“Great job, sis! This is a really good haul for one stop. We have a lot to go through when we get home.”
Mission accomplished. And maybe I’d find a pretty shirt and a pair of designer jeans that fit me.
We each held a bag of clothes in our laps for the drive home. Gift boxing was like Christmas to us. Actually, it was better, since our family rarely celebrated that pagan holiday.
When we arrived home, we placed the bags into a large pile on the living room floor.
Mom, Yolanda, and Teresa began opening the bags one by one and holding up items for everyone to see. We were always told to stay calm during this process, but what usually happened is we’d all see a potentially nice article of clothing, like a cute shirt or denim skirt, and we’d begin clamoring for it. The adults always got the final say about who got what, and they gave the better items to the most-favored kids.
Sometimes I would see something I thought was really cute, but because there were so many girls who were the same size, I hardly dared to hope I might actually end up getting to keep that item. Most of the time, we got things by sheer luck, depending on which of the women held up the article of clothing and which girl was in good favor with her. After the sister-wives had divided up all the clothing among the kids, we were allowed to trade with each other, as long as the items fit. If I really liked something someone else had, I might have to trade two or three items to get it.
That particular night, Mom sifted through the next-to-last bag and pulled out a bright red piece of fabric. She held up a scarlet, polyester, bell-bottomed jumpsuit that zipped up the front. I just had to have it. Please say Anna, I repeated silently over and over, until I heard my mom say, “Anna, this looks like it might fit you.”
I beamed at her and caught the jumpsuit as she tossed it my way. I hurried from my spot on the floor to go try it on. It fit perfectly.
Everyone congratulated me on such a great haul of clothes that night. I thanked them, but I was most excited about my red jumpsuit.
I nearly wore it out the first month. After wearing it to school a dozen times, I realized how risky that was. What if some girl recognized my “new” jumpsuit as one of her castoffs? I would never have lived that down!
I figured out why I liked the outfit so much. Heber had an Olivia Newton-John record album with a striking photograph of the singer sitting on a wooden rocking horse on the back cover. She was wearing a bright red, zippered jumpsuit like mine. I always imagined I looked like her when I wore my red jumpsuit. It was an odd dichotomy, given that we were supposed to be such super-spiritual people. Heber had bought that album —one of many things he kept hidden from my mother —with its worldly cover photo, which put the idea of such fashion in my head.
My excitement took me back to a similar night before I was old enough to go gift boxing. When the bags of clothes were divided up at home, I ended up with a cute pink-and-gray plaid dress with a tie at the neck, which I remember begging my mom to let me wear for school pictures the next day. She refused because the dress had a V-neck and needed to be modified with a triangle of white fabric at the neckline since modesty was paramount in the polygamist culture. (I am wearing that dress in my photograph on the cover of this book!) Our clothes certainly weren’t fancy, but I could usually find something I liked.
Two days after the gift boxing, Mom picked me up from school so we could go by the Goodwill donation bin to drop off our “donation” of clothes that didn’t work for anyone in the family. It seemed strange seeing the bin in the daytime. The hypocrisy of piously making donations of our stolen goods was lost on me.
According to my father, lawbreaking and lawlessness were justified because the US government and culture were both corrupt. The disciples who followed him were God’s chosen people, which meant we could go outside the normal bounds of rules and regulations. The ends justified the means. Although at times I was worried about getting caught stealing, I kept my concerns to myself.
INTERACTING WITH SO MANY FAMILY MEMBERS was alternatingly fascinating and maddening. My sisters (including step-and half-siblings) and I learned much about the culture of polygamy by observing the interaction among the sister-wives. We absorbed things by listening to conversations conducted in hushed tones. Over time, we discovered which sister-wives to avoid —some were simply mean or downright cruel, and others used their status to dominate. In polygamy, the hierarchical ranking rules everything. The first wife is not only revered by her husband, but also feared by the second and third (and additional) sister-wives married to the same man.
Another rather odd phenomenon occurred with regard to disciplining children. The sister-wives felt free and empowered to discipline the children of other members of the group, with one exception: No one dared discipline the children of wives who were higher than they were in the pecking order. In our family unit, that meant Sheila Jordan’s children had immunity from any correction. Another sister-wife would not lift a hand or speak a harsh word to them without fear of retribution.
I began to view our time in Denver as a form of slavery. Every child labor law was violated indiscriminately. We lived our own sort of indentured nightmare under the rule of Dan Jordan, my father’s right-hand man. Dan controlled everything while my father was in prison.
I struggled most whenever Dan’s children worked in the warehouse. Everyone gave his kids preferential treatment. My siblings and I were the hired help receiving either low or no pay. Of course, we had no choice in the matter.
Ervil’s children dutifully followed two unspoken rules when it came to the Jordan children: Don’t discuss the injustices, and don’t dwell on the unfairness. God wouldn’t like that kind of selfish attitude because it wouldn’t help grow His kingdom. We just did what we were told, and nobody said anything. You most certainly didn’t complain to Dan Jordan or anyone in the family about it.
Dawn Jordan was exactly three days older than I was. Though we belonged to the same religious group and spent the vast majority of our time at the same places around the same people, our lives differed greatly. Dawn and I wore different clothes. Mine were from Goodwill collection bins or an occasional more stylish hand-me-down from an older sibling. Dawn’s clothes came from the local department stores, and her new outfits matched, right down to her shoes.