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By Root 852 0

the fallout from the announcement began to subside, it was quietly whispered that Winston’s punishment came about because he had been questioning the extreme direction in which Warren had been taking the church. It was rumored that Warren and Winston had had many confrontations in the days and weeks before Warren went public. People said Winston saw that Warren was being dishonest in his communications with his father concerning the people and the church and manipulating him and decisions being made. They disagreed on how Warren was treating members that he deemed unredeemable; he sent them away, while Winston often refused to give up on them. I also heard that Warren went so far as to send Winston a list of people that he wanted cut off from the church completely, but reportedly Winston resisted.

The select few who were in the front seats the day of the announcement had taken note that the prophet’s original words were at odds with what Uncle Warren had said.

Looking back, I see that Warren timed the announcement perfectly. Rulon’s health had been in rapid decline, and Winston Blackmore was one of the few men whose influence could turn people against Warren. If Warren waited until after Rulon’s death to make such an accusation against Winston, people would have questioned his motives and doubted the directive, but having Uncle Rulon onstage and “supporting” Warren’s claims made it unquestionable.

Warren used the community’s sincere belief that the prophet would continue to live for hundreds of years to justify his commands and teachings. For much of my life, Uncle Rulon and Warren had been preaching that Rulon would be the last prophet on earth. They taught that he would never die; rather he would be “renewed”; once again he would be a man in his twenties who would continue on as the prophet living with his sixty-plus wives. In his renewed state, Rulon would lead us to Zion after the destructions and live for three hundred years. This idea was regularly discussed and universally accepted in the FLDS. We embraced this prophecy with all our hearts and the song that Uncle Warren wrote late that summer, narrating the glories of Rulon’s renewal. I’ll never forget the intense emotion in the meetinghouse as the people raised their voices in unison to the chorus of this song:

For he shall run and leap on Zion’s streets of gold.

Eye hath not seen nor ear hath heard the glory he shall know.

We love him so

His body will then be renewed, restored as in his youth

His handmaidens shall be increased and great will be his seed

His people shall rejoice in him

The story tell again

The Lord has worked a miracle

Our prophet has been healed.

Some of Rulon’s wives had even been given baby cribs to keep in their rooms as an incentive to stay pure for Uncle Rulon’s imminent rebirth, when he would begin to create offspring again.

Until that could happen, Uncle Warren had been standing in and assuming the care of Uncle Rulon’s family. For years, Uncle Rulon’s wives had been conditioned to go to Warren—not their husband—with any and all concerns. Whether it was about the household or even their own personal feelings and life, they were required to check in with Warren regularly and keep him apprised of what they were doing and where they were going. Some of the women had even confided in Warren about female medical concerns such as endometriosis. They were required to spell out in detail everything that they were experiencing, before they could be granted Warren’s permission to see a doctor.

These intrusions by Warren only alienated Kassandra further from him. She told me that she and Warren never saw eye to eye, and she used every opportunity to circumvent him and deal directly with Uncle Rulon. When she wanted permission for something, she tried to ask her husband and not Warren. Her actions aggravated Warren, and he never missed a chance to reprimand her. As Rulon grew feebler, Warren’s invasions only escalated, eventually becoming unavoidable and impacting her life in frustrating ways. Whereas before he’d been