Wall begins her bestseller in Salt Lake City, discussing the family financial hardships created by their participation in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints or FLDS, even before she was born. Her father was repeatedly asked to leave lucrative positions by the church leadership. He complied. And the family suffered financially. He later sold his profitable business to members of the FLDS for a fraction of what it was worth.
Mormon Polygamy
While the mainstream Mormon Church discontinued polygamy in 1890, the FLDS continued to practice what they call plural marriage. Walls mother, Sharon, was the second wife of her father. And Wall is the eleventh of the mothers fourteen children.
According to wall, in the FLDS the first marriage may or may not be legal according to state law. Subsequent marriages are ceremonial.
Warren Jeffs
Wall first became acquainted with Warren Jeffs while she was attending the Alta Academy, where he was principal. Warren Jeffs was a high school graduate and son of the ruling prophet, Rulon Jeffs. While he was principal Warren Jeffs based the curriculum around his own religious teachings.
When Walls family began to have increasing problems, Warren Jeffs ordered Sharon and her school age children to leave the Salt Lake area and Walls father, to live with another family. The family was reunited, then split up for good, all by order of the ruling priesthood.
Child Bride
Wall first meets her cousin, Allen Steed, while her parents are separated and her mother and siblings are living with his family in southern Utah. Steed bullies Wall and her siblings.
When Wall learns that she is to be married at age fourteen Wall is horrified. When she learns that she is to marry Allen Steed she is even more upset. She asks Warren Jeffs, who is in control of the priesthood, due to his fathers illness to allow her to grow up. Jeffs is deaf to the pleas of Wall and her family.
Teen Marriage
Marriage of first cousins is illegal in Utah. And the wedding ceremony, performed by Warren Jeffs, of Wall and Steed takes place at a seedy hotel in Caliente, Nevada. Wall cries, protests, and finally says, "Ok, I do."
Steed immediately initiates a sexual relationship with Wall and begins abusing her physically and emotionally when she refuses. Fourteen year old Wall goes to her family members and church elders, including repeatedly contacting Jeffs, begging to be released from the abusive marriage. Jeffs refuses to release her from the marriage and tells her to submit to her husband or she will lose her place in heaven.
Lost Boys
Wall eventually finds the courage to leave the FLDS. During her adjustment period her siblings encourage her to speak to law enforcement officials. She is finally convinced to file charges against Jeffs after she speaks to attorney Joanne Suder who previously represented the Lost Boys.
Much like Asne Seierstad describes life for women in Afghanistan in The Bookseller of Kabul, Walls memoir illustrates the first eighteen years of her life being treated as the property of others.
Stolen Innocence by Elissa Wall with Lisa Pulitzer was published by HarperCollins in 2008, ISBN 978-0-06-162801-6.
Christine Decourlande - Christine Decourlande has worked in the information technology industry since 1996. She holds a degree in Computer Information Systems ...
