Pamela Jones Escaped a Polygamous Mormon Cult in Mexico. But That Was Just the Beginning
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I woke early, long before the sun was even a suggestion on the horizon.
I’d barely slept all night, mind and heart racing in fear, preparing for this day that would change everything. When the day ended, I would be one of two things: either dead, or free. Right now, either option sounded good.
It was so cold, I could see my breath, as I rose on one elbow and gazed at Bethany, my beautiful 20-month-old baby, sleeping soundly beside me. I quickly undid my nightshirt and clasped her to my breast, nursing her in the moonlight. This is it, I thought. It’s now or never.
I’d spent more than a year planning to escape the fundamentalist, polygamous Mormon cult where my husband kept me, the first of his six plural wives, broken and brutalized, underfed and perpetually pregnant. I had been raised since birth to serve as my husband’s handmaid and helpmeet. But at age 34, I was terrified and couldn’t hold on much longer. We leave now, or we die trying.
Milk-drunk and drowsy, Bethany drifted back to sleep as I slid from bed and tiptoed to the room where three of my sons slept. I woke the older two, 16-year-old Hyrum and Mosiah, nearly 13, and sent them out to feed and milk the goats. The boys were already dressed — all the kids were. I had put them to bed fully clothed, to hasten our exit in the morning, before anyone noticed we were gone.
Next, I woke the girls: Lucy, 14; Melanie, 11; Jennifer, 9; and Pammy, 6, and had the older girls help the younger kids get ready, including 3-year-old Joshua Thomas. My firstborn, David Jr., almost 18, had already left home — and Mexico — to work in Colorado.
While the kids got ready, I dressed in a hurry and went out to help Hyrum and Mosiah bring in the milk. Miles from any large city, the stars were out in full, and I shivered at a distant coyote’s mournful cry.
In the driveway, our two vehicles huddled like silent co-conspirators: my Plymouth Voyager, and Hyrum’s white Toyota truck packed with our luggage — four little suitcases, four brightly colored Mexican blankets, one 20-ounce jug of water. That was all. Left behind were the few items my husband allowed me to own — some clothes, my wedding dress, a handful of photos, letters from Mama, even my underwear. I was starting over with nothing but the dream of a better life.
As I stood in the paddock, petting the goats and bidding goodbye to Shaggy, Pinta and my beloved Brownie, I looked back at our house, memorizing the dull adobe walls, cold concrete floor, three small bed rooms and single bath. We had little electricity and almost no running water, so we hauled water from the communal greenhouse in 50-gallon barrels, then separated it into buckets for drinking and washing. We flushed our only toilet with buckets of water twice daily, once at night and again in the morning, using dirty bathtub or dishpan water. We were an American family, living this way at the dawn of the twenty-first century. But no longer, after today, I thought.
Content retrieved from: https://people.com/when-pamela-jones-escaped-polygamous-mormon-cult-exclusive-book-excerpt-11804450.
