the matchmaker.
Cristina 13:41 So, we start to see a lot of particular instances. Marianne Watson has a really great article that she wrote for is it Dialogue or MHA, or JMH? I don’t remember. But, [it’s] a great article called, The History of Placement Marriage.[1] She documents the earliest instances of this. It’s a really fantastic article that I highly recommend for people interested in FLDS marriage. Joseph Musser becomes concerned by this, eventually. All of this will eventually create the split. The split will be along the lines of what happens when Barlow dies. What do we do?
GT 14:18 Does he die in 1951?
Cristina 14:20 John Y. Barlow dies in 1949. But by this time, the problem with this is Joseph Musser doesn’t live there. Joseph Musser has never lived there. These people have undergone the 1944 raid. These people have undergone their churches dissolving and reincorporating. This community has undergone a lot. They’re gathering there. The United Effort Plan has started. They’re living. They’re trying to live the United Order. Where is Joseph Musser?
GT 14:48 He’s up in Salt Lake.
Cristina 14:50 He’s up in Salt Lake. He’s just living in Salt Lake, and the priesthood house is up there and they do a lot of meetings up there, but he’s not living down there. There are fundamentalists in northern Utah. But because of this, Musser is the leader. He’s the president of the priesthood because of his order in the priesthood council, because of his seniority. But we start to see a group coalesce around Leroy S. Johnson. We also start to see a group of people kind of really coalesce around Joseph Musser. And so we start to see the early fissure.
GT 15:21 They’re both pretty charismatic leaders. Right?
Cristina 15:23 Yeah. Leroy S. Johnson is dearly beloved. But they’re charismatic for, I would say, different reasons. Leroy S. Johnson is charismatic in that he’s one of the guys. He’s in the town. He’s a farmer. He’s a believer in this. He is captivating. He’s in close proximity. That cannot be understated. He’s approachable. He’s one of the people in a very real way. That means a lot to a community that is struggling. Joseph Musser is captivating because he wrote all of the documents, because he’s been there since the beginning. He was part of the original priesthood council. Leroy Johnson wasn’t part of the original counsel under Woolley. And so, they’re interesting and compelling for different reasons, but they’re both interesting and compelling people.
Rulon C Allred
Cristina 16:13 I mean, there’s not a formal [division.] It’s not super formal yet, but we start to see the slow problem. Things become a big problem, though. It becomes a final problem when Joseph Musser has a stroke. He has a stroke and there’s this guy who’s his doctor. He’s a great guy.
GT 16:38 It’s not Russell M. Nelson.
Cristina 16:40 It’s not, unfortunately, Russell Marion Nelson. It is Rulon C. Allred, the one and only. Rulon C. Allred was a fundamentalist. He was a polygamist. He was on, like, Time Magazine. He was interesting.
GT 16:58 He was super charismatic.
Cristina 17:00 Yeah, I mean, he’s a doctor. He’s suave. He has a lot of really modern, hip, cool wives. He has a lot of really cute kids who have their hair done really well. He’s in Salt Lake.
GT 17:14 He’s cool.
Cristina 17:17 He’s the original poster child for the fundamentalist movement. It makes sense. I mean, he hasn’t been around as long as the rest of the guys. But he did the work. He went to Mexico. John Y. Barlow sent him to Mexico to seal people. John Y. Barlow sent on a mission. He did a lot of work in Mexico. He said a lot. He set the stage for some later developments in Mexico between the Priesthood Council group and, eventually, the LeBaron group. He did a lot of on the groundwork. Then he was also smart and charismatic and interesting and had a cute family. Musser ordains him as second elder, which means you’re next in line. Now to put him next in line meant to circumvent everyone else who had been around. By everyone else it means to circumvent Charles Zitting, one of the original members of the priesthood council that Woolley ordained. It meant to circumvent Musser’s own son, who was ride or die for the movement. It’s one thing to be like, this guy’s fit for the job. It’s another to do it at the expense of someone you sat in prison with who was ordained by Lorin Woolley with you. Zitting has a right to be a little annoyed by the whole thing. One of the biggest opponents was Guy Musser, Joseph’s son. Guy Musser goes as far as to say that his father is actually, because of the stroke is not fit to ordain someone to be his successor, which is a bold move.
GT 18:55 Up to now, had they been pretty much following seniority?
Cristina 18:58 Yeah. Next in line for seniority was the president of the priesthood.
GT 19:01 And so Rulon Allred really breaks, really messes up things.
Cristina 19:05 This was a break in tradition. When Rulon is sustained, Charles Zitting doesn’t sustain him. The meeting happens and Charles Zitting is just, like, absolutely not.
GT 19:15 I oppose.
Cristina 19:16 This is out of order. They say, “This is out of order. This is not correct.” But Musser stands by it, and when Musser dies in 1954, Allred rises to power in northern Utah, and eventually he becomes the leader of the Apostolic United Brethren. When that happens, in southern Utah, Southern Utah looks at this and says, “No. We didn’t have a say in this. Where are you? You still don’t live here. Who are you people?” Because in southern Utah, they’re like, who is Rulon Allred? Charles Zitting, what’s going on? Who are you? If you still go down to Centennial Park, so many of the graves are Zitting graves. These people live here. There’s no Allred. Who is Allred? What’s going on?
Uncle Roy (Leroy Johnson)
Cristina 20:09 They circle the wagons around Leroy S. Johnson, and it splits.
GT 20:14 He’s known as Uncle Roy.
Cristina 20:16 Uncle Roy. That is the split. The FLDS doesn’t take the name [until 1991.]
GT 20:20 Was that in 1951 or 1954?
Cristina 20:21 It’s like, 1951-52, the hard split. But 1954 is when Musser dies. I take issue with saying the split before Musser’s death, just because yes, there were a lot of problems with the council. Yes, they’re not sustaining his successor. Yes, they’re upset. But I think it’s fair to wait until Musser dies, and then have Rulon take power. But I mean, the priesthood does split. But when we say split, it doesn’t mean the religions separate, I would say. It means there’s a split in the decision-making body of the priesthood, of how we’re going to approach things and how we’re going to approach the future. But the actual [split,] when Musser dies, it’s over.
GT 21:04 And so this is, essentially– so you put it at 1954.
Cristina 21:07 Well, because I wait until Musser dies.
GT 21:10 And so, Rulon Allred starts, or whatever, this is where the FLDS and AUB, basically, break apart.
Cristina 21:20 Yes, and both of them go a council route.
GT 21:25 Yeah, up until then, I was surprised to learn that it wasn’t called the AUB, or the Allred group or the Musser group or any other group. It was just ‘The Work.’
Cristina 21:34 The Work.
GT 21:35 I didn’t know that. That was interesting.
Cristina 21:36 Yep. The Work or Centennial Park sometimes refers to themselves as the Second Ward and the Short Creek group as the First Ward. And then the Nielsen-Naylor group is the Third ward. So there’s four wards. When we did the tour, Shirlee Draper and Donia Jessop talked about that they were part of The Work, The Work of God. Because it wasn’t the FLDS. I mean, the FLDS, as a religious entity under that name, doesn’t incorporate until 1991. So, it’s a very new religion.
GT 22:05 Very late.
Cristina 22:06 Very late, and I mean, 1970s for the AUB. So, they’re very late. But the groups do split in terms of many things. Eventually, the AUB will continue the council model. They do have a president of the priesthood, but they do continue the council model. Whereas, eventually, over time, the FLDS, really in the Short Creek group, really becomes known for solidifying under one man. That’s highly controversial.
GT 22:34 And that’s Rulon Jeff’s…
Cristina 22:35 Rulon and Warren. That’s highly controversial, in 1986, especially controversial. Two men: Alma Timpson and Marian Hamman come forward, and they’re like, This is absolute nonsense. This is a dictatorship. This is not correct. And they jump ship, and they take a group and they become Centennial Park, that want to have a council.
GT 22:57 Which is the Second ward.
Cristina 22:58 The Second ward, and so we start to see splintering around that time between the groups. So, from then, I would say, from the time Musser dies, the fundamentalist movement is never unified again.
Independent Movements
GT 23:13 Right. Well, and what about these independents, the Louis Kelch group? They were the ones who refused to sign this thing. I mean, they date to, what 1944?
Cristina 23:24 Well, many of them live in Southern Utah. The divide with them is, are we going to sign over our property? Are we joining the United Order. Louis Kelch doesn’t join the United Order.
GT 23:35 He doesn’t want to.
Cristina 23:36 You can live there for a time and not have joined. This, ultimately will, under Rulon, and certainly under Warren, you have to join into the United Order. You have to be baptized into it, under them. That becomes a hallmark of the FLDS. But early on, you could live there. You’re just not joining up on the things, other than keeping the principle alive. So, early movements of that in the 1940s, and then we really see people actually moving to live independently in the 60s, 70s, 80s.
Cristina 24:14 Because, I remember. I think it was Donia Jessop said this yesterday. The largest fundamentalist group are independents, which are not really a group.
Cristina 24:25 Yes, there are more independents than there are other people. Now, many of them will live in close proximity. A lot of people who live at The Rock in Moab. They’re independent, but it’s like a group of families that live together. Sometimes people will think of them as maybe a group, but they’re independent. They’re not part of a unified church. They don’t view themselves as a church.
GT 24:50 So, they don’t have a council of friends or anything.
Cristina 24:52 I don’t know about The Rock, specifically, but that is an example of families that live together, but they’re independent. They’re not an incorporated religion.
GT 25:04 So you do any independents that I can talk to? I guess Anne Wilde is one, but I’ve talked to her already.
Cristina 25:13 After we record, I can talk to you.
GT 25:15 That’s fine. That’s all I was looking for.
Cristina 25:17 There’s a lot. Over time, when the split–I mean, over time, the Short Creek group was the largest. I mean, of course, it was, because everyone was there. Early on, this was the largest fundamentalist religion of Mormon fundamentalism. Once Warren comes to power, sends people away, things go south. Because of all of this, the AUB, today, would be the biggest of the groups, of the people that are a part of a church. That is Musser’s legacy.
{End of Part 3}
[1] The article was written in Dialogue and is called “The Origin of Placement Marriage.” See https://www.dialoguejournal.com/dialogue-journal-authors/marianne-t-watson/
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