Shattered Dreams by Irene Spencer

Shattered Dreams: My Life as a Polygamist's Wife, Irene Spencer. New York: Hachette Book Group, 2007. e-book, 380 pps.

     Irene Spencer grew up in a fundamentalist Mormon household. Although the official LDS Church has reneged on the practice of polygamy, the FLDS folks have not. One well-known settlement is in Short Creek which straddles the border of Colorado and Arizona. Several not-as-known settlements remain in Mexico, where the authorities are not as intent on prosecution of plural marriages as the United States is at present.

     As a teen, Irene Spencer found true love but she turned her back on him in favor of the Principle [of Celestial Marriage; and thus of plural marriage here on earth]. She became second wife to her half-sister's first husband. [Sisters, half-sisters, and step-sisters may share a husband]. Her husband's household quickly moved to Mexico to what was supposed to be a ranch but proved to be a hovel of rat-infested huts. 

     Irene Spencer was an obedient wife prone to meltdowns and tantrums whenever her husband married again. He wanted at least seven wives. Adding insult to injury, she was called upon several times to court the extra wives and/or give them to her husband in the marriage ceremonies. She had many babies and put aside her own dreams and health in order to please her god.


sapphoq reviews says: Irene Spencer has come out on the other side of a chaotic existence. She is now happily married to a monogamous husband and has converted to born again christian status. She is certain to have more freedom as such in spite of a belief in fundamentalist biblical interpretations.
     I found Shattered Dreams to be a studied glimpse into the reality behind sister-wives. Jealousy, poverty, and a subservient posture towards men and whoever declares himself to be god's next prophet is a recipe for personal disaster. I learned bits about plural marriages that I had been previously unaware of. Recommended to those readers who like religious-type memoirs and perhaps to sociology students.
     I wish Irene Spencer well and I do hope that she continues in her classes for creative writing and in her speaking engagements.

     

Jesus Land by Julia Scheeres

Jesus Land (A Memoir) , Julia Scheeres.  Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2005. e-book, 274 pps.

Julia Scheeres is from a white fundamentalist Christian family.  They lived in Indiana, mother, father, a coupla kids.  Dad made a good living as a surgeon.  Her mom and dad wanted to adopt a kid, but the agency said the kid they wanted was already taken.  The agency pointed out that there was a bunch of black kids in need of a home.  Being Christians and all, mom and dad felt like they could not refuse to adopt a kid on the basis of his skin tone.  First they adopted David, a child a year younger than Julia.  Then they adopted an older black boy so David would have someone else in the family who was black.

Prejudice runs deep even in religious places.  David and his brother attracted their share of nasty comments from the other school kids.  Julia and David stuck up for each other and were fairly inseparable.  Eventually there were several falling outs and the Scheeres adults decided to dump David at a fundamentalist Christian school called Escuela Caribe in the Dominican Republic.  This school was run with the assumption that all of the teens attending there were messed up and evil and had done stuff like having premarital sex and thus deserved to be there.  Julia was astonished to find her mother clearing out David's room one day.  That was the day that Julia learned that David was being x'ed out of her parents' lives on a permanent basis, good Christians that they were.

After a bit, Julia's parents discovered that she had premarital sex with a boy.  She wound up being dumped off at Escuela Caribe as well.  The school sucked.  There was abuse there, just as there had been at Julia's home in Indiana.  Julia and David both got out after a time.  Julia found that she was no longer a Christian.  I won't tell you what happened with David.

sapphoq reviews says: Jesus Land is an outstanding memoir.  It illustrates what happens when religious dogma becomes more important than loving others.  Highly recommended.

fundies say the darndest things webiste

No matter how many of you DEFEND anime/manga, you NEED to realize that this genre of entertainment is nothing short of witchcraft...Creation has been unanimously proven...Registering [the poor] to vote is like handing out burglary tools to criminals...Most knowledge cutters the mind anyway...

Those are just a few of the more recent quotes culled from the fstdt website. Folks can submit a quote; and also comment on the quotes if they sign up for an account. Each quotation is identified by who said it and the website where the original can be found.

sapphoq reviews says: A winner!