Former Educator Reflects on Life in a Polygamist Family

Jerry Allred, a resident of Chico for nearly half a century, has shared his unique and challenging upbringing in a new book titled “HIDEAWAYS: Within And Outside My Polygamist Family.” The work, priced at $20 in paperback and available on Amazon Kindle, presents a series of nineteen creative nonfiction stories based on family memories, journals, and research.

Allred’s childhood was marked by secrecy and survival. His father, Rulon Clark Allred, was a member of a fundamentalist Mormon group that practiced polygamy, a practice outlawed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1890. In a significant move, when Jerry was just three years old, his father violated parole by relocating their family to Colonia LeBaron, a ranch in the northern Chihuahua desert of Mexico. This colony was established for those adhering to what they saw as God’s holiest law: Celestial Plural Marriage.

Allred’s family dynamic was complex. As the eighth son and fourteenth child of Rulon and his seven wives, Jerry was one of a staggering forty-eight children. His mother, Mabel Finlayson Allred, was his father’s fourth plural wife, and interestingly, her identical twin sister, Melba, was also part of the family as a sister-wife.

Throughout their lives, family members often needed to hide from church authorities and law enforcement, creating elaborate cover stories to evade detection. They relocated frequently to places such as Elko, Nevada, and Colorado, seeking refuge for those persecuted for their beliefs.

Allred recounts a particularly difficult birth, where his father, known for delivering thousands of babies, played a crucial role in ensuring the safety of both mother and child. In his writing, he expresses profound sympathy towards his father, who believed that his faith should be universally accepted. As Allred notes, “Daddy was convinced that his faith should be, and eventually would be, true for every person who ever lived, or else.”

Despite his father’s strong convictions, Jerry began to question these beliefs during his teenage years. Exposure to new ideas, particularly those around evolution, led him to reevaluate his upbringing. He could no longer accept that God had created everything “all at once” a few thousand years ago.

Through his book, Allred invites readers into the intimate and often painful aspects of his family life, illustrating the struggles inherent in his path. The narratives highlight not only the challenges of being raised in a polygamist household but also the emotional separations that were a part of his journey.

An interview with Allred by Nancy Wiegman for Nancy’s Bookshelf can be found at tinyurl.com/2rnd4d79, where he discusses his experiences in greater detail.

As he reflects on his past, Allred’s work serves as both a personal memoir and a broader commentary on the complexities of faith, family, and identity.