Stolen Innocence - Lisa Pulitzer [44]
Throughout the day the people would socialize and enjoy one another’s company. The children were free to let their imaginations run, while adults could take a day off from the daily grind. Laughing children weaved their way through the crowd and played for hours on the playground. The park had an actual working mini-train, and standing in line for a ride, I could barely contain my excitement.
The day would come to a close with a community dance held in the Leroy S. Johnson Meeting House, an enormous Colonial-inspired structure—it spanned the entire block—that my father had helped to design. The dances were far from modern—we did the waltz, the two-step, and square dances. You could feel the energy in the air at the sight of twirling girls in flowing dresses and boys in their best Sunday suits. These special events were the only time that physical contact between members of the opposite sex could take place. We were allowed to chose our own partners and touch just enough to be able to perform the dance steps. When the night came to a close, we had to view each other as poisonous reptiles once again.
After summer’s warmth had vanished and the children had all been in school for over two months, Octoberfest provided a reprieve from the daily routine. Much of the potatoes, dairy products, and meat consumed by community members were raised on the farm of Parley Harker, which was homesteaded in Bural, many miles outside of town. This was a time when many could come together to help harvest the crops we would consume throughout the year. The event, also dubbed Harvest Fest, was one of the most anticipated celebrations of the FLDS, with festivities lasting for three or four days, ending with Saturday work projects.
Much like the summer events, Harvest Fest days were spent at the park, where all could enjoy food and musical entertainment. Some of the stores in town closed early to celebrate, and many families participated in the organized program set for each day. The park was lined with booths offering every food item a child could dream up—candied apples, pie, cotton candy, popcorn, canned items and homemade knickknacks. Harvest Fest even allowed an annual football game for men and older boys, held in Maxwell Park, a huge sod field where there was also a baseball diamond. It was one of the few chances for men from all of the FLDS communities to come together to enjoy the raw aggression of a contact sport. Women were prohibited, of course, even from attending as spectators. Still, some of the older girls would drive by slowly enough to take an unnoticed peak from the road while “pretending” to be en route to another activity.
While I knew that these were special occasions, I still held out hope that the communal atmosphere that permeated those days would carry over to the rest of the year. There weren’t many things about the move to Hildale that I had to look forward to, but the hope of finally fitting in was one of them.
It didn’t take long for this optimism to fade. Trying to mesh with the home’s many occupants at Uncle Fred’s proved quite difficult for my family. Dad had raised us differently from the way many of the children in Fred’s home were raised. We’d grown up exposed to non-FLDS people, and Dad shared my mother’s desire to educate us in music. It had always been Mom’s dream to play the violin, and even though it wasn’t encouraged, Mom had the tenacity to seek out musical instruction for her children, developing in us all a deep love and appreciation of classical music. I remember from my youngest years her efforts to expose us to the world of music, taking us to concerts, the symphony, and instrumental performances in Salt Lake. As busy as my father