Meet Jerry
Childhood and Upbringing
My mostly-idyllic childhood on a farm with my many mothers and siblings in the south Salt Lake Valley was upended by raids by local and federal law enforcement agents, instigated by the Mormon (Latter-Day Saints) Church.
My polygamous parents were made to serve jail time for their illegal marriages, while the threat of foster care loomed over us children. Ultimately our close-living greater family was forced into hiding, with my father arranging for my mothers and their children to flee, first to Mexico, then they were scattered for years across several western states, to elude the FBI.
Mama, her twin sister-wife, and their children found refuge in Elko, Nevada. We lived there under false narratives to keep us safe and together, behind masks in our social, school, and church lives.
Education, Profession and Life Turns
I graduated from Elko High in 1963, after a sister and three brothers. My father prized higher education, like many Mormons. But like many fundamentalists, he resisted its discoveries and difficult truths. I did not. I was eager for learning beyond my enclosed religious world, and went on to earn higher degrees in History and English at the University of Utah. While completing my doctoral dissertation, I taught Literature and Composition at the University, and later taught at Granite High School in Salt Lake City.
In May 1977, we suffered the assassination of my peace-loving father by members of a rival polygamous faction. This faction went on to menace my greater family in the chaos and grief following my father's murder. That July I moved with my wife and child to Chico, California, where we began a new life away from warring polygamist sects, the LDS church, and Salt Lake.
I taught secondary and university in Northern California until 1983, when I joined the Butte County Office of Education as Director of Program and Resource Development. I worked with partners in K-12 education, health and human services, and government offices, facilitating student, teacher and community relationships and services at local, regional, and state levels.
Writing:
My stories called me out of sleep during the rush of my expanding teaching and administrative career, and the raising of three kids. I rose often in the early hours before dawn to chronicle my coming of age journey inside polygamy's parallel reality.
Now, I live more quietly with my wife Joanne in Butte Creek Canyon, enjoying family, friends, gardening, and fly fishing. The stories continue to come. After the publication of Hideaways, the stories are taking me further back, beyond my own childhood into the early Mormon world of my father, and of his fathers. Stay tuned.
*Me as a boy with my mothers and some brothers and sisters
*As a young man in the LDS Temple, wedding my (only) wife Joanne
