Part 19-Q — Esther LeBaron McDonald de Spencer —
And More Perils of Polygamy
Could This be Bill with his first two wives,
“horny toads” in a menage a trois?
Sex, drugs, ‘n’ “rock ‘n’ roll” — Rock on!
“The truth told with love and consideration is the key.
An honest account of what you experienced
is what memoir is all about.”
Rita Keeley Brown
Continued from: “My Memoir: Esther LeBaron McDonald de Spencer — And More Perils of Polygamy — Part 19-P”
Getting back to my being in the throes of “The First Grand Head” of the cult, my uncle Ervil LeBaron, and his having a jackhammer thrown into his “perfect“ plans to marry me off to his pal, Homer (behind my parents’ back) let me give you a little pertinent backstory:
Mother and her siblings, including Ervil, had grown up with Homer Babbitt in the Mormon colonies in Colonia Juarez, Mexico. Blond-haired, blue-eyed Homer was around Momma’s age; that is, 26 years older than I. Extremely shy, he blushed often, highlighting his already red pockmarked face and neck deeply scarred from acne and boils. Sadly, the name “Homer” (Homely) fit him.
But he was a sweet, sensitive, kind, conscientious, considerate gentleman — with money: Quite rare in my neck of the woods. Barely converted from the LDS church to the LeBaron cult and polygamy, Homer was, in marrying me as his plural wife, trying to please both God and his childhood Mormon pal Ervil.
Even so, as I partly related earlier, my parents got busy post haste to covertly thwart Ervil’s plans to barter me off to Babbitt, by going to Bill, behind my back, and exclaiming, “If you want to marry Beulah, right now is your chance. Tomorrow will be too late!”
But Bill, always the diplomat, countered with, “Beulah is too young. I need to wait a couple more years. I don’t have money to support another wife right now. Can’t even afford to take her on a honeymoon.”
He was REALLY hedging! Mormon fundamentalist Men usually did not take their plural wives on a honeymoon! There was enough trouble in Bedlam (Plyg Town) without them honeymooning each new plural wife. Furthermore, most polygamists couldn’t afford their first wife and her herd of up to possibly twenty-six kids, let alone a honeymoon for each new wife added to the harem.
And new wives meant ultimately even more kids–more expense and time: Each new wife stretched further and further the husband and father from his time and money. In the end, it was mostly the wives and children left to bear the brunt of this hapless, mindless lifestyle.
But true-believing, brainwashed Daddy nevertheless bribed Bill: “How’s about I help you out? I’ll give you some money … more than enough to take my favorite daughter on a honeymoon for a week. How’d that be?”
That money sounded good to penniless-pauper Bill. He had to rely too much on the purse strings of his first wife Harolyn (Her parents sent her money regularly from “The States”) in order to keep his family afloat in the LeBaron colony while he worked to get his chicken business off the ground, including a chicken packing plant for “pollos”/friers.
But wouldn’t you know, it was Ervil finding out about my parents trying to arrange my marriage to Bill that cemented the deal. More on “the deal” in the next blog.
(Continued February 19, 2018: “My Memoir: Esther LeBaron McDonald de Spencer — And More Perils of Polygamy — Part 19-R”)
STEPHANY SPENCER: 