Stolen Innocence - Lisa Pulitzer [51]
Uncle Fred’s fingerprints were all over the search, and we all knew it from the moment the police showed up at the door. With the evidence found in Brad’s room, the church elders became convinced that he was in need of reform and decided to send him to Canada.
Having heard the twins talk about their experience in Canada, Brad knew that it was not a place he wanted to go. Not only was the work site in a remote location in Alberta, but he would be living in a portable trailer with other “fallen” kids and few of the comforts of home. With temperatures often dipping as low as twenty-five degrees below zero and much of the work being done outside, Brad would need a strong will and a passion for the priesthood that he simply didn’t possess. He was fed up with the church and those who led it, and he knew that he had to find a way out. The only question was how.
Against his will, he began the long drive up to Canada with the priesthood men in charge of him. They stopped to spend the night at a hotel in Salt Lake City, and not missing a beat, Brad saw his opportunity. With his guardians sleeping nearby, he silently tossed his belongings out of the window, then jumped out after them, landing in a heap on the cold, hard ground. From a pay phone, he called our brother Travis for help.
Over the next few days, they tracked Brad to Dad’s house and Warren himself tried to convince him to come back to Hildale. When he refused, Dad received a call from a church leader, stating that he should take care of Brad and the twins, and that my mother would take care of the girls and Caleb. It was one of the few times that the priesthood had split up children in this fashion.
Brad’s absence hit me incredibly hard, leaving me with an emptiness that I struggled to conceal. As if losing another brother wasn’t bad enough, the school that I had come to love so much underwent a change. Shortly before Brad’s escape, I graduated from the eighth grade, but sadly that marked the end of my public school career and signified the last time I’d see many of the friends I’d made there. All year I’d looked forward to my first-ever graduation ceremony. This would be the first time I’d ever be recognized for having completed something. Standing among my friends in the school auditorium in the beautiful lavender dress my sister had helped me sew, I felt such a sense of accomplishment. Mom had even bought me a corsage at the local florist—another first—and I was so excited to pin it on.
The occasion proved bittersweet. I’d finally found an outlet for my inner struggles in learning, and my inclination toward science had gotten me thinking in new directions. Suddenly dreams I had never had began to fill my mind. For the first time, I felt that I had the power to shape my own destiny, that everything wasn’t predetermined for me. All I had to do was continue to excel at school, and I might be able to reach my goals and chart my own course.
But Uncle Warren would crush this dream, too. That summer, he stood up in church and told the people that they needed to take their children out of the public schools. “The time is short,” he said from the pulpit. “The prophet has directed the people to pull your children out of the schools of the world and start priesthood school.”
He’d already commanded the FLDS people to separate themselves from apostates, warning that anyone caught associating with them would be dealt with severely. Now his directive to pull the children from the schools resulted in the closing of the Colorado City Unified School District and a huge loss of jobs and income for many in the community. There had been more than a thousand students enrolled at the time I arrived, but that number dropped to just a handful in the days following Uncle Warren’s decree.
Of course, Warren started his own private school in Hildale, and enrollment was coveted. It seemed that only the very righteous were admitted. There was also a school run by Fred Jessop called Uzona Home School,