Shattered Dreams: My Life as a Polygamist's Wife
Irene Spencer, 2006
Center Street
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781599951584
Summary
Irene Spencer did as she felt God commanded in marrying her brother-in-law, Verlan LeBaron, becoming his second wife. Her dramatic story reveals how far religion can be stretched and abused and how one woman and her children found their way out, into truth and redemption. (From the publisher.)
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Throughout her childhood, Irene Spencer was repeatedly told that polygamy was not only expected, but required in order to receive the rewards of heaven. She was also taught that she should never question the leaders of her church and community.
Irene wanted to marry a non-believer, but the guilt of denying "God's call" troubled her. She felt she couldn't let Him down. She believed God told her she must marry her brother-in-law Verlan LeBaron, and become his second wife—so, Irene did as she felt God commanded. Then in July 1953, the government raided the fundamentalist polygamous Mormon village of Short Creek, Arizona, where many of Irene's friends and family had found a haven. Fearful of additional crackdowns Verlan fled Utah with his two young wives and moved them to the LeBaron family ranch in Mexico.
Their years in the Mexican desert with Verlan's four brothers, his mentally ill sister, as well as his numerous wives and children were inconceivably hard. Irene lived in broken-down adobe buildings with no electricity or running water. An outdoor toilet, old tire treads for door hinges, dim oil lamps, and recycled old clothes, served as her only "creature comforts." Little had Irene expected that this required path to Heaven would involve a detour through Hell.
Irene's escape from the clutches of this aberrant lifestyle is a monumental achievement. With the obstacles of multiple children to support, impoverished living conditions, and lack of skills and education to equip her for independence, Irene's story becomes truly compelling and inspirational. (From the author's website.)
Author Bio
• Birth—February 1, 1937
• Where—Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
• Currently—lives in Anchorage Alaska
During the 28 years of her first marriage to a polygamous husband, Irene gave birth to 13 children (all single births). She also adopted a newborn daughter, who became her ninth child. Irene has 121 grandchildren. She has 49 great-grandchildren.
Among her many talents, she is an accomplished seamstress who sews for family and friends, she's a great cook and bakes pastries and homemade bread, she speaks Spanish and English fluently and has traveled to 23 foreign countries and 23 states.
Irene Spencer currently lives in Anchorage, Alaska, with her husband Hector Spencer. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
(Starred review.) Spencer writes grippingly...in this brave and honest book, [and] lays bare the secrets of her heart and of a devastating religious practice.
People Magazine
(Starred review.) Utterly engaging...jaw-dropping stuff as Irene provides a fascinating insight into Mormon life and polygamous marriage.
Marie Claire
I experienced great sadness and joy while reading this brave woman’s story. I rejoiced when she finally escaped from this maddening situation into a glorious new day and life. I encourage all who believe that dreams do come true, to read this fantastic story. I celebrate Irene’s courage to pick up the pieces of her Shattered Dreams and step into the promise of a brand new tomorrow.
Armchair Review
After fifty pages of establishing shots—explanations of terms like the "Celestial Law," the "Principle," and the history of the fundamentalists' banishment from the Mormon church at large —Spencer launches into a life story full of poverty, suffering and fear. The pain comes from within and without, as the small sect's communities are raided by the government and forced to flee to places like El Valle, Mexico, then overtaken by overzealous megalomaniacs within the family. Then there is internal pressure, as the women bound to oaths of plural marriage resent one another, their shared husband and their general lots in life. There's so much going against the fundamentalist faction that you wonder how it doesn't implode before the narrative is up. And then there is the ultimate relationship of mixed messages—that between Spencer and God. Overall, it's a good read, but it takes some patience to get through the countless pregnancies and home deliveries.
Anna McDonald - New York Post
Just as A Mormon Mother is the standout memoir of a 19th-century polygamous woman's life, this autobiography offers the compelling voice of a contemporary plural wife's experiences. Daughter of a second wife, Spencer was raised strictly in "the Principle" as it was lived secretly and illegally by fringe communities of Mormon "fundamentalists" groups that split off from the LDS Church when it abandoned polygamy more than a century ago. In spite of her mother's warnings and the devotion of a boyfriend with monogamist intentions, Spencer followed her religious convictions—that living in polygamy was essential for eternal salvation—and became a second wife herself at the age of 16 in 1953. It's hard to tell which is more devastating in this memoir: the strains of husband-sharing with ultimately nine other wives, or the unremitting poverty that came with maintaining so many households and 56 children. Spencer's writing is lively and full of engaging dialogue, and her life is nothing short of astonishing. After 28 years of polygamous marriage, Spencer has lived the last 19 years in monogamy. Her story will be emotional and shocking, but many readers will resonate with the universal question the memoir raises: how to reconcile inherited religious beliefs when they grate against social norms and the deepest desires of the heart.
Publishers Weekly
An engrossing, though flawed memoir about poverty, procreation and polygamy south of the border. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints banned the practice more than a century ago, but some communities of self-styled "Mormon fundamentalists" continue to practice "plural marriage." In 1953, when the author was 16, she became the second wife of Verlan LeBaron, who was already married to her half-sister Charlotte. LeBaron and his wives (he eventually acquired ten) lived in Mexico, which was less zealous than the U.S. in enforcing anti-polygamy laws. But the patriarch couldn't provide for all those spouses and their offspring. They lived hand-to-mouth; Spencer fashioned undergarments from flour sacks and learned to get by without toilet paper. She recounts not just the financial difficulties, but also the emotional struggles of LeBaron's wives, who competed with one another for his affection and attentions. He often provoked the women, as when he gave one wife's wedding dress to a new bride to wear. Nonetheless, the author notes, genuine friendship and love grew among some of the wives. Much of her narrative focuses on sex and childbirth; she enjoyed making love with her husband and tried to cajole him into more frequent romps in the sack. Spencer gave birth to 13 babies, and her descriptions of labor, as well as the pregnancies she attended as an ersatz midwife, become tedious. There are curious omissions here. The author seldom explores how growing up in a polygamous household affected her children. And she offers little detail about how she adjusted after LeBaron finally died. The epilogue tells us that Spencer later became a "born-again Christian" and entered a monogamous marriage, but that seems an insufficient coda to such an intense story. Gives the lie to the suburban cheer of HBO's Big Love.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Shattered Dreams:
1. Talk about the obvious—monogamy. What is your attitude toward its practice: are you neutral toward it? Offended by it? Do you support it—or its right to be practiced?
2. If a religious group truly believes that polygamy is a necessary path to salvation, does the government have a right to prohibit it? What is the state's legitimate interest in preventing polygamy?
3. Discuss "the Principle," by which Irene's and other fundamentalist families live.
4. Talk about the wives and their varying relationships to one another. How would you react, as one of nine wives?
5. Discuss Irene's statement:
All the books I had read on Mormon polygamy were vivid accounts of sacrificing women who upheld and emphatically stated they loved "the Principle." Yet, I was convinced that these committed women...had been forbidden to give way to their true feelings, so they smothered their own agony and wrenching pain, as I too had been emphatically instructed to do.
What is the price one pays for living against one's "true feelings" as Irene says of herself? Does relgion have the right to ask one to sacrifice one's "true feelings" for a higher purpose?
6. All religions ask us to live according to certain belief-based rules, but when at what point do those rules become unfair, excessive, or irrelevant? Think of Catholicism and the prohibition of birth control; Judaism and the prohibition of pork; Islam and the covering of women.
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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