Pt 40-C:
Esther LeBaron Spencer:
Ma, Pa, Me, and Pitfalls of Polygamy

UTAH POLYGAMY:
PANDORA’S BOX

Although the box is full of evils, we must remember
there is Hope at the bottom.
Utah needs to open this Box, deal with the evils,
and start giving people Hope again.”

Angela Kelly

The above photo of my father Floyd Spencer being arrested during the 1953 Short Creek Raid/Police Action is but one of many such images in the Archives of Arizona’s brave effort to rid its borders of renegade Mormon polygamy—before the problem proliferated exponentially.

But the Short Creek Raid failed….for the same reason the 2008 El Dorado, Texas Raid/Police Action failed: News Media memes misled a naive public; consequently, today Polygamy is proliferating out of control.

Unfortunately, my well-meaning fundamentalist parents, by following their Mormon beliefs, helped perpetuate and proliferate polygamy/White slavery:

Out of ignorance, brainwashing, and fanaticism, they pushed the barbaric polygamic practice and belief system onto me and my siblings, my mom Esther being a true-believing Mexico-LeBaron.

For example, in order to live with “the saints” and raise their kids in polygamy/polygyny, in 1953 Ma and Pa moved us from St. George, Utah, to the polygamist enclave, Short Creek, Arizona; only nine months before the raid they knew, even before they moved there, was going to happen!

Being true-believers who took it for granted they were God’s “only true Saints,” they were under the assumption God would protect them from the coming law-inforcements’ round-up of polygamists in Short Creek.

Furthermore, my parents figured this coming Arizona police action would pass them by because my father was not a polygamist—at least not since his first wife Eva left him shortly after he took Ma as his plural wife in 1944.

Why did Ma and Pa believe they and “the Short Creekers”/Mormon Fundies were the “only true Saints”?

Answer: Mormon Plygs think they’re “SO holy” because they’re abiding by Joseph Smith’s command to carry on and live Plural Marriage [a euphemism for bigamy]; even after it was outlawed in the mainstream Mormon church.

But, surprise! God didn’t protect my family:
In this police action/raid on outlaw polygamists, even Daddy was put in jail—although he had but one wife; jailed because he wouldn’t promise the judge he would not live polygamy and wouldn’t raise his kids to do the same.

It followed that we kids were, therefore, removed from our “Plygville” home bisecting Utah and Arizona, to live in Mesa, Arizona; and subsist on the Arizona State Welfare System—only to be released two years later to return to our polygamic lifestyle in Short Creek, Az. Go figure!

Thanks for visiting!
Thanks for your feedback.
~Stephany Spencer-LeBaron

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1. 
   https://time.com › short-creek-raid-photos-arizona-polygamy-mormonApr 20, 2014 – Just before dawn on July 26, 1953, Arizona law enforcement launched what has since become known as the Short Creek Raid: the arrest of …
   https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Short_Creek_raid

The Short Creek raid is an Arizona Department of Public Safety and Arizona National Guard action against Mormon fundamentalists that took place on the morning of July 26, 1953, at Short Creek, Arizona.

(Continued Sept. 26, 2019, “Pt 40-D: Esther LeBaron Spencer: Ma, Pa, Me, and Pitfalls of Polygamy”)