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By Root 696 0

school, but with the help of my science teacher, David Bateman, I felt my eyes open up to a whole new academic world. I had never really studied science at school, and Mr. Bateman challenged me to come up to par, and even spent extra time helping me to discover science at work in the world around me. We had our fair share of difficulties and teacher-student arguments, but I loved his class and he became my favorite teacher. I also developed a love of writing and history and found that I was good at both. I finally started to adjust to my new school life, although I found it impossible to adapt to my new home. Since arriving at Fred’s house, I’d endured weeks of backstabbing and name-calling from the other girls in the home. My near-fatal reaction to the anesthetic during my “attempted” tonsillectomy had resulted in a number of lingering effects. One was the retention of water, and that, coupled with the baby fat I’d always had, had contributed to the little bit of pudge I’d put on over the months. Being a bit heavier had placed me at the center of cruel taunts, as some of Uncle Fred’s daughters looked to cut me down. With fifteen girls between the ages of twelve and seventeen living in the home, it had become like a dormitory with various cliques forming and relentless teasing everywhere. I was already very self-conscious about my appearance, and their comments only made it worse. I was so hurt and humiliated that I began starving myself to lose weight.

Had it not been for Mom’s intervention, the situation could have turned far more serious. She’d noticed that I wasn’t eating my meals and immediately took steps to correct the problem. Mom recognized how this was hurting my spirit and lovingly assured me that no matter what anyone else was saying, I was special and beautiful and didn’t need to be ashamed of myself. I was just a normal young teenager struggling to find my place in a house full of teenage girls.

The problems didn’t end with my weight. Every time I spoke about my father, the other girls in the house teased me, apparently deriving pleasure from informing me that he wasn’t my father anymore. I’d been involved in several heated arguments over the weeks and had simply refused to abandon Dad or agree that he was a wicked man.

“You just watch,” they’d say in rebuttal. “Your mom’s going to marry Fred.”

I should have realized that they were speaking from experience, as it had already happened to them and their mothers. Nevertheless, I refused to let go of my hope that somehow we’d all be reunited.

Finally came the day when the idle gossip became real. After helping some of the other Jessop girls pick corn from the community garden, we all had just arrived back at the house when one of Fred’s daughters approached me.

“Your mom’s going to marry Father,” she said in a know-it-all tone.

“No she’s not,” I quickly retorted, trying my best to sound sure of myself. “We’re going to go home someday.”

I was not going to give up on my dad. If Mom really did become Uncle Fred’s wife, it would mean that all of her children would then belong to Uncle Fred, and from the day of their wedding forward we would have to address him as Father. As far as the church was concerned, the man who had raised me, the man I had loved and called Dad for thirteen years, would no longer be my father. We could no longer even think of him in that way. In fact, we could no longer think of him at all. If Mom and Uncle Fred married, we’d literally belong to Fred Jessop and be expected to immediately transfer our love and loyalty to him.

It would also mean we would have to drop our proud family name of Wall and take on the last name Jessop. When a woman and her children were passed from one man to another—regardless of the reason—they were forced to forsake the legacy of the father, as though he had never existed. Warren preached that when a family remarried to another man, God changed their blood and DNA to match that of the priesthood man they now belonged to. If we did not have worthy blood running through our veins, we could not gain entrance