My Childhood Age 5-8: Texas, Baptism, and Dad Goes To Jail

Texas was a brand new world. Oak and juniper trees, cactus, rocks and mega thunderstorms. Pretty cool right!

But this wasn’t a winter vacation. Nor a dream palace. This was Zion, and Zion would become exactly what my dad would make it: a beautiful dream, mixed with a nightmare. And looking back, I love it.

Sure, it is all gone now. Everything was not great. We could not play. It was no ordinary lifestyle. But I’m glad my life is not ordinary. I showed up for some excitement! Joy and sorrow? Both. Never new one without trying the other.

The first few weeks I lived in a trailer house, slept in an army tent for awhile, and was slightly confused about what was happening. I was young, innocent, and ignorant but I started catching on to the world, at least the FLDS view of it.

Father called it R17, or Refuge 17.

This is an early photo of the meeting house being built. You can see a tent in the bottom of the picture.

Zion’s Mission

Understand that this was a place where our only mission was to earn the presence of God. And don’t laugh, because it was damn serious.

Father believed every bit of it. That was his vision for us in Texas. That is why a temple was built.

I have never been able to understand this from the point of view that father was just deceiving everyone.

No, he was not that good of a deceiver. At least not consciously. Rather, he believed it himself. He had a vision, and no one was about to change his vision. It was from God.

Reality would make an attempt to fulfill his vision. And that is exactly what Zions Mission was: Fulfilling a vision, not just one that my dad had occasionally. No, he was already there. Reality just had to catch up.

That is why every older person there describes those years in one word: INTENSE.

Being only 6 and 7 years old, I never participated in building the temple. But in 2005-2006 that was the main focus on R17.

Warren Jeffs sitting center, with his counselors Wendell Nielsen left, Fred Jessop right. Behind him are all the men he had called to Zions mission so far.

How Hard Was It Being A 6 Year Old?

It wasn’t easy, although at times joyful. I did not have to work 22 hour shifts, 7 days a week like the men, including my older brothers. My greatest fear was death. But I had many fears, and that was very difficult for me to overcome. I suppose you had many fears too when you were a child.

From 5 to 6 years old was the most challenging for my early development. After that I was not as scared. I got my mind into work and I loved it.

Although my greatest fear was death, the fear most on my mind was simple: would I be good enough? Would I be among the “elect.” What was my fate? Or would a Texas thunderstorm take me out at Gods command? Only time would tell.

Being 5 and 6 years old, fear was my most dominant emotion. See, I did not understand how the world operated. But I did take every word my dad told us with great seriousness. “The Lord has shown me he will send a scourge on Zions mission.”

Jaden

A Scourge Is Coming

O shit. I did not know that word but that is exactly what I thought and felt like. But how did I act? Extremely obediently. If you had seen my obedience you would almost be disgusted. I was a very obedient youngster.

“Mothers, explain to the children the trainings,” father would say. Sure I needed some explaining. But father did not realize how seriously his six year old took it when he said, “A scourge is coming on Zions camp.”

The cholera ripped through Zions camp in 1835 when Joseph Smith said “A scourge is coming on Zions camp.” It killed 14 people.

The word “scourge” automatically made me think of that, and scared me every time.

Father warned of scourges often as the men would miss deadlines on homes, the storehouse, and most importantly the temple.

Many times after these warnings from “God,” a massive thunderstorm would come through and scare the absolute hell out of me. One time a tornado even touched down on the land.

Digging Cactus And Picking Rocks

Work was a break from thinking about a scourge. And brought me a fair amount of joy.

I will give working credit for helping my brain overcome fear as well as my overall development.

Several of my brothers and I digging cactus out around the temple.

O yeah, I’ve shoveled out many of them cacti. When your 6 some of them are taller than you! It’s a bit of challenge to chop em up. Got plenty of pokers in me over the years. It’s never fun to trip over a cactus.

I tried that a time or two. Got a few too many in my face.

One day I was working really hard and with my shovel I tossed a cactus into the pile without looking, but it hit one of those mothers in the rear. Cactus spank, sorry not sorry:)

“The Lord wants all the cactus off the land before he can come here,” announced father. We were digging cactus so Jesus could come!

And piling rocks too. There were tons of rocks on the ground. Pile them up. Rocks were not near as serious as cactus. More enjoyable though.

Jaden digging cactus!
Left Abe, Center Jaden, Right Jake

School Time

I attended Zion’s Academy! Best school ever haha.

First grade was difficult to some degree. Mother Net, father’s first wife was our teacher. I cried a time or two because I couldn’t understand something but the teachers were kind and patient. We did school in the meeting house. A block from father’s house, I walked down the sidewalk each day for school.

Second Grade was much funner. I got a few A- and one B+ but otherwise did well. Mother Amy was our teacher, she was always a funner mother to be with.

Third grade was fun! Mother Joy was my teacher. I got a B+ for morning class in the 4th quarter, my handwriting was not coming in very readable. Otherwise did well enough.

Jaden doing school!

Watch Out For Airplanes!

Father warned us that if there was an airplane, we should hide. I don’t know if I remember this story accurately. We were outside the trailer house and father was there. I ran into the house screaming there was an airplane coming.

Father thought it was funny and proceeded to explain that if the airplane was already there, I had to just jump under a tree and freeze or the airplane would think we were trying to hide.

I loved when airplanes came over, it gave us the opportunity to stop working and hide. We could also fantasize about how the gentiles were after us. It was real life scary for me and that was exciting.

The way we hid from airplanes, you would have thought we were getting bombed. Ask anyone that was there in Texas, we all hid from airplanes. At first they would just fly over. As time progressed they would circle the land 3 or 4 times. That was even more exciting. Choppers were the most exciting of all.

An Hour With Mother

I got to spend one hour, or at least 1/2 hour with mother each day. Generally at a scheduled time.

We had a “caretaker.” Caretaker is one of the other mothers that were over you, essentially your boss. Think of it as a nice way of saying “boss.” Even your own mother could be your caretaker, but that was rare.

For most of these years it was mother Kate. But a few others, mother Amy, mother Margret, mother Stella(hey all time fav lol).

So it was a few of us same age boys with one mother. Likewise with the girls. The caretaker would take us to our mother, we would spend an hour, and then the caretaker would come get us again.

But spending an hour with mother was the highlight of my day. Every day.

Mother and Jaden! (I love you mother!)

A New Sister

I wanted a younger brother, but I got a new sister instead. (Hi Mon, still wish you were a boy sometimes haha)

Mother was going to have a baby. When the birth was finished we went in and held the brand new mini. It was a girl.

During this time several children were born from father’s other wives. Shout out to all of my siblings! We have some disagreements but I hope we’d all stick up for each other.

Jaden and his little sister Monica sitting on the tractor!(yes I got to drive it with supervision)

Don’t Swear

When I was 5, mother Kate was explaining to us that father did not want us to swear. We did not know what that meant. So she told us, “It is like when you get your finger pinched and you say ‘O Pickle!’.”

At age 7 or 8, my brother Abraham and I were on our back deck, talking about how our mothers were way kinder than our caretakers. We got into bragging mode and started debating about who’s mother would let us swear.

Just then I saw my mother walking down the sidewalk to teach her class at the school. I put my hands up to my mouth to help carry my voice, and yelled “Hell!,” the worst swear word I knew.

Mother flipped right around, came up there and gave me the punishment of staying home from school for a day. I did’t swear much after that. (Mother, if you read this I think that was a great punishment. Especially considering the strictness of not swearing in the FLDS.)

Left to right: Jaden, mother Kate(our caretaker), Abe, Jake (Hey mother Kate, if you see this thanks for keeping us in line!)

A New House

When first arriving in Texas, some people were staying in big army tents, others in trailer houses and rv’s. I helped Mother Carla paint this big army tent. It had rained the night before and the tent was not keeping folks dry. It was green, we painted it dark brown.

Speaking of staying dry, I was still wetting my pants at night and houses come in handy for that!

But the men got to work building the first 3 buildings, 2 homes and a storehouse. Laying them out they, used a car gps to get North and South. I put a picture below so you can see the first three houses, they are tweaked compared to the rest of the city layout. I circled them in red. Middle one is the storehouse/meeting house at the time. It later became the mens prayer gathering place. The lower one is the first house we ever lived in. Across from them you see the main garden, I pulled some weeds there! (shout out to all you other people that picked a tomato or two here lol)

That first house was a joke of a size for dads many concubines. Sure, it could have fit his wives okay, but the concubines were too many. So they built this H home.

My memory really picks up about when we moved into this home. They built this house damn fast. They even met father’s deadline, and he was pleased, really pleased.

A few minutes before the deadline, there was just a few more closet shelves. The men rushed to put them in. They finished about one minute before the deadline.

Father’s H house and the meeting house/school. The white round rock area is an ordnance room and baptism font.

“The Lord is really pleased with this family,” father said 3 days after we moved in. But a week after the Lord was upset with us. We were “relaxing our faith.”

Brand New

Father had a brand new Honda four wheeler he would peel around R17 and decide what was going to happen, generally with one of those many women on board. I remember “brand new” being such a big deal to me. Brand new four-wheeler or brand new anything, it was a big hit in my mind.

Dad even rolled his brand new Four Wheeler. They put new tires on and he spun around a corner. He had them put the old tires back on. Genius right there haha.

He came home in a yellow mustang one day. But he started hiding his cool cars from us, as he was trying to avoid getting arrested.

Catching Armadillos

When we were digging cactus, we would find armadillos, skunks, raccoons, or porcupines.

Father was out working with the family one day and there was a porcupine in a big oak tree. Forever after it was called “porcupine tree”. In school we would occasionally walk out to porcupine tree for recess.

Armadillos were fun to catch because they could not poke you, couldn’t spray you like a skunk, couldn’t bite you as easily as a raccoon. And they are so fun to chase. You can grab them by their hard shell. They are some cool looking little creatures.

Dave holding an armadillo he caught!

Too Many Tomatoes

Texas grows tomatoes in ways only texans understand. You can pick tomatoes all day, especially with how many we planted. Not just tomatoes though, we grew carrots, peppers, onions, beats, cucumbers, and about every vegetable that exists.

But canning them is an even bigger deal. Thank God for Grandmother Gloria! She ran the garden and was in charge of canning. While she could keep you in line, she was aslo very kind. Very diligent. Awesome person from everything I remember.

Grandmother Gloria holding 2 sweet potatoes!

Father’s Too Busy

Just too busy too ever do anything with his children, father opted to keep marrying more wives instead.

But father did take me on a one minute ride on that brand new four wheeler. All his children were there and we got on one at a time for a quick ride. I just remember grabbing around dads stomach and holding on tight.

My older brothers and Uncle Isaac was who I modeled after more. Of coarse I was extremely delighted anytime I got a message or saw father in person.

Jaden talking to father on the phone

Am I Good Enough? I Got Baptized

I turned 8 years old in 2006. Father brought us in for questioning.

I was certainly more at peace with everything by this point. By now I loved the thunderstorms and always looked forward to them.

No major scourges had come. Overall I had come a long ways since I was five. Generally happy doing school, work, throwing rocks, or going to see the cows.

Father questioned me. Do you think I felt anything comfortable just opening up and having a chat? No way. And that was definitely not my fault at 8 years old. I felt like I was on the judgment seat before God.

Actually father did make me feel better before the end. Slightly more like a dad I guess.

And I was judged a good boy. Mother Kate was also in the room. We had a 5-10 minute conversation and father told me I was going to get baptized. He gave me a little training about how I was covenanting to never sin again, and if I did I would have to take on the responsibility to repent.

Two of my brothers just older than me, Abe and Jake got sent away because they were not good enough to get baptized. They came back shortly after father was put in jail.

At the baptism, father was in the pool in white clothes. Grandfather Merril and Uncle Wendell were confirming the Holy Ghost on the children.

I wanted to be baptized by father. I felt it was more legit that way. So I was pretty happy.

Grandfather Merril and Uncle Wendell were alternately being mouth on each child. So Grandfather was mouth on my turn, which I was also really happy about.

Father and I.

Father Goes To Jail

On August 28, 2006 father was arrested.

Mother Kate was my caretaker. If I remember right we were working in the garden the next morning, August 29th. Fathers family were all called to gather into our living room.

Grandfather Merril, the bishop, came and told us father had been apprehended by the authorities.

Every single person felt a dull, lonely feeling. No matter how strong that feeling was, not one person in that room understood that their lives changed in a big way. A way that would take 10-20 years to manifest.

We often used a picture of father when he was away.

Mother Kate was so sorrowful. I was sad, but had no idea it was going to last, not just a long time, but probably forever.

We took a walk down past the storehouse, around by the garden and back to our house.

It seems like a weird feeling came over everyone. One that did not leave. Not until the 2008 raid happened.

And that is what I will talk about next.

Thank you so much for joining me as I take a look back at my life! If you have not read it yet, consider reading this article titled, “My Early Childhood In The FLDS: Age 1-5.”

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4 responses to “My Childhood Age 5-8: Texas, Baptism, and Dad Goes To Jail”

  1. Jeff Siddoway Avatar
    Jeff Siddoway

    You’re a great writer! I enjoy reading your stories and your humor! Hope you’re doing well out there

    1. Jaden Jeffs Avatar

      Thank you! I am doing much better! Wishing you all the best.

  2. Rose Jessop Avatar
    Rose Jessop

    Great read, Jaden! Your sense of seriousness, denial, sarcasm and humor combine beautifully ! You’re a great writer! Thanks for the pics and stories! Looking forward to reading all of them!

    1. Jaden Jeffs Avatar

      Of coarse! Thank you for reading. I just am a curious person and writing really helps me! All the best;)

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4 responses to “My Childhood Age 5-8: Texas, Baptism, and Dad Goes To Jail”

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