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1:13

Weddings are often chaotic,

1:15

and Mary Jane's was no different. Even,

1:17

like, getting ready, getting my hair

1:20

done by a friend and

1:23

my dress ready, and I

1:25

didn't get to have my hair completely as I

1:27

wanted it because we were running out of time. There

1:29

was just, like, this rush and urgency.

1:32

But there are some things that made Mary Jane's

1:34

wedding stand out. For

1:36

one, she was only 17 years old at the time,

1:39

and two of her friends were also to

1:41

be married on the same day. But

1:44

what really makes her nuptials distinctive

1:46

is that she woke up on the morning of her

1:48

wedding not knowing who she

1:51

was going to marry that day.

1:56

The excitement around it was like, who's

1:59

marrying who? And it's

2:01

pretty weird wedding day excitement. Mary

2:05

Jane Blackmore grew up in bountiful

2:07

British Columbia as part of the fundamentalist

2:10

Latter-day Saints, a Mormon sect

2:12

that practices polygamy and believes

2:15

in living prophets. And

2:17

it was the prophet Rulon Jeffs, an

2:19

elderly man from Utah, who was going to

2:21

determine who Mary Jane would be wed to.

2:24

Marriage is the

2:27

big rite of passage for men

2:29

and young women in the church, particularly

2:32

for girls, because there isn't

2:34

really another path. It's

2:37

just a matter of when and whom.

2:40

And because the faith embraced

2:42

what's called placement marriage, which is

2:45

arranged

2:45

marriages,

2:46

it's the prophets and

2:48

church leadership who decides

2:51

who will marry.

2:52

She knew that she would almost certainly be

2:54

wed to someone from Utah. She

2:57

was sad that she'd be leaving the life that

2:59

she knew, but she had her eye on one

3:01

particular boy, and she was hopeful

3:03

that the prophet would choose him for

3:05

her. But she knew it wasn't

3:07

a certainty.

3:08

For many families, it was, who

3:11

am I to think that I might know better

3:13

than the prophet? So to

3:16

fully prepare for marriage,

3:19

one of the practices

3:21

for young men and women is

3:23

to keep your heart unattached so

3:26

that you are ready

3:28

to go into this marriage union with

3:31

a fully open heart

3:32

to receive the blessings as

3:34

God would give them to you.

3:36

Mary Jane's hopes didn't come true.

3:38

She didn't get to marry the boy she was infatuated

3:41

with. Instead, she was

3:43

wed to his best friend, and

3:46

that boy was married to her cousin,

3:48

one of her best friends. Mary

3:51

Jane felt some disappointment, but

3:53

she was also excited about the new life

3:55

she'd get to live.

3:56

I think your body just kind of goes into,

3:59

like, a bit of...

4:00

exciting shock or something to

4:02

navigate something like that so all the newness

4:05

and excitement just gets masked.

4:08

It wasn't traumatic. I

4:10

cared anew about the family

4:13

and I was happy for

4:15

my life and all that stuff

4:17

so I really felt that you know my

4:19

faith is strong and I can do anything

4:22

that God assigns for me to do.

4:24

I really was able to put

4:28

that out of my mind and to

4:30

just turn my heart to my husband

4:33

and we did fall in love in quite

4:35

an innocent and beautiful

4:37

way and had a nice

4:40

marriage and

4:40

partnership for the 11 years we

4:42

were married.

4:43

Mary Jane Blackmore is one of the oldest

4:46

children of Winston Blackmore, the religious

4:48

leader of the FLDS community

4:50

in Bountiful and the most famous polygamist

4:53

in Canada. For decades

4:55

her family has been the subject of intense

4:58

media and legal scrutiny because of

5:00

her father's 27 wives and 150 children. Their

5:05

lives have been dissected in documentaries

5:07

and in court testimony and depending

5:10

on your point of view the name Blackmore

5:12

has become synonymous with either faith-based

5:14

persecution by the state or more

5:17

likely with cult-like religious

5:19

fundamentalism that victimizes girls

5:21

and women. But for Mary Jane these

5:24

kinds of black and white portrayals miss

5:26

so much about what it's been like

5:29

being a Blackmore. I'm

5:37

Archie Mann and this is Commons.

5:40

More after the break.

5:52

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5:57

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8:00

I was born, and this is one of my explanations,

8:02

is I was simply born in the

8:04

world that we're

8:08

born

8:14

into does feel normal.

8:16

Today, Mary Jane Blackmore is an educator,

8:19

school trustee, and author living

8:21

in Creston, BC, not far from

8:23

where she grew up. And she's written a book

8:26

about her life called Balancing Bountiful.

8:28

What I learned about feminism for my polygamous

8:31

grandmothers. And the reason I wanted

8:33

to talk to Mary Jane is because her book

8:35

paints a much more complicated portrait

8:37

of Bountiful than the one I grew up hearing

8:40

about. If you lived in British Columbia

8:42

in the 2000s and 2010s, Winston

8:44

Blackmore and Bountiful were constantly

8:46

in the news.

8:48

The leader of a fundamentalist sect in Bountiful,

8:50

BC, remains defiant tonight. Winston

8:52

Blackmore's name is synonymous with

8:54

controversy. Winston Blackmore, along with another

8:57

man from the community, are both accused of polygamous.

8:59

A polygamous with more than 130 kids,

9:02

Blackmore has been the focus of investigations

9:05

for years.

9:06

But reading Mary Jane's book helped

9:08

me get closer to understanding this

9:11

very complicated family and

9:13

what it was actually like to grow up and be part

9:15

of this community. Now I do think it's

9:17

important to say from the jump that Mary Jane's

9:20

experience is just her own and

9:22

not necessarily reflective of everyone

9:25

who grew up in Bountiful. And that's a point

9:27

that she's very clear on. But she says

9:29

that she wrote this book in the hopes of bridging

9:32

divides that have existed for a

9:34

long time. This

9:35

has been, I think, an important step

9:38

to start to talk about and

9:40

have longer conversations about what

9:42

it is to be from the Bountiful

9:45

community and even to be a Blackmore.

9:48

Tucked away in the Creston Valley and right on the

9:50

American border. Mormon fundamentalists

9:52

had first settled there in the 1940s.

9:55

When Mary Jane was born around 40 years

9:57

ago, Bountiful was a community that few

10:00

people outside of Eastern British Columbia

10:02

had heard of. Her mother, Jane

10:04

Blackmore, was the first of Winston

10:06

Blackmore's many wives. But for Mary

10:09

Jane, it wasn't strange to have multiple

10:11

mothers.

10:12

I was born into a family where

10:15

polygamy was normal. My father

10:17

had two wives when I was born. We

10:20

lived in an intergenerational

10:22

household. My grandma lived with us.

10:25

My dad was very young when his father passed

10:27

away. So he took on the

10:29

role of finishing to raise

10:31

his father's family. His father had

10:33

five wives and up

10:36

to 30 children. So that

10:38

responsibility to the family

10:40

was very ingrained in how I grew

10:43

up.

10:44

And from an early age, kids like Mary

10:46

Jane had to do their part.

10:48

It was just normal and accepted

10:51

that there was work to do. It

10:53

was also part of the faith to actively

10:56

participate. There's statements

10:59

made, idle hands are the

11:01

devil's tools, and different pieces like

11:03

that. So keeping

11:05

children busy and actively engaged

11:08

was very part of the faith, but also

11:10

necessary in a household where

11:12

there was 15, 20 people at every meal. We

11:16

grew gardens that produced

11:18

most of our subsistence. So

11:20

preserving that food, growing those gardens,

11:23

and actively preparing whole foods

11:25

for every meal took a lot of work. From

11:28

grinding the grain into flour

11:31

to make the bread, to

11:33

going to the root cellar and digging out the potatoes

11:36

and the carrots and the freezer

11:38

that had the cow that was harvested

11:40

in the fall or the deer that the boys would hunt.

11:43

Always chores to do, always lots of dishes.

11:46

But growing up in Bountiful wasn't just about

11:48

chores and duty.

11:49

When our chores were done, we would slip

11:52

up to the Old Barn where the animals

11:54

were, which was one of my favorite places to hang out.

11:57

Imagining myself growing up to be a farmer.

12:00

raising my animals,

12:02

and learning the line

12:04

between raising animals for pets

12:07

and loving them and then also

12:09

participating in the butchering of the animals.

12:12

Even though you can teach your little head

12:15

what that's all about, sometimes the heart

12:17

gets confused. Any child

12:19

that grew up on a farm can relate to that experience.

12:22

Mary Jane and the other children didn't have

12:24

much interaction with the world outside of Bountiful,

12:27

and they were told that that was for good reason.

12:30

We did have a narrative

12:32

of the protectedness

12:35

of our community and

12:37

that there was an outside world

12:39

of people who didn't believe the same as us. Mormonism

12:43

has a long narrative of being

12:45

martyrs and being cast

12:48

out and being victims of the worldly

12:50

ways. It was more affirmation

12:53

that we were doing

12:55

our work to follow God when

12:57

the world didn't understand

13:00

us

13:00

and that we needed to

13:03

be stronger in our faith.

13:08

From the beginning of their faith, Mormons

13:11

have been wary of the outside world, and

13:14

for good reason. Mormonism

13:16

was founded in the 1820s in New York State

13:19

by Joseph Smith, a self-proclaimed

13:21

prophet who said that he received revelations

13:24

about the true nature of Christianity. The

13:26

faith that Smith preached was adopted

13:29

by thousands in his lifetime. But

13:31

Smith's teachings deviated from mainline

13:34

Christianity in significant ways, including

13:36

his belief in plural marriage or polygamy

13:39

and that all other Christian denominations

13:42

had been corrupted. Smith's

13:44

followers were harshly persecuted and

13:46

moved from place to place looking for a permanent

13:48

home. The state of Missouri even

13:51

issued an extermination order against

13:54

all Mormons. Smith was

13:56

eventually arrested and assassinated

13:58

in 1844.

14:01

The Latter-day Saints eventually settled

14:03

in what became the state of Utah, and

14:05

for decades, they continued to practice

14:07

polygamy. But in the 1890s,

14:10

Utah applied for statehood.

14:12

It was in the early 1900s when

14:15

the state of Utah applied

14:17

to become part of the United States of America.

14:20

And part of the concessions for that

14:22

was that they would give up polygamy. And

14:24

so the church, the mainstream Mormon church,

14:27

gave up the principles

14:30

of plural marriage and

14:33

denounced that as part of their

14:35

teachings. And that's really when fundamentalist

14:37

Mormonism broke off of mainstream

14:40

Latter-day Saints Mormons. Our

14:43

forefathers believed that

14:45

it was important for them to defend this

14:48

sacred teaching. That's

14:50

what I was raised with, that this was such an important

14:52

teaching that John Taylor held

14:55

up his hand and he said, I would suffer my honor to be torn

14:57

from his body before I would sign the manifesto

14:59

and all this.

15:00

We felt that this was very important.

15:03

The fundamentalist Latter-day Saints, or FLDS,

15:06

spurned the authority of the mainstream Mormon

15:09

church and continued to practice polygamy.

15:12

They settled in communities in Canada,

15:14

the United States, and Mexico. But

15:16

their open polygamy continued

15:19

to draw the attention of state authorities.

15:22

In 1953, Arizona state

15:24

troopers raided and arrested the entire

15:26

community in what is now Colorado

15:29

City, an FLDS settlement on the Arizona

15:31

and Utah border, and took 263 children

15:34

into state

15:36

custody. It took many of the

15:38

parents years to be able to be reunited

15:41

with their children.

15:42

Some of the older people, my parents'

15:44

generation, their parents were children

15:47

at that time. And their

15:49

generation was raised very

15:51

much with a fear of the outside world

15:53

and the police, especially. The

15:55

police were not good guys. They were the enforcers

15:58

of the... world trying

16:01

to destroy

16:02

our culture.

16:04

That fear of the outside world was still

16:06

present in the older generation. But

16:08

relations between Bountiful and Creston tended

16:11

to be cordial. Even though polygamy

16:13

is a crime in Canada, there were very few

16:15

attempts to enforce that law in BC. When

16:19

Mary Jane was growing up, they obeyed

16:21

the absolute authority of the prophet

16:23

Rulon Jeffs, who was based out of Colorado

16:26

City. In Bountiful, they

16:28

heeded the word of the prophet's appointed

16:30

bishop, who happened to be Mary Jane's

16:32

father, Winston Blackmore.

16:35

I'm just a guy who wants to mind his

16:38

own business and raise his family, and I have

16:40

a nice family, by the way.

16:42

And I do love my ladies, by

16:44

the way, and I love my children.

16:47

That's Winston Blackmore, speaking to the CBC's

16:49

fifth estate in 2003.

16:52

I was very fortunate to know my dad

16:54

when he had a lot more time.

16:57

He was home every night for

16:59

a lot of my young childhood.

17:02

So I did have quite a strong bond

17:04

with him.

17:05

Dad is a very charismatic man.

17:07

He liked to sing, he'd sing

17:09

in the mornings.

17:19

You can say a lot of things about my dad, but

17:21

he's not a hypocrite. He lived

17:24

his faith. He

17:26

prayed very sincerely and

17:29

enjoyed his family, I would say, truly enjoyed

17:32

gathering his family around.

17:34

Kids can tell when

17:36

you're enjoyed.

17:41

Like Mary Jane, her father Winston

17:43

was born into the FLDS.

17:45

He was a man who had tremendous responsibility

17:48

very young. He became the bishop

17:50

of the community at 26 years old, which

17:52

I think is absolutely insane.

17:55

And when he was my age, he

17:58

was married to over a dozen women. and

18:00

had over 40 children.

18:02

Winston's wives were chosen

18:04

by the prophet. Some of them were teenagers

18:07

at the time that they were wed.

18:10

In the bountiful that Mary Jane grew up in,

18:12

work and religion were both segregated

18:15

on gender lines.

18:16

I was raised in a community

18:19

that was run by women. The daily

18:22

life and function of our community

18:24

life was organized by the

18:26

women. The women had organized

18:29

the school mostly. The women

18:31

ran the relief societies and the barbecues

18:34

and the gardens and the harvesting.

18:37

And to me, those were the big things

18:40

in my life. The men mostly

18:42

worked away and worked

18:44

in industry and were

18:47

gone a lot. While

18:49

I remember the women being quite powerful

18:52

and having voice in their daily

18:54

lives, I know that

18:57

they certainly didn't have any power

19:00

within the religion. Men

19:02

carry what's called the priesthood.

19:05

A woman can never hold the priesthood no

19:07

matter how good and pure she is.

19:09

And in order to have

19:12

priesthood in your life, a woman must be married

19:15

or they're under the priesthood of their father.

19:17

Really, you go from your father's house into your

19:19

husband's house and under his direction

19:22

and priesthood leadership. And

19:25

very clear gender roles

19:28

as far as patriarchal roles, matriarchal

19:31

roles. Women didn't have

19:33

the ability to change their lives

19:35

and help their lives in so many

19:37

ways. So in that way, women were quite

19:40

powerless to seek

19:42

employment if their husband didn't want them to

19:44

or to get an education if that wasn't

19:47

what their husband or the church was

19:49

approving.

19:50

Mary Jane's mother, Jane Blackmore, got

19:53

trained as a midwife, but she was only

19:55

able to do that with her husband's permission.

20:00

Bountiful were limited by their school.

20:03

The independent school that all of the FLDS

20:05

children attended only went up to the 10th

20:07

grade. And while the administrator

20:10

was Winston Blackmore himself, Mary

20:12

Jane says that many of the Mormon women who taught

20:14

there were passionate about educating

20:16

the kids as best as they could.

20:19

But preparing for a career frankly

20:20

wasn't at the top of most people's minds,

20:23

because the people of Bountiful had

20:25

been told by their prophet that the

20:27

end of the world was coming, and

20:30

soon.

20:34

Our school was a religious school as well,

20:36

and I remember sitting, we were in grade

20:38

nine with my peers, there was about 13 of

20:41

us in that class, and we were talking

20:43

about that we might barely

20:46

have time to get our driver's licenses

20:49

before the destructions came,

20:51

and like that was as far ahead as

20:53

we felt like we could imagine. What

20:56

that was going to look like wasn't 100% clear.

21:00

The destructions, fire from

21:02

heaven, there would be a time

21:05

when we would be cut off from the leadership

21:07

of the church even, that

21:09

we would have to survive on our

21:11

own. We were

21:12

preppers,

21:14

definitely had

21:17

a few years of food storage available

21:20

stored up and access to that. We

21:23

were very practical and

21:25

and frugal in our

21:27

lifestyle, and it

21:30

created a context where the skills of our grandmothers

21:32

were very useful, and we enjoyed

21:35

learning from them as well. But

21:38

the prospect of the apocalypse didn't

21:40

scare Mary Jane as much as it might have

21:42

other children.

21:43

I truly was a person

21:46

of the faith, even as a child. I

21:48

prayed and felt that I had a personal connection

21:51

to God. I was very

21:53

firm in my own

21:55

personal practice, very religious,

21:58

and quite good.

22:00

So I guess maybe I wasn't as

22:03

fearful, I just thought, you know, I'm just gonna do

22:05

it right, and then I'm gonna be with my family. I'll

22:07

go to heaven. We are God's chosen

22:10

people. If we don't make it,

22:12

it's because we didn't try hard enough.

22:22

After Mary Jane finished the 10th grade,

22:24

she went off to work to earn money for the family.

22:26

But she knew it wouldn't last long.

22:29

All the girls got married young, and besides,

22:32

the world was ending soon.

22:34

It was prophesied through all my lifetime

22:36

and my parents' lifetime as this was the end of

22:38

times, and we were the people who were going to be just

22:41

adult age at the year 2000, and

22:44

we were being gently groomed

22:46

into being more pure versions of ourselves.

22:49

So every day after

22:51

that felt like we were

22:53

living on borrowed time. But

22:55

there was a trend of girls getting married

22:58

younger and younger as the times were drawing

23:00

near, which I remember

23:02

like, okay, yeah, I should get married,

23:05

but we were just having a lot of fun. Me

23:08

and my girlfriends, I just got my driver's

23:10

license, and I was driving

23:13

a group of girls out to do a work crew project

23:15

every day, and just

23:17

newfound freedom, but

23:19

it was because of that pressure

23:23

of the end of the world and the end of times

23:25

that I really felt like I needed

23:28

to get married, because

23:30

we had to have the profit to secure

23:33

our marriages, and if something happened

23:35

to him or we were cut off, we wouldn't be able

23:37

to get married. So that was kind of a

23:39

big deal, high stakes.

23:43

And it was in the year 2000, at 17 years old, that Mary Jane

23:45

was married.

23:48

Unlike other girls, the husband chosen

23:50

for her was around her age and had no other

23:52

wives, but she would have to move

23:54

down to Utah, where he was from.

23:57

And it wasn't that different than most of

23:59

my friends. So in that way,

24:01

I was just like, okay, great, let's

24:03

do this. We're all preparing for the

24:06

end of times and who knows how long that's going to

24:08

be and we'll just make

24:10

the most of this. I really felt

24:12

that my faith is strong and I can

24:15

do anything that God assigns

24:17

for me to do.

24:19

And while Mary Jane says that she and her husband

24:21

became accustomed to married life, it

24:23

turns out that the end of the world really

24:25

was around the corner, or at

24:28

least the end of the world that Mary Jane

24:30

had known up until that point. Not

24:38

long before she moved to Colorado City,

24:40

the FLDS prophet Rulon Jeffs

24:43

had suffered a stroke and his son

24:45

Warren Jeffs began to take up

24:47

his father's mantle. If

24:49

the name Warren Jeffs sounds familiar, it's

24:52

likely because in the mid-2000s, he was

24:54

one of the most wanted fugitives in the United

24:56

States. He's in prison now

24:59

for numerous sexual crimes against children.

25:02

A Texas jury ascends polygamous

25:04

leader Warren Jeffs to life in prison

25:06

plus 20 years. The jury

25:08

heeded the prosecutor's call to give Jeffs the

25:10

maximum sentence for sexually assaulting

25:13

an underage follower he took as his bride.

25:16

But in 2002, he was taking

25:18

control of the religious movement that

25:20

his father had led. In one of

25:22

Warren's first acts was to convince

25:25

the prophet to strip Winston Blackmore,

25:27

Mary Jane's father, of his priesthood,

25:30

in order to consolidate his own power.

25:33

I do believe that our thoughts create

25:35

a reality, and if you're a group of

25:37

people that talk about the great

25:39

destructions and the end of times, like pretty

25:42

much every day, you're

25:44

bound to create a destruction of

25:46

your lifestyle, which we did.

25:50

That day felt very much like the

25:52

long-awaited kind of phone call

25:54

of the great destructions. I

25:56

know it didn't affect everybody in the church the same

25:58

way, but for me, it was a In my family,

26:01

it was the day of reckoning when

26:04

my father got the message

26:07

that he was excommunicated from

26:09

the church.

26:10

From then on, members of the FLDS

26:13

would call this the split. Some

26:15

people stayed to follow Warren Jeff's leadership,

26:18

others like Winston went their own way.

26:20

But Mary Jane was stuck in Colorado

26:23

City in the middle of it all, and

26:25

she was confused as to how all

26:27

of this could happen. For me,

26:30

because I believed

26:31

so much in the faith and the

26:33

prophet,

26:35

I felt that

26:36

it must be his pride that he couldn't

26:38

just

26:39

do what the prophet wanted him to do. Like,

26:41

all they wanted you to apologize or

26:43

whatever and repent and

26:46

then you could come back to the church and maybe

26:48

you could get your priesthood back. But

26:50

the changes she saw in Colorado City

26:52

made her worried.

26:53

I saw a lot of hypocrisy. The

26:56

church also was getting

26:58

more and more closed off and

27:00

more strict. And so the people

27:02

who were continuing to drink

27:04

beer and watch movies, which was

27:07

the real sins that were going on, were

27:09

hiding and sneaking to do it. There

27:12

was a lot of instruction from the church

27:14

leadership

27:15

to, like, you don't talk to your neighbors.

27:17

You don't tell them about your personal life. You

27:19

don't ask questions.

27:21

Like, someone might get a new

27:23

wife or might move to a new

27:25

house and no one would even ask any

27:28

questions about it. Someone might move

27:31

in the middle of the night and no one would even ask where

27:33

they went. And a lot of

27:35

this stuff going on to where people became

27:37

very disassociated.

27:39

The year I was there, through that

27:41

year, there was a closing

27:44

off and churches took

27:47

on a different tone than I was

27:49

familiar with. I'd go to church meetings.

27:51

Like, we never had these, like, 30 minute

27:54

long incantation

27:56

prayers that I saw

27:59

Warren Jeff do.

28:00

People have rejected the

28:02

gospel. The Lord must

28:05

sweep the wicked off this land. The

28:08

destructions will be so great and

28:10

powerful. The prophets

28:12

in our time saw that

28:15

we would have to be lifted up off this

28:17

earth while the wicked are destroyed. Then

28:20

we will be we will be set down again.

28:24

It just made my skin crawl.

28:26

Eventually it became too much for her.

28:29

I would go to Canada with my family.

28:31

I was pregnant at the time. I would

28:34

go for my health care and come

28:36

back and it seemed like every time these

28:39

church gatherings were weirder. And

28:41

people would talk about it in this

28:44

kind of euphoric way like, I

28:46

never want to miss church. It's like

28:49

I go to get you

28:51

know all these messages and

28:54

I finally told my husband is like

28:56

after this one April conference

28:59

gathering these prayers

29:01

it was like a collective prayer to call fire

29:04

from heaven to destroy the enemies of the priesthood

29:06

and all I could imagine was the 5,000 people

29:09

in this room are praying for

29:11

my family to die. I can't

29:14

get on board with this. I had an experience

29:16

where I felt like I was about to black out

29:19

and I left the meeting hall and later

29:22

I was telling my husband, you know there's a story of Goza

29:24

Smith and the Sacred Grove where the devil

29:26

is trying to choke him and I said I

29:29

felt like that was happening to me. There's a

29:31

there's a bad spirit in that meeting hall

29:34

and my husband said well maybe you had

29:36

a bad spirit so you weren't pure enough to be in

29:38

there and I was like well

29:40

maybe but either way

29:43

I'm not supposed to be there.

29:54

She moves back home to British Columbia

29:57

and soon her husband came to.

30:00

she returned to had also changed. Her

30:02

mother, Winston Blackmore's first

30:04

wife, had not only left him, but

30:07

filed for divorce.

30:08

Half of her family, her birth family,

30:10

were mostly on the Warren Jeff side of the community,

30:13

and then her married family were on the

30:15

other side of the community.

30:17

So it really did divide

30:19

her between all the people that she loved

30:22

and cared for. And she was a care provider

30:24

for the community. She said, I can't

30:27

be made

30:27

to choose between the

30:29

people I love, so if I just

30:31

leave, then I don't have to

30:33

deal with those.

30:35

And it was around this time that the media started

30:37

to take a serious interest in Bountiful

30:40

and the polygamist community there. And Jane

30:42

Blackmore, Mary Jane's mother, spoke

30:45

out publicly about some of the wrongs

30:47

that she'd witnessed there. Here she is

30:49

speaking to the CBC's fifth estate

30:51

in 2003.

30:53

I don't want to be part of it.

30:55

And I have a nine-year-old girl who is

30:58

very intelligent.

31:00

And I don't

31:03

want her to be married when she's 15 or 16

31:05

or 17.

31:08

Mary Jane says that her father found all

31:10

of this difficult.

31:11

It was really hard for him. I'd

31:13

say he had a hard time with it. And

31:15

the family, too. Like a lot of the moms

31:18

felt like the mother was

31:20

abandoning them. And

31:22

they had very much like a, almost

31:25

like mom was the mother

31:27

to a lot of the younger women. And

31:30

it's odd, but they had

31:32

a lot of care and respect

31:35

and love for each other in

31:37

their relationship, the family structure

31:40

that they built together. And while

31:42

it was unusual, it was theirs.

31:45

And in the United States, the authorities

31:47

began to become concerned about

31:49

allegations of abuse coming out of Warren Jeff's

31:52

community. Jeff's was arrested

31:54

in 2006 after a nationwide manhunt and

31:58

was sentenced to life in prison. for

32:00

sexual abuse. But many of his followers

32:03

continued to believe that he was the

32:05

prophet. Hundreds of them moved

32:07

into a purpose-built compound in Texas,

32:10

and in 2008, a prank caller phoned

32:13

the police claiming to be an abused

32:15

girl inside the community. Texas

32:17

authorities raided the compound a few days

32:19

later with SWAT teams, helicopters,

32:22

and snipers taking more than 400 children

32:25

into government care. Some of

32:27

Mary Jane's family were still

32:29

with Warren Japs when this happened.

32:32

I

32:56

had tried so hard to protect

32:58

my children because they don't know about this kind of stuff.

33:02

And

33:03

I'm sure, I'm sure. With

33:08

the resources and social services

33:09

that that could have

33:12

been handled so

33:13

much better. It did,

33:14

I believe, not need to be

33:17

so devastating because

33:19

it was a very, very, very hard thing.

33:22

It did, I believe, not

33:24

need to be so devastating

33:26

experience. There are stories about

33:29

a child that was taken into

33:32

foster care at that time that he went

33:34

catatonic and is not spoken.

33:37

Almost all of the children taken by the state

33:40

were eventually returned to their mother's care,

33:42

and 12 men were indicted

33:45

and charged with crimes relating to

33:47

child marriage.

33:49

Well, at the time of the raid, no

33:51

one knew the extent of what Warren Japs

33:54

had actually been doing. And it wasn't until

33:56

years later that I had

33:58

heard anything about. what they'd

34:00

found in those records. And

34:04

then I think even now, like this is a

34:07

testament to the success of what he did

34:09

by isolating his members from each other

34:12

and I guess normalizing that people

34:14

would disappear in the middle of the night that they were called

34:16

on some sacred mission or whatever

34:18

it was that you didn't question

34:20

these things.

34:22

Back in Canada, Mary Jane continued

34:24

to be a practicing Mormon, but she decided

34:27

that she wanted to become a teacher to help the

34:29

children of Bountiful get a better education.

34:32

My decision to be an educator was in

34:35

response to the trauma

34:37

of my community. Our school

34:39

had been the heart of our community

34:42

life and family life and

34:45

then with our school being split down the

34:47

middle we didn't have enough teachers to

34:50

educate the children and it just

34:52

felt like if we couldn't educate

34:55

the children through our school

34:57

we would kind of lose all semblance of

34:59

the

35:00

basis, the connectivity of our community.

35:02

Going to college is

35:05

probably one of my favorite things I've done

35:07

in my life. I loved it.

35:10

But going to school while raising children

35:12

was difficult. Mary Jane soon

35:14

learned about a number of nonprofit and

35:16

governmental programs aimed at women from

35:18

Bountiful that might be able to help her out.

35:21

But whenever she approached one she was always

35:23

told that help was only available

35:26

to women who had completely cut ties

35:28

with Bountiful and their polygamist families.

35:31

Something that she was unwilling to do. I

35:33

hope we're getting better at collectively

35:36

through victim services, through our

35:39

response programs, whatever they

35:41

might be because that was truly a

35:44

harm that I experienced.

35:46

I'm sure good-hearted people who

35:48

truly wanted to help but

35:51

through that paradigm and

35:53

that worldview they added

35:55

another layer of hardship rather

35:57

than service.

36:00

benefited for sure from the

36:02

financial support at the time. And there are still

36:04

women from the community who could

36:06

really benefit from that help.

36:08

But if you're asking someone

36:10

to trade their dignity, whatever

36:13

shreds of dignity they might still have

36:16

for service,

36:18

you are doing them

36:20

a disservice. You are doing them a harm.

36:22

And I don't know that we've

36:25

completely separated

36:26

those things yet. And

36:28

I do hope that collectively

36:31

we're better able to provide

36:33

service to people than that,

36:35

because that was a very hard experience.

36:38

But she was able to finish her degree regardless.

36:41

Getting my degree and moving

36:44

home, I carried this sense

36:46

of urgency that I'm sure was from the

36:49

traumatic shock of what happened

36:52

to my family and seeing so much hurt

36:54

and grief around me. There was a

36:58

pretty challenging, about 10 years

37:01

there, where the kids didn't

37:03

see much value in the faith. The

37:05

community was very fractured.

37:09

So a lot of angry teenagers and

37:11

a lot of hurt parents and a

37:14

lot of hurt people. Because by the time

37:16

I started, our kids weren't even graduating high school

37:18

mostly. I just imagined

37:20

once we could get five years of kids graduating

37:23

that it would become the new normal and these

37:25

kids would start to imagine and

37:27

expect graduation as something

37:29

that they would achieve.

37:31

And Mary Jane worked hard to help start

37:33

up a new independent school in Bountiful, one

37:36

that goes all the way to the 12th grade.

37:38

And certainly we reached that and

37:41

most of the kids are graduating now. And it's

37:43

neat

37:45

now to reflect that

37:48

it's been 20

37:49

years since the split.

37:51

And that we

37:53

have very high rates of completion

37:56

and very high rates

37:58

of our young people. doing well.

38:00

Our boys are good

38:03

partners and good fathers

38:06

in their marriages and successful in their careers

38:09

and our girls are finding

38:11

satisfaction and finding good

38:13

careers and good partners.

38:16

Mary Jane was a vice principal

38:19

and a full-time teacher at the new school,

38:21

but her father, Winston, was

38:24

the school superintendent and

38:26

that led to some tensions. She

38:28

says that he would make arbitrary decisions around

38:30

things like the dress code or holiday

38:32

celebrations. The last straw

38:35

came when he waltzed into school one

38:37

day and declared that students would be off for

38:39

the next three days without consulting

38:41

anyone. And there were other things

38:43

that led to a breakdown in their relationship.

38:47

For one, Winston decided

38:49

that he was going to take another wife, this

38:51

time an 18-year-old. Winston

38:54

had always insisted that whenever he took

38:56

a new wife he did so with the blessing of his

38:59

other wives, but this time many

39:01

of them openly opposed him marrying

39:03

someone so young, but he was determined

39:06

to go through with it.

39:07

I considered myself a Mormon up until

39:10

then. I really

39:12

worked to set all my

39:14

philosophical perspectives in college

39:17

and even feminism into

39:19

Mormon ideology, imagining

39:22

that somehow they could fit together. But

39:24

it was really through that experience that

39:27

I applied my own critical

39:29

thinking to the faith

39:32

and really started to notice

39:35

that there is contradictions

39:37

in, I believe, in the faith and

39:40

certainly what my father was

39:42

telling us about how

39:44

polygamy should be lived and how

39:48

that if leadership isn't

39:50

about caring for the greater good,

39:53

then what's the point? And

39:55

also I got divorced that year

39:57

and I know that was very challenging.

39:59

for him to see me

40:02

leave my marriage covenants, which

40:05

for Mormons is the most sacred

40:07

covenant that you go into. And

40:10

it certainly wasn't something I took lightly.

40:12

And my dad and I, we didn't speak for

40:15

two years after that.

40:17

Mary Jane eventually did reconcile with her

40:19

father, but she never returned

40:21

to being a Mormon.

40:23

Getting to a place where I could

40:26

reconnect with him required

40:28

maturity on my part to see him

40:31

as a man, where before

40:34

he was a spiritual guidance person

40:36

for me as well as my father. And

40:39

then to see him as fallible and

40:41

to see him as a man

40:44

who makes mistakes and could

40:46

still be a good man,

40:48

an inspired man, I'm sure, even

40:50

if he was a man who also did

40:53

shitty man things.

40:55

It was during this time that the government arrested

40:57

and charged Winston Blackmore with polygamy,

41:00

a criminal offense that no Canadian

41:02

had been convicted of in six decades.

41:05

For the sake of 3-A-G, many

41:07

special prosecutors, and

41:09

millions and millions of taxpayer dollars,

41:12

almost 19 years to a right to conclusion,

41:15

the fundamentalist Mormons, want

41:17

to practice the fundamentalist immigrants.

41:21

Canada has a law against polygamy. It

41:24

was made in or around 1892 and

41:26

was made specifically against the Jews.

41:29

Canada also has a charge of rights and freedoms

41:31

that guarantees every person the right to their

41:33

better mission.

41:35

And I guess now every person

41:37

accepts all of us who are fundamentalists

41:39

believing in practicing this.

41:42

This was the beginning of a decade-long legal

41:45

saga for Winston Blackmore and others

41:47

in Bountiful, which included the charges

41:49

being dropped, a review of the polygamy

41:51

laws that determined that they complied with

41:53

the Charter, and new polygamy charges

41:56

being brought against Blackmore again in 2014. Mary

42:00

Jane, who by that point had reconciled

42:03

with her father, says that she watched

42:05

him shrink during the ordeal.

42:07

When I was young, he was a well-known

42:10

and popular businessman

42:13

throughout the Kootenays. And then through

42:15

his sentencing, he

42:17

really struggled. I watched this big

42:20

charismatic personality become

42:22

a

42:22

very small and timid man.

42:26

For whatever reason, every time it was in the newspaper

42:28

or the media, they couldn't get the story straight

42:30

between the Warren Jeffs group or my dad

42:33

and his sentences.

42:35

Mary Jane's mother, Jane Blackmore,

42:38

testified against her ex-husband at

42:40

the trial. Here she is, years

42:42

earlier, speaking about some of what she

42:45

witnessed in Bountiful. There

42:47

was this 15-year-old

42:50

girl who was married, and

42:54

she became pregnant just very, very

42:57

soon after she was married. And

43:00

she was crying. She didn't

43:03

want to be married. She didn't want to be pregnant. She

43:05

was 15. This girl's mother

43:08

was married to Winston. She's not Winston's

43:10

daughter. And I said, Winston,

43:13

weren't you supposed to be this girl's parent?

43:17

Like, this girl's

43:18

mother is married to you. Like,

43:21

weren't you supposed to be her parent?

43:25

I said, how come? How

43:27

come she was married? She was 15.

43:31

And he said, well,

43:33

mother, I want you to mind your business because

43:35

you are not the bishop.

43:37

Winston Blackmore was convicted of practicing

43:40

polygamy in 2018. He

43:42

served six months of house arrest.

43:45

That process

43:46

traumatized my family for 10 years, literally.

43:49

It was at a time when most of my dad's

43:52

kids were teenagers. We

43:54

had such intense media

43:56

coverage and presence

43:59

in our lives. so much

44:01

public criticism. Our judicial

44:03

system is not designed

44:06

well. It's truly meant

44:08

to crush someone's

44:10

spirit, whether that person is innocent

44:13

or not. And in this

44:15

case, my father was being sentenced for

44:18

being a polygamist or arrested, tried,

44:21

and then sentenced, which he never

44:23

denied he was.

44:25

Looking back on it now, Mary Jane

44:27

believes that the polygamy laws are

44:29

actually harmful for women who may

44:31

be trapped in bad situations.

44:34

To me, the problem with the law

44:37

was that it allowed

44:39

the bad people, when

44:41

there were bad people, to hide behind

44:44

religious freedom. Whereas

44:46

if you were separated, the harm

44:50

from the religion, so just having

44:52

polygamy illegal doesn't

44:54

protect anyone because

44:56

they're protected under religious freedom. The

44:59

law needs to be more nuanced

45:00

so that it can protect

45:03

the people from whichever perpetrators.

45:06

I was very disappointed by even

45:08

the expert panels that were called to speak

45:12

on that law and how they

45:14

thought

45:15

that

45:16

that law was going to protect people.

45:26

Mary Jane Blackmore has spent

45:28

years trying to figure out where she

45:30

fits into her family and her community.

45:33

She doesn't consider herself a Mormon anymore

45:36

or even a Christian, but she's

45:38

a deeply spiritual person. And

45:40

she's seen both the harms that take

45:43

place within fundamentalist Mormonism

45:45

and how the rest of the world misunderstands

45:49

her people. But she's also

45:51

seen how the same institutions

45:53

that focused on her family in the

45:55

name of protecting women, the police,

45:57

the media, and the courts

45:59

have far too often mistreated

46:01

women as well. Today,

46:04

Mary Jane has a good relationship with

46:06

both her mother and her father.

46:08

Mary Jane- And while I certainly think

46:11

my dad could have done better and should have done

46:13

better in his positions of responsibility,

46:16

he is not a bad man

46:19

and I'm grateful that

46:21

he can walk in this

46:24

town with his dignity.

46:27

She gave copies of her book to both

46:29

her mother and her father.

46:31

Mary Jane- My mom has read it for sure. My children,

46:34

a lot of my family have, my

46:36

immediate family. You know, I signed

46:38

a copy and put it on my

46:40

dad's desk

46:41

and he told me

46:43

he wasn't going to read

46:46

it

46:47

because

46:48

he didn't want it to affect our relationship

46:51

or change his opinion. But I

46:53

also know my dad really well

46:55

and he's a very curious person. I

46:57

don't think he could not read it.

47:01

And she still lives in the Creston Valley

47:03

serving the children of Bountiful as a school

47:06

trustee. She's not a Mormon,

47:08

but she's proud of her roots. And

47:11

while she still sees a lot of misogyny

47:13

in the fundamentalist culture, she sees

47:15

a number of people, including young Mormon

47:17

fundamentalists, trying to change

47:19

that.

47:20

One attribute of people

47:22

who turned their hearts and

47:24

their lives and also their critical thinking

47:27

over to a man, to a prophet,

47:29

was that you didn't really have to take accountability

47:32

for your own self. There was a lot

47:34

of comfort for people in that. It's

47:37

like, no, if I just follow my priest's

47:39

leader, whether it's my husband and

47:41

for the husbands, it was the prophet

47:44

or the bishop. If I just follow

47:46

these teachings, then I will be,

47:48

I won't be responsible for them.

47:52

So for many people in the

47:54

church and community coming

47:57

to a place where you're actually holding

47:59

yourself accountable. for your decisions is

48:01

a big part of, I'll say it,

48:04

unfucking occult brain.

48:07

And she does see the environment that she was

48:10

raised in as something of a cult.

48:12

I do in the way that I view

48:15

colonial Christianity a cult.

48:17

Many in the community

48:21

and probably myself included

48:23

would say it wasn't a cult in the

48:25

old days that it became

48:28

more of a cult and especially

48:31

watching the practices of war

48:33

and jest, the complete

48:35

isolation. If you want

48:37

to call that a cult, then

48:40

I'd say that's extreme end of

48:42

the big C cult. And

48:45

yet I know so many people

48:47

who grew up in kind of a colonial

48:50

Christianity, whether it was Catholicism,

48:53

I'm not saying all Catholicism, but

48:55

different Protestant or

48:58

Baptist mindsets where

49:01

there is a layer of harm

49:04

that might take you 20, 30 years to be able

49:06

to figure out,

49:08

oh, the reason I struggle with

49:10

asking for what I need is

49:13

because I was taught

49:16

service to others first, yourself last.

49:19

I was never able to value myself.

49:23

She says for a long time during the

49:25

years after she left Mormonism, she

49:27

viewed the lives of the women who had raised

49:30

her who lived as obedient polygamists

49:33

as somehow lesser. But

49:35

now she sees things differently.

49:38

Those 10 years of leaving

49:41

the faith and deprogramming

49:43

my brain,

49:45

in some sense, I think I did throw the baby

49:47

out with the bathwater.

49:49

I just felt

49:51

that women of the faith were

49:54

small and simple and that if they

49:56

had the opportunity to be modern

49:57

women and be educated, that they

49:59

never would have chosen a life

50:02

of service and that my grandmother

50:04

didn't get to have her

50:07

last wishes of traveling

50:09

across Canada and seeing the world because

50:11

she had given her entire life to

50:14

her family and her children. Where through

50:16

experiences of maturing

50:19

and seeing the world differently and

50:21

even reflecting on the life of my grandmother

50:23

which truly was a beautiful life. I've

50:25

come to see that a life of service

50:28

to one's family is

50:30

a beautiful life.

51:19

That's your episode of Commons. If you

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liked this episode, please leave us a rating

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and review in Apple Podcasts. This

51:26

episode relied on work done by Mary Jane

51:29

Blackmore, John Krakauer, the

51:31

CBC's Fifth Estate, and many others.

51:34

If you want to get in touch with us, you can tweet us at

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CommonsPod. You can also email

51:38

me arshi at CanadaLand.com.

51:41

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51:43

Azria, and Jordan Cornish. Our editor-in-chief

51:46

is Karen Pugliese and our music

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