Interview with "Mary-Ann," Mormon Homelands Young Women Oral History Project (audio and transcript)

"Mary Ann" discusses her experiences moving from California to Salt Lake City, Utah at age 12 in 1986. The Mormon Homelands Young Women Project audio-visual collection (2014-2017) consists of oral history interviews with LDS young women about their experience moving from Mormon-minority communities to Mormon-majority communities. Their moves occurred from 1975-2000, when narrators were from 12 to 19 years of age. All interviewees have been anonymized and given pseudonyms.

08-17-17 Mary Ann Interviewer: We are recording. Mary Ann: Great. Interviewer: Yes, thank you so much for having me today, I'm excited to talk with you. Mary Ann: Yeah. Interviewer: Driving across the country, it's been worth it to see somebody. It's been nice to spend time with my daughter, but driving across the country is an adventure, right? Mary Ann: It is. Interviewer: So let's just start general. Tell me where and when you were born, and what your parents did for a living. Mary Ann: Okay, I was born in southern California in Glendale, California just outside of LA. My parents, at the time, my father was... almost a crime scene investigator with the LAPD. Interviewer: Almost? How do you almost be a crime scene investigator? (Chuckles) Mary Ann: Well, I can't say that that was his title, because I don't remember. He was a photographer and a fingerprint expert. [00:00:59] Interviewer: Okay. Mary Ann: So he would photograph crime scenes and then do the fingerprinting. So I'm sure that's a crime scene investigator. But he's passed. And so I -- anyway, so he worked for the LAPD, but not a full decorated police officer in that sense. And I think my mother, when I was born, probably worked in childcare. I think she did that almost her entire life. Interviewer: Okay. And do you have siblings? Mary Ann: I do, I'm the second of four, so... three girls and the youngest is a boy. And we were all born -- no, no, the three were born in southern California and the oldest was born in Washington, D.C.. -1- 08-17-17 Mary Ann Interviewer: Okay, how close in age are your siblings? [00:01:47] Mary Ann: They're stepped about two -- between two and two and a half years. Interviewer: Okay. So you were in high school with one or two siblings? Mary Ann: One. Interviewer: One sibling? Mary Ann: Yeah. Interviewer: And where did your family live? Kind of give me an overview of where they lived when you were growing up? Mary Ann: Growing up, we nearly lived in the same house until I was 12. So... Glendale was where we were born and I think they stayed there. And then they moved just north of LA into a city called Canyon Country which is, I think now renamed to Valencia. But we lived in that house -Interviewer: Actually, hang on. Okay. Now we're recording again, so you were telling me -Mary Ann: Yeah, we lived in a town called Canyon Country which is called, I think is now called Valencia, it just has expanded which is just north of LA. So that's where we spent our formative years. [00:02:51] Interviewer: And when did you move there? When you were -Mary Ann: Toddler. Interviewer: Very young. Mary Ann: Yeah. Interviewer: And was Valencia an upgrade from Glendale, do you know? -2- 08-17-17 Mary Ann Mary Ann: Not necessarily. It might -- I think it was a lateral move. In Glendale they lived close to my father's parents like in the same neighborhood, maybe streets apart. And that's where my father grew up, and he went to high school. And so I think it was probably a move to be more independent, to assert that we are adults now and starting our family is what I'm guessing. Because I've been to both neighborhoods as an adult, and I see that they're nearly equal. I think the one in Valencia is probably -- would've been considered an upgrade because the home was newer. I think they were the first owners. But you know, in Glendale they were 1940s homes and where we were it was probably a '70s home. But I guess we didn't move there in the '70s, so I don't know what to tell ya. [00:03:59] Interviewer: Okay. And so there were two kids at the time that they moved to -- you and your older sister? If you were just a toddler? Mary Ann: Maybe three. But I know my baby brother was born there, and he was born in '77, and I was born in '74. Interviewer: And did you tell me that he was born in Washington? Mary Ann: No, that was the first one, the first one was born in DC in '72. Interviewer: Oh, okay, and then your parents came back to Glendale. Mary Ann: Yeah. Interviewer: Okay. And so you lived in Valencia for how long? Mary Ann: From toddler-hood to 12. Interviewer: Okay, so that's really the growing up stage. Mary Ann: Exactly. Interviewer: And what happened when you were 12? Mary Ann: We moved from Valencia to Kearns, Utah, which is outside of Salt Lake City Interviewer: And why did you do that? -3- 08-17-17 Mary Ann [00:04:56] Mary Ann: I mentioned -- I'm thinking it's life satisfaction issues. My mother's family was in Salt Lake. Well, not really, we call it Salt Lake. Her family was from Heber City, Utah. And her sister lives somewhere in the Salt Lake Valley. Her parents had been dead for many years but I think it was always the struggle, "we lived by your parents, I want to live by my parents, I want to be my family, my aunts, my uncles, my people." Interviewer: Okay. Mary Ann: So, and I think my parents were having marital issues because when we did move, my mother stayed behind in California for about three or four months and my father took me and the three youngest kids to Utah. Interviewer: So your mother was the one who wanted to move to Utah, but she stayed in California without the kids when your father moved? Mary Ann: Correct. Interviewer: And then did you mother join? Mary Ann: And then my mother joined. So I mean, as a kid I don't know the issues, and as I mentioned my parents have both died and so confirming my thoughts as an adult about my childhood is not available to me. But as I've thought about it, I thought well there probably was marital issues at the time. I remember some fighting. I know that my dad got a job in retail when he got to Utah and so that makes me think that he didn't necessarily have a strong plan. [00:06:33] Interviewer: Because he had gone from this job with the police department. Is that where he had been working the whole time you were in California? Mary Ann: No. My father got out of the police department probably at about a ten-year mark. And I remember my mother telling me once that that was a big, like that was his biggest mistake in his life ever was leaving the police department. But he says that he left because he noticed that his humanity was being affected. Like as he was raising us children, and like for instance we fall and scrape our knee, he was like, you know, "Shake it off, it's no big deal, it's a scrape." You know, he's photographing crime scenes and body dismemberments, and so when he realized that he didn't care about his children's minor scrapes, boo-boo's and bumps, that he didn't need to be in that business anymore. -4- 08-17-17 Mary Ann [00:07:33] Interviewer: Wow, big change. So what did he do instead? Mary Ann: So he then became a traveling salesman. I forgot about this really. He worked for what's called the Texas Boot Company and he traveled around as a manufacturer's rep. Interviewer: So nothing into photography or fingerprinting. Mary Ann: Nu-uh. Interviewer: So a complete change. Mary Ann: Complete change. Interviewer: And you said your mother was in childcare meaning a childcare in her home? Mary Ann: No, I think she ran centers. Both of my parents have some college education. And... they never completed. And she studied music and early childhood education. Interviewer: Okay. Mary Ann: So she... it some point she started working at the YMCA as their childcare director. Interviewer: Okay, so she worked when you were growing up, she worked outside the home? Mary Ann: She did. Interviewer: In the childcare field? Mary Ann: Yeah. [00:08:33] Interviewer: Okay. And did your mother consider that a career or a job? -5- 08-17-17 Mary Ann Mary Ann: She absolutely did. It was... sometimes I'd like to think that my mother had quite feminist views but was... afraid to voice them and call them such. And I know that she worked out of necessity in a sense as well. Financial necessity, but I could look back and think that it was mental necessity. Interviewer: Those two are always related (chuckles) Mary Ann: They really are. Interviewer: What year did you graduate high school? Mary Ann: In 1992. Interviewer: So this was in the '80s that you were growing up and your mother was working. Mary Ann: Yeah. Interviewer: Yeah, that's an interesting time period for women working, right? Mary Ann: Exactly. Interviewer: And were you raised LDS? [00:09:26] Mary Ann: I was. Interviewer: So were both your parents LDS? Mary Ann: Yeah, my father's family converted when he was five. And my mother's family... in a sense you could say my mother's family help found the Church. So my background is with the Pratt family. Parley P. Pratt. Interviewer: And so they had been in Heber for a long time then? Mary Ann: Yeah, Heber in Utah and so I think that makes me a sixth generation Mormon. Interviewer: Okay. And, did your parents stay in the Church their whole lives? Mary Ann: They did. -6- 08-17-17 Mary Ann Interviewer: How about you and your siblings? Mary Ann: I resigned in November of 2015. Interviewer: Resigned like formally? Took your name off? Mary Ann: Formally resigned. Interviewer: Okay. Mary Ann: And my, I have one sister who still is believing and attending much believing. And one sister who has stopped believing and is not attending. And then a brother who claims he never believed, but he was baptized. Interviewer: And did your parents pass away recently? Mary Ann: No. My father passed away in 1998. Well, '99. January of '99 and my mother I think in 2012. Interviewer: Okay. So, your father didn't experience his kids not being part of had Church, but your mother did? [00:11:01] Mary Ann: No. Interviewer: So that was recently? Mary Ann: Well, my brother like really stopped attending while he was in high school. So yeah, both my parents were experienced my brother being inactive. And my mother always maintained high hopes that he would, you know, return to the faith. And my dad almost -- it affected their relationship I think. I know there was -Interviewer: Whose relationship? Your parents' relationship? Mary Ann: My brother and my father. My brother's non-belief I think affected the way they interacted. Interviewer: Okay. What religious practices do you remember in your home growing up? -7- 08-17-17 Mary Ann Mary Ann: Oh, I'm like all of them! (Chuckles) Interviewer: What did that look like? Mary Ann: Exactly. Well, we went to church every Sunday and it was... a stressful experience. I have been doing a lot of reflecting recently on my childhood and the other day I looked up where our home was in relation to where the church was because one Sunday I fell out of the car. (Chuckles) And I'm like, so I was remembering that whole experience, I was like, hmm, I wonder how sharp that curve was, whatever. So I was -Interviewer: The doors just came open and you fell out? Mary Ann: I was fiddling with the door. Interviewer: Oh, dear. Mary Ann: It was the '70s or '80s, whatever, I wasn't in a seatbelt. There's no child safety locks on cars. I was like -Interviewer: You're in a station wagon with the wood panels? (Laughs) [00:12:38] Mary Ann: No. I was in a Bronco. Interviewer: Oh, so you were high up off the ground. Mary Ann: I was high up off the ground. Interviewer: For a child to fall out of the a car. (Chuckles) Mary Ann: Out of a moving vehicle. But it was a five-minute walk. Interviewer: Okay. Mary Ann: By Google Maps from my home to the church. And I thought, why was life so stress -- like why did we drive to church? Because that, driving and getting in the car was a stressful experience. Interviewer: In what way? Mary Ann: My father would yell at us, we'd slam doors, we'd all be scrunched in -8- 08-17-17 Mary Ann together. Interviewer: You'd fall out (laughs) Mary Ann: I'd fall out. (Chuckles) So I guess I'm processing that memory of that specific portion of church being stressful. However, there was lots of fun community involvement in that, remembering that church time period. I remember my parents had very good friends that they created. And they lived in the neighborhood. I looked up how close everybody was and it was... (sigh) I know it's not, it's a false equivalency but it was almost as though it was this little ward -- or are mean southern California ward was similar to a Utah ward that you had many members in the same neighborhood. Interviewer: Really? Mary Ann: So, looking at where those people lived. Like the bishop was two streets over. And so, anyhow, so we had a lot of good friends, they populated all of our birthday parties, but that's the community aspect. [00:14:21] Interviewer: They, the -- they the ward members? The children from the ward? Mary Ann: Uh-hmm, the children from the ward. Very little outside influence was -- like very insular. One of my best friends in elementary school was non-Mormon, she was Catholic and she was Latina and my family did not like that at all. Interviewer: Hmm, which one did they not like the most, the Latina or the not-Mormon. Mary Ann: I think the Latina. Interviewer: Okay, and I think in that community now there's a lot of Latina and Latino people, was there not at the time? Mary Ann: Oh... thinking to the neighborhood, it was probably less than 15 to 20 percent. So not a huge amount of Latina. Interviewer: This is a suburb of LA, right? Mary Ann: Uh-hmm Interviewer: So definitely a white suburb of LA. -9- 08-17-17 Mary Ann Mary Ann: Definitely. When I think about the diversity of my elementary school classrooms I can only... I think about the Asian boys. I think about a few Latino people. But I didn't think that I shared a classroom with a black student until I actually moved to Utah which is crazy. Interviewer: Both that you didn't there, and that you did in Utah (chuckles) Mary Ann: Exactly. So it wasn't very racially diverse. But you asked about our religious practices. So we went to church every Sunday. I remember before -- it's called pre-correlation where you met in the morning and the afternoon. So I would remember that. I remembered Primary on Wednesday nights, afternoons. You know, the 4th of July parades, the pioneer parades. We had all of that in this little southern Utah -- I keep saying southern Utah -- southern California ward. [00:16:30] Interviewer: Did it feel like southern Utah? (Chuckles) Is that why you're saying that? Mary Ann: Well, maybe. Here I live in the South and I just recently visited southern Utah, and so that's in my head. Interviewer: What else did you do, anything else in your home? Mary Ann: Well, we did, I remember instances of home teachers coming over. And that -- a lot of excitement as children surrounded when the home teachers came. But then again there's this underlying stress around the home teachers coming because it's like we need to clean our house and you guys need to behave, and if we didn't behave we were denied desert or sometimes we would get spanked. So, in the sense I've come away thinking my parents were very concerned with outside appearances. But we... didn't -- we prayed before meals. And sometimes we would pray at night as a family. But the only times I really, the more significant memories of praying as a family were when my mother would use prayer time as a sermon time. [00:17:47] Interviewer: Tell me about that. Mary Ann: (Chuckles) (sigh) My parents divorced when I was in high school, and so that kind of lays the foundation of troubled marriage for many years. But the -Interviewer: And you moved when you were 12, so they divorced three or four years after that? -10- 08-17-17 Mary Ann Mary Ann: They divorced (sigh) seven years later. Interviewer: Okay. So they'd been working on this for some time. Okay. Mary Ann: Yeah. So she would pray like... to change David's heart that he would -Interviewer: David is your father? [00:18:22] Mary Ann: -- which is my father, yes, that he would stop with the unrighteous dominion in the home and like -Interviewer: She would say this in the prayer with the whole family around? Mary Ann: Yes. Interviewer: Wow, that's interesting. And did your father do rebuttal prayers back? Mary Ann: I don't know. I don't have any memory of him doing rebuttal prayers. And now that you ask that I'm even wondering if maybe these prayers were held when he wasn't home. Interviewer: Hmm, okay. So she wouldn't use them as lectures to the children, she would use them as preaching about him and to him, even whether he was home or not. Mary Ann: That might be accurate. I have no -- I can't pull up a memory with my father reacting to any of that. Interviewer: Which I think he would've reacted had he been there. Mary Ann: Exactly. So another time I remember my mother, when things were getting quite dicey, like right before the divorce, maybe a year before the divorce she got up in fast and testimony meeting and repudiated him -Interviewer: Repudiated means? Mary Ann: Exactly. What did --? How he's not providing a good priesthood leadership example in the home to his priesthood-age son. And how he's not leading his family righteously and providing a good enough living, that he had to -- in high school, we moved to Oregon to live with my father's parents because we can get to that in a minute -11- 08-17-17 Mary Ann if you want. So we had moved to Oregon and lived with, in the basement of my grandparents' home. And so my mother saw that as a massive failing of him fulfilling his priesthood duties of providing for his family. [00:20:30] Interviewer: So did he move to Oregon with you or was it just your mother and the kids? Mary Ann: He did. Interviewer: So the whole family moved. Mary Ann: The whole family moved. Interviewer: To Oregon. But was it in Oregon that she gave this speech -Mary Ann: Yes, it was. Interviewer: -- about him failing to provide? Mary Ann: Yeah. Interviewer: So the prayers earlier about help him not to exercise unrighteous dominion, was he being abusive do you know what that meant? Mary Ann: I don't think so. I don't know what happens in their bedroom but (sigh)... there was no physical abuse of... I know my father never hit my mother. He never hit us with the exclusion of spanking. So I think he definitely had a personality of "Well I'm the priesthood holder and so my say is the final word and that's the end of the conversation and you will do as I say because I'm the priesthood holder." So that's what I, as a child kind of get. Interviewer: And three girls and a boy, right? Mary Ann: Uh-hmm. Interviewer: So the boy, and the boy's the last one? Mary Ann: Uh-hmm. Interviewer: And so was he a priesthood holder, your brother, ever? -12- 08-17-17 Mary Ann Mary Ann: Yeah, he was ordained to the Aaronic priesthood, maybe even the -- so a Teacher. A Deacon and a Teacher. I'm sure he was a Priest as well. I think he passed the sacrament, but I moved out of my parents' home three days after I graduated from high school. [00:22:02] Interviewer: (Chuckles) And it was three days longer than you wanted to stay, I get the impression, right? Mary Ann: Yeah, pretty much. Interviewer: Where did you go when you moved out? Mary Ann: My high school boyfriend's aunt offered me a place to stay and she also was a member of the ward. So I stayed with them for maybe a week or two while I made some plans. And my plans were, so I graduated from high school in Oregon and... this is such a -Interviewer: I appreciate you sharing. I know it's always like kind of a trip to go back. Mary Ann: Yeah, it is. It's like, yeah, okay, so my parents did not pay taxes, filed their tax returns while I was in high school and so I did not have access to federal financial aid. And so when I knew I wouldn't be able to attend college on financial aid or any savings because my parents were poor, so I applied for scholarships. And although I graduated like number 12 (chuckles) in my high school, I was not granted any of the scholarships. Interviewer: Just a very competitive high school? Mary Ann: No. The scholarship that I wanted was like a full-ride scholarship to the local community college. Interviewer: In Oregon? Mary Ann: In Oregon. And one of my girlfriends got the scholarship. And we kind of chatted about that, and she was like, "I didn't even apply for it." Interviewer: Weird. -13- 08-17-17 Mary Ann [00:23:43] Mary Ann: So kind of through the back channels I found out that the scholarship was awarded because of the guidance counselor, she did the picking and the recommendation. And I had only been at that high school for 18 months and so -Interviewer: So they picked people that they knew. Mary Ann: Uh-hmm. Interviewer: So when you were 12 you moved to Kearns. Where did you go from there? You stayed in Kearns? Mary Ann: Well, I think we were in Kearns for three years and then we moved to Murray, Utah which was an upgrade from Kearns. So not only in house and neighborhood, and demographics and pricing, we moved to Murray which was a more upscale neighborhood, the house was larger, the house cost more. The high school, it was supposed to be a better high school experience. Interviewer: How did that work out? Mary Ann: Well, to be blunt I was raped at that high school. So for me it didn't work out very well. Interviewer: Not a better experience at all. Mary Ann: Not a better experience. And it was my older sister went to -- she had been -- she went to the middle school, and in Utah middle school was 7th, 8th, and 9th grade. So she had three years in the middle school. Interviewer: In Kearns? Mary Ann: In Kearns. Maybe one year at the Kearns High School, I don't remember. And then when we moved to Murray, she went to one year of Murray High School and had such a horrific experience that she bought a car and drove herself back to Kearns High School. Interviewer: To finish high school there? Mary Ann: To finish high school there. -14- 08-17-17 Mary Ann [00:25:33] Interviewer: And why was Murray High School worse than Kearns High School? Mary Ann: (Sigh) For my sociological perspective it's just too much privilege and insularity and newcomers breaking into cliques. Interviewer: It was hard for newcomers to break into cliques? Mary Ann: It was hard. It was hard. Interviewer: And they didn't have that dynamic at Kearns? Mary Ann: No, no. I remember, because I went to middle school at Kearns and it was very racially diverse, and almost economically diverse, but probably not as economically diverse as I imagined, but you did have your -- it ran the gamut of socioeconomic Interviewer: Did it? Mary Ann: It did. Interviewer: Because Kearns kind of has a reputation now today of being very economically depressed. Mary Ann: Yeah. It was... certainly it was, and again, I'm 13. But you had the group of kids who had all the designer clothes. So from my perspective -Interviewer: This is at Kearns? Mary Ann: At Kearns. And going on family vacations and other things that would indicate that they are comfortable or in debt. But at least access to money. Interviewer: But living in a different economic standard than someone who isn't doing those things definitely. Mary Ann: Correct. And then you had Latinos, Asians, Pacific Islanders and blacks and whites all at that school. And pretty well... obviously white still the predominant, but not in such a minority. All of those groups -- so there's still minority groups but it was the largest number of diversity in any school that I'd ever attended. [00:27:28] -15- 08-17-17 Mary Ann Interviewer: Significantly more so than your California school? Mary Ann: Yes, even more so than California school, and then because as I mentioned, my sixth grade class was the first class I had a black student in my classroom. Interviewer: And so you were in sixth grade when you moved, when you were 12 and you moved to Kearns you were in sixth grade? Mary Ann: Yeah. Interviewer: So during the year or you started sixth grade in Utah? Mary Ann: I started sixth grade in Utah. Interviewer: And that was 12? Mary Ann: Uh-hmm. Interviewer: It's amazing that that's 12, right? Mary Ann: Right, so that was 12. Interviewer: And sixth grade was middle school? Or sixth grade was elementary school? Mary Ann: It was elementary school in my community. Interviewer: Okay. And in California had you stayed, would it have been middle school or -Mary Ann: Yeah. Interviewer: So instead of going to middle school when you moved you went to elementary school? Mary Ann: Yes. That was fun. Interviewer: Was that an adjustment? (Chuckles) Mary Ann: It was. I... I enjoyed it though. After the adjustment period, and getting kind of to your study and thinking about it, it was kind of great going to a community of -16- 08-17-17 Mary Ann Mormons. Like it was like everyone is like me. And my best friend lived across the street and her dad was in the bishopric and so that was more approved in my family, and my family of origin was like yea, Mary Ann has a best friend who is also Mormon. [00:28:57] Interviewer: Instead of this Catholic girl from your previous location? Mary Ann: Yeah. Interviewer: Were you still friends with that Catholic girl that you had been friends with when you were younger? Mary Ann: No. Interviewer: Because your family sort of phased that out or because she moved or --? Mary Ann: Just because in the '80s, there was not really a way to stay connected with people. Interviewer: Oh, I mean before you left California had you been friends with her right up until you left? Mary Ann: Yes. Interviewer: Okay, so that continued to be your best friend? Mary Ann: Yeah. Interviewer: And then you left and found this new friend who was LDS? Mary Ann: Correct. Interviewer: And your family likes that better? Mary Ann: They liked it way better. I mean her father was a professional, he was a dentist. So they were professional, educated. She was... an accomplished violinist. And so my mother loved music and they had like a family of seven or eight kids and so they were a very ideal Mormon family that my parents were thrilled that I was getting -Interviewer: And how did you feel about that? -17- 08-17-17 Mary Ann [00:29:59] Mary Ann: I liked her. I mean obviously we were good friends. And I felt like my father aspired to be more like that family. Interviewer: And as a 12-year-old did you understand that? Mary Ann: I did. Interviewer: So even then, you were like this is the ideal family my family wants to be like? Mary Ann: Uh-hmm. I knew my dad would've -- like interestingly, so we moved from Kearns to Murray and... you could say it was a step up economically. But I think my mother once said that what motivated that move was that there was a new bishopric that was put into our ward in Kearns and my father was not selected and he was offended by that. He was very disappointed that he was not selected for a leadership position. Interviewer: And had he been in the bishopric before? Mary Ann: Never, no. Interviewer: It was just that he thought -Mary Ann: He just thought it was time. Interviewer: So your parents moved so that -- as a statement? Mary Ann: I think so. Interviewer: What grades in school did you go in Kearns? Mary Ann: Sixth, seventh, and eighth. I was trying to think if I did any of ninth. I think I did. Interviewer: So you didn't move in the summer, you moved during the school year? Mary Ann: I can't remember. Interviewer: Was ninth in high school? -18- 08-17-17 Mary Ann Mary Ann: It was still middle school. [00:31:43] Interviewer: Okay, so you did all of middle school and then this last year there may have been half and half or part and part? Mary Ann: Uh-hmm. Interviewer: In Kearns and in Murray. Mary Ann: Yeah. Interviewer: And then you did high school all in Murray? Mary Ann: No, sorry, so disjointed. Interviewer: Oh, then you went to Oregon. Yeah, yeah. Mary Ann: So I did two years -- well, I did some of ninth, tenth, and some of eleventh in Murray. And then in Oregon I finished eleventh and twelfth. Interviewer: And so, do you know any other reasons your family moved to Murray? Mary Ann: (Sigh) That aspirational of giving your children a better chance at life, and a better chance at better friendships I think was part of it. Maybe the school systems. I think they thought that maybe the schools were better out there. Interviewer: And what was your father doing for a living at that point in time? Mary Ann: At that point in time he had gotten a job as Church security. Interviewer: So he was working for the LDS Church? Mary Ann: Yeah. Interviewer: Security, where, for what? Mary Ann: Well I know he had rotating kind of positions, assignments is what you'd call them. Everything from... Temple Square like walking Temple Square, to General Authority details. So. -19- 08-17-17 Mary Ann [00:33:20] Interviewer: So he was associating with a lot of people in leadership positions in the Church? Mary Ann: Yes. Interviewer: And is that part of why he thought he should be a leader in the Church? Mary Ann: I think so. Interviewer: Did your mom have leadership positions in the Church? Mary Ann: Not really. Never in the Young Women's, never in the Relief Society presidency. Maybe she taught -- she was the ward choir director. Interviewer: Music. Mary Ann: Yes. So you know, that's on the fringe of Church leadership. Edges, not meaning fringe. Interviewer: Yeah, it's not as -- though it's a visible calling it's not as maybe of a higher ranking of a calling. Mary Ann: Correct. Interviewer: So this friend you had when you moved to Kearns, the daughter of the bishop, I think you said she was, right? Mary Ann: Yeah. Interviewer: Did her being LDS have anything to do with you being friends from your perspective? And you said your parents thought so, but. Mary Ann: (Sigh) I don't think so. They moved away maybe 18 months after I moved there. Interviewer: They, the girl's family? [00:34:42] -20- 08-17-17 Mary Ann Mary Ann: Yes, thank you. Her and her family moved. So that friendship didn't continue. But I do remember that she needed surgery, I don't know what for, so she was at Primary Children's Hospital, and my father made it of clear attempt to take me up to the hospital and to visit her, and to be very visible about his support of helping this family out in her time of crisis. Interviewer: As part of his application for the bishop? Mary Ann: Probably. (Chuckles) Interviewer: So did Mormonism have anything to do with your parents move to Utah? Mary Ann: I think it did. Interviewer: Talk about that. Mary Ann: I think it did. Well, my... I mentioned my father's family was converts and they converted in Philadelphia. The suburbs of Philadelphia, that's where my father's family immigrated in the 1700s and that's where they stayed until the Mormons got to them. Or whatever. Not necessarily the Mormons. So my father's parents met and married right before World War II, so she was a war bride. And so a post-World War II convert where it just spoke to them, the traditions, traditional family. And then I believe they migrated West to California for opportunity, post-World War II. And it was California where they were converted actually, not Philadelphia. So they converted in California. Interviewer: This is your grandparents? Mary Ann: My father's Interviewer: Your father's parents? Okay. Mary Ann: Yeah. So my father served a mission to what was called the Southern States Mission which I think was Colorado and Texas who knows what else. [00:36:40] Interviewer: Tennessee? Mary Ann: I don't think so. I'd have to look that up, but I don't think he served in Tennessee, I know he served in Colorado and Texas. And on his mission, my mother was in college. My mother's father was the bishop --21- 08-17-17 Mary Ann Interviewer: Of the ward where? Mary Ann: -- of the ward in Colorado where my father was a missionary. And she had come home for college break, probably Christmas, and -Interviewer: Come home from where, do you know? [00:37:09] Mary Ann: Oh, she was at Ricks College. So she was in Idaho for college. And my father says when the bishop, my grandfather introduced my mother to my father, my father said, "The spirit just came over me and told me I was gonna marry this woman." Interviewer: While he was on a mission? Mary Ann: While he was on a mission. Interviewer: And he met this woman in passing, was there on a break? Mary Ann: Yeah. And they hit it off. And they started, my mother and father started a writing correspondence while he was still a missionary, and I believe I have all of their letters. Interviewer: Oh, fascinating. Mary Ann: So, I haven't looked at them in years but... so, and I think they even proposed and planned the marriage while he was on his mission. Interviewer: Wow. And so they got married after he got home? Mary Ann: Uh-hmm. I think they married in -- he was on his mission from '69 through '70 and I think they married either in '70 or '71. Interviewer: So right after? Mary Ann: Yeah. [00:38:11] Interviewer: And then from there they went to -- they went back to California? -22- 08-17-17 Mary Ann Mary Ann: They actually went to Washington, D.C. where my father got a job with the FBI as doing fingerprint, you know, analysis. And then I think once my sister was born, they probably said, hey, let's go back to family, this is too hard being isolated. Interviewer: In DC? Mary Ann: In DC. So I believe they went back to California. Interviewer: And so then if we cycle back to this question of did Mormonism affect their move to Utah? Mary Ann: Oh, yes. I believe so. Because my father was fascinated, like he... again, my perspective, but I could tell he was trying -- he, one of the things he liked about my mother was her heritage. Interviewer: As a Pratt family lineage? Mary Ann: As a Pratt family lineage of her father being a bishop, of... all of the historical significance of her family and he thought maybe this was a chance to engrain himself, and his family and his children into this Mormon culture that he and his family have embraced. So I think he was trying to find -- he was five when he converted so yes, he was raised as a cultural Mormon and in the faith, but his family... I don't know the specific denomination, but again, I mentioned that they came, they immigrated in the 1700s to Philadelphia and his family were all married and like the famous Christ Church in Philadelphia. Interviewer: A beautiful building. Mary Ann: Yeah. Interviewer: So you felt like as a child, as a teenager, I guess at that stage, you felt like your father had aspirations in the Church, and he wanted to... he didn't come to be around other Mormons, he came to be part of the leadership and part of the in-crowd? [00:40:26] Mary Ann: Yes, yeah. And I think that they... historically there's that call to go to Mormon, to go to Zion, and while that rhetoric was not as dominant in the '80s, it was still a part of the culture and part of the thinking that living in Utah was living in Zion. And I'm sure that's still a lot of the feelings that might occur there, like this is Zion, this is God's chosen land, this is where we're supposed to be. And so they felt this call and desire to be in a community of saints, to be where Zion is. They felt like they needed to -23- 08-17-17 Mary Ann gather to Zion. Interviewer: And it sounds like they were -- what's the way to ask this? So some people have told me that their parents moved to Utah because they were fleeing something that was bad for them or made them afraid or that was harmful for their children. It sounds like you're not saying that. It sounds like you're saying they went to Utah aspirationally because they wanted to be part of this better thing, this in-thing -- like it sounds like they were focused on personal development versus -- I don't know, am I reading that right? [00:41:54] Mary Ann: You are, that is the story I'm telling because... well, I can't necessarily pinpoint why that's the story I'm telling. Because I'm trying to rewrite, reexamine, reframe part of my childhood. I'm actually like I'm in therapy right now. So -Interviewer: To make sense of these occurrences? Mary Ann: To make sense of these things. So there's things that I'm masking because they're too.... they're fresh memories in a sense. Like... as I'm getting more education and learning about critical thinking and re-examining things I'm like oh, crap. To get to more of the heart of that, yeah, I'm pretty sure that in a sense they were fleeing, they weren't happy in California. They weren't happy with what's their marriage relationship in California. They weren't happy with their work life in California. Some of their good friends in the ward I had mentioned from California had moved to Utah. And so they had, I'm sure they had disruptions to their life that they weren't pleased with. I... have memory holes and have always had this... vague sense that I had childhood trauma but could never put my finger on it. I thought perhaps it was because I was raped in high school. And as I'm thinking more and more and more about these incidences I am more convinced that I may have been sexually abused as a child. So I was hesitant to have that story come out and be archived because I can't say that those memories... not sure what to do with that. I know that my therapist said, "You know what, whether this is real or not, I have to treat you as though this is real, and so let's work through these problems." So I have memories, like my dad was a crime scene investigator. I have memories of going to work with him at night. And I think why would you take a child to a crime scene at night? And I have these memories of being in strange people's homes and meeting strange -- like not elderly women, but like middle-aged and white-haired women who took like extra kind care of me. Why am I in these women's homes? I have no memories. And I have one memory of being in some man's shower. And so there was something strange. Interviewer: So there was something strange with what your father was doing with your -24- 08-17-17 Mary Ann parents' adult life, there was something there that -Mary Ann: There's something there that I can't pinpoint other than what I told you. Interviewer: By the way, we can always delete any section of this from the archive if you don't want it to be part of the record. That's fine. Mary Ann: Okay. So... so that's probably why I'm... that's what I'm currently working through. Interviewer: Yeah, and that's a lot. And it sounds like it's connected to Mormonism. Mary Ann: Yeah. Interviewer: I want to know what's behind that face you just made. (Chuckles) Tell me how it's connected to Mormonism. [00:45:57] Mary Ann: Um... I don't know. Probably still working on pinpointing that, other than that vague sense of patriarchal religions can be very damaging for women because they embed men with so many ideas about their privilege and about their... anyhow. Connected to Mormonism? I don't think... (sigh)... I know that my father had issues with pornography. And in the Mormon culture that's full of strife as well because you'll be labeled a porn addict for looking at a magazine once a month. And so like the outside world is like, "That is porn addiction." So I can't state explicitly other than I know that my father had like magazines in his dresser drawer. And I know my parents fought about it, and I know one time I heard my grandmother accusing my dad of having child pornography. Interviewer: And you felt like that was -- your dad thought that was the track to bishop, that having pornography in his drawer was going to increase his odds? (Chuckles) Mary Ann: Exactly. Interviewer: It's an interesting set of conflicts you're describing, right? Mary Ann: Exactly. Interviewer: I mean starting with the prayer where please bless him to not be unrighteously dominion, you know, which implies taking advantage of his power in some way, right? Like I think that's kind of what unrighteous dominion means in the Mormon -25- 08-17-17 Mary Ann Church, right? Mary Ann: Exactly. Like calling on his priesthood authority while he's not upholding. Like she's always saying, "There's an amen to your priesthood because you're not... you're not following the precepts and so you're calling on this unrighteous dominion because you're not righteous. And so even though you have been ordained to the priesthood, the Lord has put an amen to it." So my mother knew, I think my mother knew something was not right. Interviewer: Yeah, it sounds like it. [00:48:28] Mary Ann: And, and I'm like, and... I thought that I had spent a summer with my aunt in Arizona. At some point my parents, my poor parents put me, one of four children on an airplane from LA to Arizona. And I thought, oh, I just went to spend the summer with my aunt so I could get to know my aunt and my cousins. New memories, new understandings, it was Easter. Why was I in Arizona during Easter? And why was I one of three, and why was I on an airplane? And then I remembered there was some man that lived with us at some point. Was this at the same time? Was I spent away as a protection? Why me? And why in the middle of the school year? Interviewer: And who was the man that lived with you? Mary Ann: And who was the man that lived with you? Interviewer: And where was your father, and so complicated. Complicated. Mary Ann: So I don't have these answers. I have all these questions and all of these -- psychologists look at outcomes and how people behave, and problems, etc., from childhood traumas and I have all of those... so. Interviewer: We always think, why are we acting to the formula, we're different than that, but the formula exists because we've looked at the population and people act to the formula, right? Mary Ann: Yeah, so. Interviewer: Not a hundred percent, but certainly it's -Mary Ann: As devastating as I think like you don't want this to happen, I don't want that to be my story. But in a sense, entertaining that idea... makes me feel... so I've always -26- 08-17-17 Mary Ann viewed my, what I might call negative personality quirks. Very being hard, self-critical, for these things. And realizing that those are normal outcomes of childhood traumas is very freeing. It's like I can me kinder to myself because I don't have the personality flaw. This is the way I self-protect. Interviewer: Yeah, I could totally see that. And you would've been kinder to someone else long ago, right? But it takes us longer to be kinder to ourselves. [00:50:53] Mary Ann: Yeah. So that gives you that kind of background. Interviewer: And I feel like your siblings might have had some hard experiences too. Have you talked with your siblings about this? Mary Ann: Sort of. Not -- I asked my sister, my older sister if she -- I said, "Do you remember anything? Like I got sent away, do you remember that? Do you have any idea why? Do you remember what time of year it was? Do you remember anything about this?" She's like, no. Interviewer: And she was older than you? Mary Ann: And she was older than I was. Interviewer: So the part that, I mean we'll never untangle it, but I'm trying to kind of tease out the parts of this that are related to Mormonism and the parts that aren't. How did you yourself, as a child, let's say, right before you moved to Utah, how did you feel about God, about church, about these things you had been taught? Mary Ann: I had always been a very believing person. I thought being Mormon made me special. I felt special for being Mormon. I felt that I had... you know, this calling to be kind, and polite, and to be a light to the world. And you know, in California, I mentioned that it was, in our neighborhood, there were a lot of Mormons, more than in a general population and that my parents tried to cultivate those Mormon relationships by inviting the other Mormon children to birthday parties and encouraging that. But I always... I want to say navigated, drifted toward the non-members as a child for my friends. I mentioned that my Latina friend, Kristie. But then in my afterschool care program, my best friend there was Nicole, who was a black girl. [00:53:12] Interviewer: And not LDS? -27- 08-17-17 Mary Ann Mary Ann: Not LDS. I don't know much about her religious background, because we only knew each other in the after school childcare program. But you know, we'd play on the playground, and I always wanted to go at her home and visit her family and I was always told, "No, no, no, we don't do that." Interviewer: Because she was black or because she was not LDS? Mary Ann: They didn't explicitly say. I figured it was because she was black and that we just don't mix those cultures. And then it was uncomfortable. Like -Interviewer: So you always drifted toward you said, or navigated toward -- depending on your view on that maybe, but you had many friends or some friends who were not LDS, even though your family didn't approve of that, it sounds like. Mary Ann: Correct. Yeah. And to really start thinking and reflecting on -- so elementary school could kind of be stated that the majority of elementary school could be stated that the majority of my friends that I choose to be, to spend time with, were non-LDS. And then in those first couple of years in Utah, it was the LDS girl and in Kearns, Utah, most of my friends were practicing, believing, entrenched Mormons. And I enjoyed that. That was a really great time period. And then when we moved to Murray, Utah, the girls in my ward were clique-ish and mean, and so I drifted and navigated towards either non-members or partially practicing members and those became my group of friends in high school. Interviewer: And those kids were less mean? Mary Ann: Yeah, they were less mean. They were more inclusive, they were kinder. Interviewer: And why is that? Mary Ann: Oh, that's so hard to say. So the new girls in my ward, there was a girl who lived across the street from me in Murray. Same age. We shared a birthday. You know, you would think that we might be best friends. We were not. She and her friends and cliques, probably was some... youth conference, they were trying to tell me all about what the school was gonna be like, and kind of the school customs and things that would happen at school. And trying to like prepare me for like how to behave. It was all like manufactured to make me look foolish when I went to school. [00:55:55] Interviewer: Oh, so they were giving you the --28- 08-17-17 Mary Ann Mary Ann: Like mean girls. Interviewer: False (inaudible) so that you would look dumb? Mary Ann: Yeah. Interviewer: Wow, that's mean. That was the summer before you went to high school, or you went to school for the first time in Murray? Mary Ann: Correct. Interviewer: And that was at a Church event? Mary Ann: Yes. Interviewer: Church girls from your ward that were doing this? Mary Ann: Yes. Oh, you're getting to a good point. Yeah. Interviewer: Right? Mary Ann: Yeah. So up till this point I had very positive experiences with church. Interviewer: Until Murray? Mary Ann: Until Murray. Interviewer: So even though you've expressed potentially some negatives at home with church in terms of the prayer and some of the -- but it sounds like your personal experience with Church outside of your home was positive? Mary Ann: It was. Interviewer: And inside your home maybe or you don't know? [00:56:48] Mary Ann: Inside my home, I just knew there was a lot of conflict around practices of religiosity. Like okay, so if you're not praying enough, if you're not paying tithing enough, if you're not enough, then you can be criticized. -29- 08-17-17 Mary Ann Interviewer: In your home? Mary Ann: In your home. Interviewer: But you didn't feel the ward was criticizing you? Mary Ann: No, no. Interviewer: So the ward was a community that you felt comfortable with, both in California and in Kearns? Mary Ann: Correct. Interviewer: But not in Murray? Mary Ann: (Sigh) Only to the extent that in Murray, I think there was a few divorces occurring. And I felt this... privilege, this uppityness, trying to remember the word -- that I am in a two-parent married family. Interviewer: So you felt proud of that? Mary Ann: Yeah, like we are doing Mormonism better because we -Interviewer: You're more righteous? Mary Ann: Yeah. Because I have married parents. Interviewer: And then a couple years after that you didn't have married parents, right? [00:58:03] Mary Ann: Correct. Interviewer: But it was a thing, I mean it was an indicator of greater righteousness at that point? Mary Ann: It was. Interviewer: To have two parents? Mary Ann: Yeah. -30- 08-17-17 Mary Ann Interviewer: Had it been that way in other parts of your experience, either in Kearns or in California? Mary Ann: No. I don't think I was like aware. You know, it's just like that's the normal. Two parents and kids. And so when I started to see... 'cause even all of my friends, for the most part, when I think about it, they were all still -- even non-Mormon friends, Mormon alike, they were in two-parent families. Two-parent heterosexual families, you know? And so... it was that time as a young teenager, 13 or 14, when I saw some of the families in my ward either divorcing or single parents or part-member families. Part-member families is what came to my memory in Murray. So none of that was on my radar in elementary school and in middle school. [00:59:17] Interviewer: So you said 13 or 14. Ninth grade was when you went to Murray, right? Mary Ann: Yes. So maybe that's 14, 15. Interviewer: It's hard to know, right? Mary Ann: Right. Interviewer: Did you participate in girls' camp? Mary Ann: Yes. Interviewer: Talk about that. Mary Ann: Okay, I loved girls' camp. I had mostly positive experiences there. I think I went four -- or either four or five years. Like... I loved girls' camp. It was testimony building, the camaraderie. In Utah, girls' camp consisted of basically going to somebody's wilderness land and clearing the land and digging latrines and putting up a tent. [01:00:07] Interviewer: That's what you did in Utah for girls' camp? Mary Ann: Yeah. Interviewer: Wow, you're the only person who has said that. Everybody else I've talked -31- 08-17-17 Mary Ann to was like, "Utah camping was glamping and everywhere else was wilderness." But in Utah that's what you did, okay. Mary Ann: Yeah, and that was in the Kearns' ward. So maybe they lacked the privilege of having -- anyhow, I think that was pre-that's when the ward had -- who knows. I was gonna say that's when the ward was more in charge of their own budgets and when the Church -- and I say the Church -- could ask families to pay fees to participate. And so -Interviewer: Do they do not do that anymore? Mary Ann: They may. There was a time when they came out with a new policy that you're not supposed to ask or... demand. Like girls' camp was supposed be free, and you could -- or you weren't supposed to have to pay for activities. So for instance, if you went roller skating as a youth activity, it's supposed to come out of the youth budget rather than asking each family to pay. Interviewer: Okay. Mary Ann: So there was a time that you had to pay if you were going to go rollerskating with the youth. Interviewer: As an effort to include those who couldn't afford it? Mary Ann: Yeah. So I actually do remember that transition time. Because I remember a time that my family kind of struggling with that. "Oh, we want our kids to go to this roller skating but we've got $20 left until payday." So maybe that's why we did the rural camping because maybe that was what the ward could afford. [01:01:52] Interviewer: Yeah, that would make sense. Did you go to camp in California or was your first camp in Kearns? Mary Ann: No, my first camp was in Utah. And I was going to get to that is it's so exciting, you're this Beehive, it's your first year at camp, and the Laurels are so cool, and there's camp awards and all, you know, they're giving out awards with candy, you know, it was like a candy-themed award. And then my ward came and I got like the biggest nerd. And I was devastated. Interviewer: Oh. -32- 08-17-17 Mary Ann Mary Ann: I was so upset. So... that kind of always colored -- and that stuck with me. 30 years later. [01:02:30] Interviewer: This was your Kearns ward that gave you the biggest nerd -Mary Ann: That was. Interviewer: Oh, I thought I was gonna be more a part of it. Mary Ann: Yeah. And it was, it wasn't mean-spirited, like the girls in Murray who intentionally tried to make me look foolish. This, when I look back on it, I think the girls collaborated with my older sister and they're like, "Do you think she can handle this?" And it's funny because my sister was -- anyhow, I don't think it was malicious, I think it was like, somebody needs to be the nerd, and let's make the new Beehive the nerd. Interviewer: And why was it -Mary Ann: And you know, because I struggled with my -- you're 12. So I struggled with my identity. I'd always been more intellectually inclined and so, in a household and a community that didn't necessarily value. And so it kind of got to my heart of yeah, I know I don't fit in. Interviewer: Oh, but you had felt like you fit in otherwise in Kearns it sounds like? Mary Ann: Yeah, I did. I did feel very... very loved and included. The Young Women leaders were fabulous. Interviewer: What do you remember about them? Mary Ann: Kind, caring. They had me in their home. And I guess that makes the difference, they had me in their home. They trusted me with their children to baby-sit. They paid me fairly for my baby-sitting. I wasn't... what's the word? It's a strong word like... when you use somebody for your own good. I wasn't used. That's not the word I'm looking for. Interviewer: What is the word? I can't think of it either. [01:04:32] Mary Ann: Exactly. So I felt this love and caring. -33- 08-17-17 Mary Ann Interviewer: Exploited. Mary Ann: Exploited. Yeah. There you go. I didn't feel exploited by my Young Women leaders or even any of the women in the ward I baby-sat for. There were a lot of good examples of loving families. And that was kind of maybe why I have such fond memories of those Young Women leaders because I didn't -- even though in California, we lived within driving distance of my father's parents, and my father's brother and sister, it wasn't... we didn't get together with aunts, uncles, cousins. We didn't go to each other's houses, so it wasn't a close-knit family community. Interviewer: Okay. Mary Ann: So I had very little experiences with examining other people's homes. My parents did not like people coming to our home. So getting into these new families that like literally were across my street neighbors and sees the husbands and the wives interact with kindness and love, seeing a mother being very gentle with their children was like, oh, this is aspirational. This is what my mother is hoping to get from her relationship and her family. So that helped me, like so I viewed my father as the enemy and my mother as the kind and nice one. She was always going to bat for the kids. Like from my perspective. Interviewer: And do you still, in hindsight view it that way? Mary Ann: Oh... hmm, yes and no. Yeah, my mom went to bat for the kids. I'd say my dad as -- he's authoritarian, so he was like, well, he provided some structure. Yeah, he went about it wrong. And I used to not fault my mother for anything, but now I'm like oh, wow, yeah, there's some faults there. (Chuckles) So, now it's more complex. Before it was like dad, bad, mom, good. Now I'm like, oh, mom's kind of bad. There is some good in my dad. Interviewer: An adult perspective is so annoying, right? (Chuckles) It's like oh, come on, that nice, simpler version was easier. [01:07:15] Mary Ann: Yeah, so watching other people's families was what you could say... watching other Mormon families highlighted my Beehive experience. Interviewer: In a positive way? Mary Ann: In a positive way. -34- 08-17-17 Mary Ann Interviewer: Did you go to camp -- you said you went five years so you must have gone in Murray and in Oregon? Mary Ann: I did. You know, I did. I did not go to camp in Oregon. But I went in Murray and in the other one. And then after I was raped a month before my 16th birthday and I never went back to camp or anything like that. Interviewer: You were raped at camp? Mary Ann: No, sorry. No, I just like never -- my whole life, for multiple reasons... (sigh)... so yeah, I'm trying to stick on camp for you. Interviewer: No, no, go anywhere you want. I mean it's oral history, we can wander anywhere we want, that's the definition of the methodology. That's why it's fun. (Chuckles) Go anywhere you want. Mary Ann: Okay, cool. Because from a sociological perspective I have semi-structured -Interviewer: No, no. You notice I haven't even looked at the list of questions. We can go anywhere we want. Mary Ann: All right, so, because this is significant obviously, but so I was raped by a Mormon boy. And I became pregnant. And I didn't tell anyone 'cause I... it was really interesting. During the time there was an after school special, if you remember these on TV after school specials. Interviewer: I do remember those. [01:09:23] Mary Ann: And I remember watching one about a girl who was raped and she reported it and she was put on trial and they're like, "Well what were you doing, what were you wearing? It's all your fault." Interviewer: Grrr. Mary Ann: And I'm like, I can't, I can't be that girl. I can't. I can't. So I kept it to myself, and I didn't tell anyone. And then you know, I find out I'm pregnant, and I'm like, I don't know what to do with this. And I didn't tell even anyone until I was six months pregnant. -35- 08-17-17 Mary Ann Interviewer: They didn't notice? Mary Ann: No. Interviewer: (Sigh) So this was a boy you had been dating? Like was this a date rape kind of scenario or -- whatever you're willing to tell me about that, tell me about that. Mary Ann: I was at a church dance for New Year's Eve. And these boys came, and they're like, "Hey, after the dance let's get together." So I did. And there you have it. I got together with boys I barely knew after a church dance. I wasn't where I was supposed be. I didn't tell my parents I was going to an after-party or anything like that. So I felt like I... you know, oh, I'm not listening to my parents, I didn't tell them where I was going to be, I went out with these strange boys. [01:10:37] Interviewer: I got what I deserved. There's air quotes on that for the record. Mary Ann: Yeah. Interviewer: And so you -Mary Ann: So there's a lot of shame surrounding that. Interviewer: And you said boys. Were you raped by several boys? Mary Ann: No. No. Just one. Interviewer: I mean obviously one is plenty, I'm not minimizing that at all. I'm just -Mary Ann: Right. I understand. No. It's just, when I say "boys" it seemed like maybe the group, three or four that arrived to the dance together or looked like they had arrived together, and everybody left together. I couldn't tell you how I got to where I went. I have very few memories surrounding that. Apparently my coping mechanism is to make memory gaps. Interviewer: Interesting. So you don't remember drinking or you don't remember something, like some substance would've blocked out your memory, it's just that you don't remember because it was so horrible? Mary Ann: Yeah, I do remember they... so I didn't know them very well, I know of them. I knew they were my sister's friends' age. -36- 08-17-17 Mary Ann Interviewer: So they were older than you by a couple of years? Mary Ann: They were older by a couple of years. And where don't think I knew the person whose car I got into. And then they drove some parking lot and they were smoking pot. I didn't smoke pot but now I understand that the... fumes can affect everyone in the car. So that's what was occurring. And I was like okay, I'll kiss you, I'll make out, this is cool. So you have... we know this is rape. And when I was younger I was like, well, it wasn't violent rape really. Because we're socialized in multiple ways. But yeah, there was no consent, there was definitely, I'm doing this against your will. And then also understanding and learning more about how women -- or how people respond. There's a gamut of responses. There's like shutting down, there's not fighting. So when I say that it wasn't a violent rape it's because I didn't violently fight back for my life. It wasn't like I was walking down the street and some man jumped out from behind the bushes and I was fighting for my life. This was like... I have no idea what's happening, this is not what I want to be happening, I don't know how to get out of here, I don't know how I got in this situation. [01:13:14] Interviewer: Were the other people around? Mary Ann: No. I mean, yes. Like in the other room. Interviewer: Oh, so it wasn't in the car, it was in a house? Mary Ann: Yeah, so we'd gotten somehow gotten from the car to some house and I don't know whose house or what house or -Interviewer: So this was a Mormon boy who met you at a Mormon event, and left with you. Mary Ann: Uh-hmm Interviewer: And... (sigh) so then you got pregnant. I mean that's obviously a (inaudible). So you were horrified after this experience. You went home, you didn't tell anybody. Mary Ann: Yeah. Interviewer: I mean did you feel that you had sinned or -- I mean did you blame yourself in some way at that point or did you feel like --37- 08-17-17 Mary Ann [01:14:07] Mary Ann: Not from a sin necessarily perspective of having like lost my chastity in that sense, but more of a -- I didn't listen to my parents, I didn't honor my parents. I was associating with people who were doing bad things. Interviewer: You thought complicit? Mary Ann: Probably, yeah. Interviewer: You knew that he had done something wrong, but you felt like you had done something wrong that had led to him doing something wrong? Mary Ann: Yeah. So after -Interviewer: That's so hard for a 16-year-old to process. Happy birthday, right? Mary Ann: Yeah, happy birthday, you're pregnant. Really? This is great, maybe I'll miscarry and won't have to tell anyone. Interviewer: And how did that happen? Mary Ann: Oh, I didn't miscarry. I bore, I had the baby. But as I mentioned, so at six months I was like, oh, this is not going away. So I finally told them, my parents, and one of the first things they did was haul me into the bishop's office. Interviewer: How did that go? Mary Ann: They decided that I wasn't to tell anyone and that they sent me away to foster care and that the baby would be put up for adoption and that I needed to tell them the name of this boy so that they could take away his priesthood. And I'm like, no. I'm not naming him. If you believe in the scriptures, it says that the Lord puts an amen to his priesthood. And so you have nothing to do because he has no priesthood authority anymore. And I've seen what happens from TV about what happens to girls who out their -Interviewer: So you weren't protecting him, you were protecting you by not telling him -Mary Ann: I was protecting me. -38- 08-17-17 Mary Ann [01:15:55] Interviewer: -- and you felt like God would just take care of it with him. Mary Ann: Yeah. Interviewer: Is that what -- put an amen to his priesthood means? I don't think I've heard that phrase. Mary Ann: Oh, yeah, like Doctrine and Covenants 132. Interviewer: How, you can cite the reference, so it means -Mary Ann: Probably if you showed me it I could just start -- I could recite it to you after a glance. Something like, "The power of the priesthood cannot be maintained through coercion." Interviewer: This is the unrighteous dominion, okay. Mary Ann: Uh-hmm yeah. Interviewer: And if it is then -Mary Ann: And if it is then there's an amen to his priesthood, and the Lord like condemns their actions. Interviewer: Amen means ending the stop? Mary Ann: The ending. The stop. Interviewer: Not like amen, like we all agree? (Chuckles) Mary Ann: Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Interviewer: Like yeah, we like that priesthood guy, that's not what it means, right? (Chuckles) Mary Ann: No, it's not. It means like putting an end. Like ending it, that God will end your priesthood powers, that He has withdrawn. Interviewer: And you had heard your mother use that terminology. -39- 08-17-17 Mary Ann [01:16:50] Mary Ann: Yeah, and I've heard her quote Doctrine and Covenants 132 over and over again. Interviewer: Huh. So in your mind, when you were 16, and dealing with this situation, you felt like that would apply to this boy and you didn't need the pain of getting blamed or getting dragged through like the TV special -Mary Ann: Exactly. Interviewer: So you just said, "Nope, we're not going public with this in terms of who this is." Mary Ann: Exactly. And I knew that if I didn't name him, that if the baby was going to be adopted, I didn't have -- like who wants to... ever have to see, confront or see your rapist again? Interviewer: Did they believe you that you were raped? Mary Ann: No. I didn't know that initially. (Sigh) Well, looking back on it, in a sense. But no, I wasn't aware initially that they didn't believe me. Remnants started to come through when my parents divorced. My father remarried. My father's second marriage started to get rocky and his second wife called me and she's like, "Your dad does X, Y, and Z. Was this an issue with your mom and dad?" She's like, "Literally the man I dated is not the man I married." I'm like, oh -Interviewer: She called his daughter to ask that? That's interesting. Mary Ann: Yeah. Well she's a piece of work herself, but I was like, "Yeah that's literally what he does." But that's another story. But she revealed to me, she's like, "Well, your dad said X, Y, and Z about you, and that you had this baby because you went on a camping trip with your high school boyfriend your senior year of high school." And I'm like, no, the baby was born two years before that. So that's when I knew explicitly that my parents didn't believe me. Interviewer: Or that your father was using your story for his own benefit. Mary Ann: Yeah. [01:18:55] -40- 08-17-17 Mary Ann Interviewer: It doesn't necessarily mean that he doesn't believe you. I mean that particular conveying from that woman doesn't necessarily mean your father didn't believe you as much as it might mean your father was using your story for his own purposes. Mary Ann: Yeah. Interviewer: But I'm not doubting that he did or didn't believe you, I'm just saying that the language may not have meant that from -Mary Ann: That could be true. Interviewer: But if you thought it meant that, it probably did. I mean I'm -Mary Ann: Yeah, so to finish like that story, the bishop said that, then they took me to the stake president and had the stake president try and coerce me into naming this boy. Interviewer: And did you feel like the bishop believed you? Mary Ann: No. I felt like only I -- like I was my biggest protector. Nobody was really interested in protecting me. Like nobody -- like really they weren't interested in protecting me. They were interested in protecting my family's name, they were interested in punishing this boy. Interviewer: But not punishing you? Mary Ann: They did. I was put on Church probation. Interviewer: And that was the punishment? Mary Ann: And discipline. Uh-hmm. And they didn't tell my siblings, they sent me away. Interviewer: Where did they send you? [01:20:22] Mary Ann: To LDS Social Services with a foster family. Interviewer: In the same city? Mary Ann: In another city. It was in Lehi, they sent me to Lehi. -41- 08-17-17 Mary Ann Interviewer: Hmm, that just sounds so traumatic. Mary Ann: It was in a sense, but the happy outcome was that I was in a home of the most loving, unconditional family that I've ever come across that taught me -Interviewer: Oh, that is a happy outcome. Mary Ann: That taught me what families are, that taught me what inclusivity is, taught me how you deal with family troubles and family traumas. Interviewer: Oh, so that's a good thing. Mary Ann: Yeah. Interviewer: A happy moment in the story. Mary Ann: Exactly. So, I learned a great deal from this couple, this family. Interviewer: And you stayed there for the rest of your pregnancy? Mary Ann: For three months. Interviewer: For three months? And you were a -- go ahead. Mary Ann: Oh, before I got put in social -- oh, this is good trauma I should bring up to therapy. Before I got sent to LDS Family Social Services I was sent to my mother's aunt's house. So they tried to deal with it within the family. Interviewer: Before they took you to the bishop? Mary Ann: No, well, they took me the bishop, and they're like, yeah, I misspoke because again, my memory. So they did take me to the bishop and they're like, "Let's keep this quiet." So they sent me to my aunt's house in Layton, Utah. [01:22:04] Interviewer: Okay. Mary Ann: And she was really harsh, harsh with me. So you know, I went to the doctor and got an ultrasound. And they found that the baby had severe brain damage and that my amniotic fluid was low. So that I needed be on not bedrest, but limited activity. And -42- 08-17-17 Mary Ann so my aunt saw me as this 16-year-old girl who got herself pregnant who is sitting around her house all day, Interviewer: Watching TV and eating bon-bons. Mary Ann: Basically. And she's like, "When I was nine months pregnant I was on my hands and knees scrubbing floors and here you are just 16-year-old teenage pregnant woman sitting around." Interviewer: And she didn't know you'd been raped either, that wasn't -Mary Ann: I don't think she believed me. Nobody believed me. That's a convenient story for a Mormon girl to say. Interviewer: Makes me want to punch people. Mary Ann: So that's the message I got from my family of origin is oh, your family's not going to support you, you can't tell your siblings because whatever reason. You go to your extended family, and they're like, nhh, you're just a lazy piece of shit. And basically I think she's like, I can't do this anymore, I can't take this girl because she's just sitting around doing nothing, and so that's when LDS Family Services came in. Interviewer: And did they come in in a humane way? Mary Ann: Yeah, I saw it as very positive. So I started, they got me a new foster family, I went to group therapy. Meeting other teenage moms. Talking about adoption, that was my plan. And then when he was -- and then they had like special needs families. And then he was born, and the special needs were too... severe and so none of the families accepted him. And so we kind of had to go with a back-up plan which -[01:24:19] Interviewer: None of the families that were going to adopt him accepted him? Mary Ann: Correct. Which I was kind of, as a minor, I think LDS Social Services were dealing a little bit more with my parents than me in some of these communications. So... my foster family, so the baby went to LDS Family Services once he was born while he waited like temporary family services, while we continued to look, expand the thing. And I went home and started the school year. This baby was in Family Services. He was born in September 15. General Conference weekend came and I was back at home and things were fine, and my parents were like, "Hey, it's General Conference weekend, we're going on a drive up into the canyon to look at the leaves and listen to -43- 08-17-17 Mary Ann conference. And by the way, the baby, we decided he can't be placed for adoption so we're just going to take him, and we're going to tell the family today that we're adopting this new baby and that he's like -- and you can never say anything about anything." [01:25:34] Interviewer: Are you kidding me? Mary Ann: I am not kidding you. Interviewer: I don't even know what to make of that. Mary Ann: So this is why, when I told you earlier about my childhood trauma I'm like obviously. But I think -Interviewer: Well there's nothing obvious about it, it all sounds very complicated for a kid trying to figure out her way. Mary Ann: Yeah. Interviewer: So is that what they did? Mary Ann: That is. Interviewer: So you have a special needs brother who is your baby. Mary Ann: Uh-hmm. Interviewer: And he's alive and was raised by your family? Mary Ann: Yeah, he died when he was three and a half. So there's other new trauma surrounding that. But yeah, he was brought home. [01:26:16] Interviewer: And you were a junior in high school at this point? Mary Ann: Yeah. Interviewer: Okay. So then the baby came to your house. Mary Ann: Came to their house. -44- 08-17-17 Mary Ann Interviewer: And nobody knew this was your baby? Your parents just suddenly said to your siblings, "We're going to adopt this special needs boy?" Mary Ann: Yeah. And they believed them. Interviewer: And then they were heroes too in everyone's minds probably. Mary Ann: They were heroes. And then six months later, well, even -- October, November, December -- four months later they moved from Utah, Murray Utah to my father's parents' home, and I think as a way to escape. Interviewer: Escape the boy or the boy went with them? Mary Ann: The boy -- all of us went with them. Because I think there were murmurings in the ward that Mary Ann was gone all summer, and all of the sudden the family is adopting -- they have a baby. And... Interviewer: What was wrong with the baby? Mary Ann: The severe brain damage. He had hydrocephalus which is, you know, the brain, cerebral spinal fluids didn't drain off of his brain so he had cerebral palsy. Interviewer: So around the clock care? [01:27:34] Mary Ann: Pretty much. But as an infant it didn't -- it was just very infant care. But as he aged into toddlerhood, developmental delays of -- he couldn't really sit up. He could roll over, but so yeah, he would've needed around the clock care, and he needed significant amounts of care. Interviewer: I don't even know -- okay, so they went to Oregon. You had said your father was failing as a provider in your mom's mind. Mary Ann: Yeah. Interviewer: So did he lose his job or? Mary Ann: He quit his job. -45- 08-17-17 Mary Ann [01:28:17] Interviewer: With the Church? Mary Ann: With the Church. Interviewer: Because he'd been working for the Church. Mary Ann: Weeks before I told him I was pregnant. Interviewer: And why did he do that? Mary Ann: He was offended -- the Mormons love that word. Interviewer: Definitely a theme here. Mary Ann: Exactly. Like he had this -- he loved going around to payphones and vending machines and checking to see if there's any change, that was just like his deal. And... so apparently there was a janitor who had down syndrome and that was his favorite thing to do too. And so, the janitor accused my dad of stealing. Interviewer: His money from the vending machine? Mary Ann: Uh-hmm Interviewer: Coin returns. Mary Ann: Yeah. So my dad [01:29:09] Interviewer: So did they fire your dad or did he quit? Mary Ann: No, he quit. That I'm aware of. Interviewer: Because he was so offended that they would think that he was stealing? Mary Ann: Yeah. That he was brought in by his supervisor and was like, "Hey, this kid, who is like this is his love, this is his job, and we -- just stop taking the money out of the machines." And my dad's like, "I'm not stealing anything." You know? And so they accused me, they're like, (sigh) they blamed, I know my parents blamed me. They're like, "Why didn't you tell us sooner? I wouldn't have quit my job if I'd known that I would -46- 08-17-17 Mary Ann need maternity care." I was like, even as a 16-year-old I knew, I'm like, are you fucking kidding me? Interviewer: Right. [01:29:56] Mary Ann: Sorry. Interviewer: No, you can swear on the tape. (Chuckles) Mary Ann: (Sigh) You have four children and a wife to take care of. Interviewer: Why would you have quit your job anyway? Mary Ann: Why would you have quit your job anyway? And so as a 16-year-old, being aware that I had no -- like I knew my family didn't have insurance anymore. And I was told by LDS Family Services that they take care of your medical expenses when they place your baby for adoption. Well, because he wasn't going to be adopted, they weren't going to cover my medical expenses. Interviewer: I thought the baby was going to be adopted. When you were pregnant, that was the plan, right? Mary Ann: That was the plan, but then -Interviewer: Oh, you're saying because nobody would take the baby for adoption, they suddenly weren't going to pay your medical expenses? Mary Ann: Correct. Interviewer: Retroactively they weren't going to, but they had planned to. Mary Ann: Exactly. So Interviewer: Good grief. [01:30:43] Mary Ann: So I feel, you know, like somewhat betrayed by my parents. Well, fully betrayed by my parents. A little betrayed by LDS Social Services that like, they were my plan, and now they're not going to back me. So I got on a bus as a 16-year-old, -47- 08-17-17 Mary Ann went down to Welfare Services -- not LDS, but like the state, applied for Medicaid and Medicare. Interviewer: As a pregnant 16-year-old? Mary Ann: No, post-pregnancy, post-birth, post my parents taking this kid. Interviewer: Oh, okay. Mary Ann: And I got Medicaid and Medicare for me and the kid. Interviewer: So you told the state it was your kid? Mary Ann: Yeah. Interviewer: And did your parents adopt the boy? Mary Ann: No, I would not let them. Interviewer: How does that work when you're 16? Mary Ann: They... I don't know. (Chuckles) They can't just claim a kid. Interviewer: So you didn't sign the baby over to Social Services Mary Ann: No. Interviewer: They were just caring for the baby while you were home? Mary Ann: Yeah, I gave them temporary custody. Interviewer: And then when no permanent adoptee family came up your parents for some random reason decided to adopt. Mary Ann: Yeah. Interviewer: Did they feel responsible for this boy? Mary Ann: Oh, absolutely they did. Interviewer: So that's why they wanted to adopt. And you said no. -48- 08-17-17 Mary Ann [01:31:58] Mary Ann: Correct. Interviewer: You said no you can't bring him into the home or you said no, I won't keep quiet, or no, what did you say no to? Mary Ann: I said no, I don't legally sign over... this will not be legal. I said I'm not giving you custody. You can pretend, you can play this game. But when I am an adult, no. This is going to come back and bite you in the butt. Interviewer: So you planning to take him with you when you left at some point? Mary Ann: Yeah. Interviewer: Oh. Mary Ann: And so I went. And so I'm like 16. And I'm taking care of this baby and I'm getting medical care and I'm getting WIC and I'm getting all of these things. Not that I could've done it on my own, I realize that -Interviewer: But that's what those programs are for, right? Mary Ann: But that's what those programs are for, and that's more freaking responsible than my parents who think that they're responsible. Interviewer: Your dad just didn't have another job? Mary Ann: Nu-uh he quit without another job back-up. Like and he's claiming that had me known that he had a pregnant daughter, he wouldn't have done that. I'm like, you have four kids and a wife, and a mortgage. You don't do that. Interviewer: So lots of blame for you in that whole process. Blaming you for the initial event, you know, for getting pregnant, blaming you for ruining their financial life and probably their emotional or social life with this adoption and -Mary Ann: Yeah, yeah. Interviewer: And this pseudo adoption. [01:33:25] -49- 08-17-17 Mary Ann Mary Ann: Yeah. Interviewer: So this boy, and we're not calling him your son I noticed. Should I be calling him your son? You've been calling him "this boy." Mary Ann: I guess that's how I'm emotionally dealing with it. Interviewer: Okay. Mary Ann: Oh, so... because I had to emotionally distance myself in a sense. Because even once they brought him into the home, my dad would not let me feed him, he would not let my diaper him. Like I came home from school one day and he was on my parents' bed drinking a bottle propped up by a pillow while my dad was out mowing the lawn. And so I'm like, okay, let's feed this baby and hold this baby. And my dad came in and he's like, "You put him down, you don't ever get to touch him." Interviewer: Did your siblings touch him? Mary Ann: Yeah. Interviewer: So he was considered a normal part of the family to everyone but you? Okay. I'm back to wanting to punch people, but -- (chuckles) Mary Ann: Sorry. I'm like, sorry. Interviewer: You're okay. Mary Ann: Your last interview's going to be like, oh, my gosh. Interviewer: No, no, you're not my last interview, I'm doing more, it will be okay. But this is what -- I mean this is real, it's okay, I appreciate you sharing it with me. It's -Mary Ann: Yeah. [01:34:53] Interviewer: I mean I won't say it's not affecting me, because it does. You know how that is. Mary Ann: Yeah, I totally do. Interviewer: But that doesn't mean you can't share it. I appreciate you sharing, so. -50- 08-17-17 Mary Ann Mary Ann: So Interviewer: So you were going to school. Pretending everything was fine. They didn't get you counseling or anything for this experience? Mary Ann: No. They stopped allowing me to go to the group therapy and said, and put a stop to any other individual therapy ever. Interviewer: Just because they were going to pretend it didn't happen? Mary Ann: And they claimed it was giving me ideas. Interviewer: I think that's the definition of therapy, actually (chuckles). Right? It's supposed to give you ideas. Mary Ann: So, they ran away. Interviewer: They ran away to Oregon. Mary Ann: To Oregon. Interviewer: And you went with them and the boy went with them, and your siblings went with them, but your dad was unemployed? Mary Ann: Correct. Interviewer: So they ran away to the basement of his -Mary Ann: Parents, my dad's parents. Interviewer: Who weren't in California anymore? Mary Ann: Correct. They had moved to Oregon to retire. And my mother's parents, I should say died in like '80 and '81. So my mother's going through all of this as -- I don't want to say orphan because that's usually for children, but she didn't have parents and she was basically estranged from her one sibling. [01:36:09] Interviewer: And she had come back to Utah hoping to have parents and parent support, so that was probably different than she expected? -51- 08-17-17 Mary Ann Mary Ann: Yeah. Well, no, her parents were already deceased at that point, so she was hoping to come back to be with her sister and her aunts and her cousins. Because they -- and her grandparents. So my great-grandmothers were still living. But their children had died. Interviewer: Oh, wow, okay. Mary Ann: So there was a good family support there. And just like as an aside note, my mother's sister... married a man who was gay and who was one of... there was a practice in the '70s of telling gay men to marry women, that it would fix them. So in a sense she's a victim of that line of thinking. And during this time he had come out as gay publicly. Interviewer: So lots going on with your extended family. Mary Ann: And so my aunt divorced and all of this. And like my uncle, my aunt's husband, helped my dad find employment in Utah, they helped get them settled. So they were... their relationship was fine and decent. But at some point it disintegrated and I think it disintegrated when he came out as gay and my parents probably didn't offer my aunt the kind of support she needed at that time. And then... within two or three years of him being publicly outs gay, he and his partner were murdered. Interviewer: Oh! [01:37:46] Mary Ann: As a hate crime for being gay. And again, I don't think my parents responded in a supportive manner to my aunt and that disintegrated their relationship. Interviewer: And this is the aunt you stayed with who was harsh to you or was that a different aunt? Mary Ann: No, it was my great-aunt who was harsh to me. Interviewer: Oh, okay, so this sister, they still were estranged? Mary Ann: The sister was estranged. Interviewer: So then the family ran off to Oregon to get away from the ward members' chattering and to deal with the fact they had no money and... -52- 08-17-17 Mary Ann Mary Ann: And to start a new life. Interviewer: You all went and lived in a basement. Mary Ann: We all lived in a basement, I shared a bed with my sister. We slept in the same bed. Interviewer: So tell me about the relationship, your relationship with Mormonism at this point. Mary Ann: I was still fully believing. I participated, I loved Young Women's, I had made a good friend -Interviewer: And so they allowed you to be in Young Women's? Mary Ann: Yes. Interviewer: Because sometimes they don't after you -Mary Ann: Because they were trying to sweep it under the rug, remember? Interviewer: So nobody in the ward anyhow about it? Mary Ann: Nobody in the ward knew except -- I love -- well -- I'm like I love this -- my parents thought, but there was a girl in my therapy group that knew a family in the ward that we moved to. And she had happened to say something to that family, so that family knew. [01:39:17] Interviewer: In Oregon you're talking about? Mary Ann: Uh-hmm. Interviewer: But nobody in, um, Murray knew? As far as you know? Mary Ann: Probably only to the extent of the chatter, and plus the bishop knew, and understanding the way bishops and ward councils and all that crap works, Interviewer: Yeah, somebody knew, but it wasn't -Mary Ann: They outed us, I'm sure they outed us. And so it was supposed to be this -53- 08-17-17 Mary Ann shh, don't tell anyone about this family, but this is what's going on, how can we better serve this family? Interviewer: But these Young Women leaders were still -- you said you loved Young Women's in Murray or you loved Young Women's in Oregon or both? Mary Ann: I loved Young Women's in Kearns and in Oregon. I tolerated it in Murray. I did not like my Murray leader very well. And I can't tell you exactly why, I just didn't like her. [01:40:08] Interviewer: You don't know why? Mary Ann: I think maybe she was judgmental. And I just started to get that bad taste of church in my mouth there, in the Murray ward. Interviewer: Talk more about the bad taste of church. Mary Ann: Because the mean girls Interviewer: Being mean at youth conference. Mary Ann: Being mean at youth conference, and then continually being mean. So attending church and Sunday school was... (sigh)... was not my favorite hours of the week. Sacrament was better. But I felt isolated and it, like not a part of the group. But I knew that I had a place there, and that I belonged there, and that I was loved by... the Church as a whole, but that girls can be mean, and that high school's mean, middle school's mean. It's just kind of like understanding that there's usually an out group, and an in group, and... there you go. So I kind of knew and understood those dynamics. There were some Young Women leaders that I really liked. Probably the president. And in the -- Utah wards I would say that Young Women's were what I called fully staffed. Meaning that you had the three Young Women presidents, you had class Sunday school -- well, not Sunday school teachers, but -[01:42:00] Interviewer: Like advisors. Mary Ann: Teachers. Yeah, probably advisors that taught the classes. And then you even had, I think, no, you had teachers that taught the classes and then you had advisors that were over each group of girl. So you're probably have, how many is that? -54- 08-17-17 Mary Ann Nine to twelve women staffing the Young Women's program. Here in Tennessee, in the mission field, we were lucky to have three or four. Like the Young Women presidency, and maybe a teacher. Interviewer: You used the phrase "the mission field." Is that a phrase you use now or was that a throw-back to your phrasing from that time period? Mary Ann: I learned about that phrase while living in Utah. Interviewer: Okay. Because you had moved in from the mission field or --? Mary Ann: No. I would say that my awareness of the word came when people started talking about "my cousin," or "this person," or "this experience in the East Coast," or "in the South, out in the mission field." So when people would phrase it in that sense, like this is where we are gathered, but anywhere outside is the mission field. Interviewer: Was California the mission field? Mary Ann: It would've been, yes, but I didn't feel like that was. Interviewer: You didn't hear that label applied to you when you were there? Mary Ann: No. [01:43:34] Interviewer: Okay. But you have in Tennessee? Mary Ann: Yes. And it's also very -- it could be a Southern religious culture thing too. I've been to some church, non-LDS Church denominations where I've pulled out of their driveway and they have signs that say, "You are now entering the mission field." Interviewer: Okay. Mary Ann: So they're implying that their church campus is -- everything outside their Church campus is the mission field, so you are always being a missionary. Interviewer: I was waiting for the word. The Church campus is, what's the opposite of mission field, what's the word? Mary Ann: Oh, well... for Mormons? Zion. -55- 08-17-17 Mary Ann Interviewer: Okay. So Zion and the mission field are the contrasting concepts? [01:44:24] Mary Ann: Yeah. Interviewer: (Chuckles) Okay, that's interesting. So you kept going to Young Women's in Murray though socially it wasn't a great experience, you still felt like it was where you were supposed to be, you said, and you felt like the Church as a whole, the ward as a whole, like the adults in the ward, except for this one judgmental Young Women leader or --? Mary Ann: Yeah, in Murray is where I started to notice and think about social dynamics and understanding not quite nuances but oh... there's multiple ways to experience things, there's multiple ways to live. Not all Mormons are nice. Interviewer: And prior to that you had thought that Mormon meant nice? Mary Ann: Yeah, that meant nice, and honest and... the Young Women values, the Boy Scout mottos. I thought that's what Mormons were as a group, as a whole. That my experiences reinforced that, that Mormons are trustworthy and kind, and faithful and... follow the commandments meaning -- and in my mind... and "nice" is such a large concept, but it's like not stealing, not looking at pornography, not exploiting people, not hiding your sinfulness. Because you don't have sin. Very elementary type concepts, but Murray was where I started to question Mormon as a people. I remember being shocked when I found out that, ahh! You're so nice and you're not Mormon? Like you have a normal life? You don't rob banks and you're not Mormon? Like how did you turn into a decent human being if you're not Mormon? Interviewer: Yeah? Mary Ann: So (chuckles) Interviewer: That's just so articulate the way you said that, that's what made me smile about it, it's just such a beautiful way to express that concept. So in Murray, you said you had these -- I forgot what you called it, but social realizations, more attention to the sociology of it. Did that affect your religious conversion? [01:47:12] Mary Ann: No. I don't (sigh)... okay, so about the time... the fall, like I mentioned I was -56- 08-17-17 Mary Ann raped at -- I don't think it was New Year's Eve, but it was like a New Year's Eve dance, and you know, church can be weird and they'll have dances and call it -- so anyhow that's when a significant shift in my life occurred. But there was a building up of that the fall.... that fall. I guess it was like an 18 months of building up, so there was the mean girl experience of "this is how we behave at this school, and these are the traditions that we have, blah, blah, blah. Ha-ha-ha, look at you, now that you're at school being a weirdo." So from that, those were the girls I went to church with to being like oh, Mormons can be mean. This is a new concept. These girls are nice to me. These girls aren't Mormon. This is a new paradigm for me. So, then I created new friends with non-Mormon people and I forgot where I was going with this. Oh, so I was like, hmm, if non-Mormons can be nice people, and Mormons can be mean people, what is this about Mormonism that I really believe in? So I started having this hmm, do I really want to be Mormon because these Mormons are not the way I want to Mormon, and these normal people -- again, I'm using this language -Interviewer: Yeah, that's okay. Mary Ann: These normal people are being normal. So what is this about normalness that I like? And so that was occurring when I was 15, so kind of questioning my whole religious commitments. Interviewer: And it sounds like your religious commitment to that point had been very much based on the behaviors of kind Mormons around you, right? Like you haven't -Mary Ann: Yeah. Interviewer: You haven't said you know, I knew God was true, even though these people were being terrible. You said these people were not being what I thought Mormons would be, and it changed my paradigm of Mormonism, right? Mary Ann: Correct, yeah. It wasn't -Interviewer: Am I interpreting that correctly? [01:49:31] Mary Ann: Correct. It was not tied to God. I never, up till that point, never questioned God's intent of like I -- I believed that God restored the Church, that this is the -- that God restored the Church and the rules and the principles and the ordinances. And then said this is how you should live to be a Zion type people. And so again, we moved to what was termed Zion. I'm like these aren't Zion-like people. So if I'm living in Zion, they're not following God's rules and laws and being kind and polite but they'll like show -57- 08-17-17 Mary Ann up and do these ordinances. Do I need to follow ordinances or do I need to find God's law of kindness? And can I do that inside or outside of Mormonism? So that occurred at 15. Then I was raped, got pregnant, had this shift. And then was disciplined by the Church leadership and told okay, part of your repentance process like literally I had to repent for being raped -- part of your repentance process is reading the scriptures every day and praying and doing this and reporting back to us. And it was very involved. So I did. At the time, while I say convalesce, which is not necessarily -- but I was basically on bedrest, as I mentioned before -- so I read the scriptures a lot and found comfort and recommitment to my faith at that point. Interviewer: Okay. And were you, what's the word, re-fellowshipped? Mary Ann: Uh-hmm. Interviewer: Before your family went to Oregon? Mary Ann: Yes. Interviewer: And then you went to Oregon and you were just your normal Young Women, going to normal Young Women activities? Mary Ann: Yeah, so I finally got to go back to like the semi-normal thing. And then I got a high school boyfriend and there was this conflict at home like, "Mom, this is not right." Because my dad was very staunch -Interviewer: With the child? Mary Ann: With the child. And I'm like, "Mom, this is not right, the way Dad's treating me, the way this." And I'm like, so there was this conflict. And they tried to push like we want to take him to the temple and have him sealed to us. And I'm like, no, he's going to be sealed to me when I get married. Interviewer: And they just wouldn't let you have any emotional relationship with him, even though you obviously did. Mary Ann: Yeah. [01:52:04] Interviewer: Like you obviously cared about him. Mary Ann: Yeah. So there was always this... pushback kind of going on. And so I got -58- 08-17-17 Mary Ann a high school boyfriend, a Mormon boy, and I told him. Oh, and get this! Part of the reason why there was so much secrecy surrounding my pregnancy was my mother told me, after I told her I was pregnant, and that was rape, she said, "You can never tell anyone that this happened to you. Because they will never want to marry you." Interviewer: Wow, so no atonement for you. (Chuckles) No change of heart or -- or of anybody. No allowing anybody to ever get past these experiences. Mary Ann: Yeah. Interviewer: Not atonement meaning you did anything wrong, but atonement of healing, right? Mary Ann: Correct. Interviewer: In terms of being able to restore that's lost, in terms of healing. Mary Ann: Yeah. Interviewer: So, you told your boyfriend? Mary Ann: So I told my boyfriend, and he didn't flee. Interviewer: Your Mormon boyfriend stuck around. Mary Ann: I told my Mormon boyfriend and he's like, "I want marry you." I want, you know, the Savior complex, knight in shining armor, "I want to marry you. Week take your baby, we can be a family, I'll get you out of this abusive family relationship." And I was like -- it turned out that my high school boyfriend was abusive in his own ways and I was fortunate enough to see that and not end up with him. But we did, we got engaged and -Interviewer: Your senior year? [01:53:46] Mary Ann: Yes. I think on, right around my 18th birthday. I think that's probably what happened on my 18th birthday, again, trying to block out a few things. Because my family ignored my 18th birthday. They never said anything to me. Interviewer: Did they ignore you? -59- 08-17-17 Mary Ann Mary Ann: Pretty much. Interviewer: It sounds like they were spending a lot of time and energy with this child and acting as if you didn't exist. Okay, so happy 18th birthday, then what? Mary Ann: Yeah, so I got engaged and probably on a Saturday night, and church on Sunday, I was sitting next to my mother on the stand. Maybe, I don't know why. Maybe a choir performance or something, and she's like, "What is that?" So anyhow, they weren't pleased about that either. Interviewer: And what is that meaning your ring? Mary Ann: My ring. They weren't pleased that I was engaged as an 18-year-old, and to this -Interviewer: And that they found out in church sitting next to you? Mary Ann: Uh-hmm, and they didn't like my boyfriend anyway, and I can see now why. But... I forgot where I was going. Oh, my faith transition in a sense. Interviewer: Okay. [01:55:03] Mary Ann: So, while I was finishing the last three months of pregnancy I found peace and comfort and love in the words of the scriptures, particularly I was reading the Book of Mormon a lot. So I was like, yeah, this is right. So I went to Oregon, participated in the Young Women program. I don't think I went to camp because I was working and kind of a little bit beyond that. But I did go to a young single adult camp that they had, which was fun. But kind of fast-forward a teeny bit to what really -- what I say, what really entrenched me into the Mormon belief, or the Mormon system -- I say Mormon system of belief -- was like to finish out this story, my son died when he was three and a half. And I had just met my current husband and we had been dating about a month. And again, on our first date I told my husband about my child and that this was my life experience and it was my intent to -- oh, yeah -- I was going to say, it was my intent to take this child as soon as I had, you know, established myself as an adult. And he's like, "Cool. That's fine." And I'm like, so he didn't flee. So I'm like, okay, these boys, they don't flee, my mom was wrong. [01:56:45] Interviewer: And was he LDS? -60- 08-17-17 Mary Ann Mary Ann: Yeah. Interviewer: Is he LDS now? Mary Ann: Yeah. (Chuckles) (sigh) So a month into dating, my... (sigh) oh... the spring of my 19th year my parents finally divorced. Like my dad up and left. They were both living in southern Oregon, they were separated at the time, I think they were separated. And... (sigh)... my dad took all of the money out of the bank account and left, and didn't tell anybody -- left a note. Interviewer: (Inaudible) the kids and left your mom? Because you still had two younger siblings, plus -Mary Ann: In high school. Interviewer: -- your son, right? Mary Ann: Yeah. Interviewer: Okay. Mary Ann: And I found this out, my mom called and told me. And I was living in Provo at the time. I was trying to -- I had just applied to go to UVU and was applying for credit cards and other things to pay for college. So I drove home. I found a ride to Oregon and said, "Okay, you're gonna need a lot of help, Mom. And I'm here. And now that I'm here, this is my child." Interviewer: Wow, big move. Mary Ann: And you're gonna have to deal with the repercussions of lying for the past three years. Interviewer: To your siblings? Mary Ann: To my siblings, to the people at church, and to everywhere. Because now that you are alone, and you're a single mom, you are no different than I am. [01:58:31] Interviewer: Oh! -61- 08-17-17 Mary Ann Mary Ann: So... I'm like, so, I was home that entire summer but right, prior to that major move, I had said I had applied to UVU, but I had also applied to be a nanny in Maryland, and that would've given me a place to live, and an income so that then I could pay for school without having rent. And I had been interviewed and accepted. And was supposed to go out when the baby was born in August or September. But then this occurrence happened and I moved home. And I had still planned to go and I did. I did go to Maryland to be a nanny. But that summer is when I came home and said, "I'm gonna be here for the summer, I'm going to be this child's mother. I'm going to take him to his therapy appointments. I'm going to make sure that his Medicaid, Medicare, you know, just, and I will tell who I want to tell what's going on because." Interviewer: Wow, take charge of the situation. Mary Ann: Yeah. Interviewer: And was the boy... cognitively aware? Like did he understand who you were? Mary Ann: No. Interviewer: What that was about? Mary Ann: No, not at all. Interviewer: Did your mother -- how did she treat that boy? Did she love him? Mary Ann: She loved him so much. Like when she and I would fight, when I'd say, "Hey, this is not right what you and Dad are doing to me, and the way you're handling this, this is not right." She's like, "Don't you think that when I'm alone with him I call him --" I'm like, "I'm his granny, and I'm the one who wouldn't let him get adopted and I'm the one who hated that he was in foster care, and I'm the one who went and rescued him." [02:00:21] Interviewer: And you feel like she, those were sincere sentiments? Mary Ann: Yeah, those were certainly sincere sentiments. Interviewer: Okay. Mary Ann: So that's why I was always like, dad, bad, mom, good. -62- 08-17-17 Mary Ann Interviewer: And the rescue, I'm the one who went and rescued him, sort of -- I would interpret that as carrying a little bit of blame to you. Right? Like you abandoning him, and her rescuing him. Was it that way? Mary Ann: I later have come to realize that she blames me for a lot and she didn't like me. Interviewer: So (sigh) her loss. So you went up there that summer, when you were 19. And you were able to mother the child? Mary Ann: Uh-hmm. And I told a few more people. And they're like oh, you sweet woman, how in the hell did you put up with this? Like oh, my gosh. So that was that summer and I bonded with him and really struggled with whether I should go to -- continue my obligation to go be a nanny to this newborn baby. And I was like, yeah, yeah, I prayed and felt confirmation that that's what I needed to do. Interviewer: And you were in the Church at this point? Mary Ann: Yeah, I was in the Church until just four years ago. So, 'cause my conversion as a 16-year-old was -- well, as a 16, and then a 19-year-old was so strong. Because I prayed and this like, yes, you need to go to Maryland and you need to do this. And so I went to Maryland and left this child behind that I had worked mentally so hard to -Interviewer: To be able to be with. Mary Ann: -- to be able to be with. And then Maryland was so hard. I was nannying for a Mormon family. She was in her residency for a doctorate, an MD doctor. Her husband was finishing his doctorate in chemistry. And so I'm like, oh, a Mormon family, this is cool. Well, I was the nanny for three, four months. But somewhere in between, I found out that it was the husband's second marriage, that his first wife divorced him because he was molesting the teenagers. And that -[02:02:44] Interviewer: Ew, and you're in that home. Mary Ann: (Sigh) And that I was brought in to be a nanny to protect the baby from the husband and that one day -- like this had all come out because... one day in December the mom called and she's like, "Um, can you bring the baby down to the hospital, I need to get some tests run." So I brought the baby down and then I found out that they were -63- 08-17-17 Mary Ann doing MRI's on the baby because the dad threw her against the wall the previous night. Interviewer: And you hadn't been -- you hadn't been there? Mary Ann: Exactly. I was out on a date. Interviewer: So the mother knew this -Mary Ann: So the mother knew that her husband was abusing the baby and that I was brought in to be the protector. Interviewer: Oh, sweetie, you've had a lot of life experience. (Chuckles) Mary Ann: So when I found out that that was her motivation I called DCS, reported them and moved out that day because I had understood that nannies get the blame for child abuse all the time. He was also running for political office. So I called the RNC -- he was Republican, I called the RNC and told them that they should not back that candidate. Interviewer: You go girl! (Chuckles) Mary Ann: And why they shouldn't back that candidate. Interviewer: And I bet they didn't. Mary Ann: Correct. So you don't mess with me, not at 16, not at 19, not at 40. Interviewer: Good for you. Mary Ann: Oh, so, that was that kind of that poor experience with oh, Mormons really can behave badly. They're not this Zion people that -- or not all Mormons can be these nice, upstanding citizens, there's this dark underbelly of Mormonism. Interviewer: And not tied to Utah it sounds like, if you were in Maryland. Mary Ann: Correct. So that wasn't tied necessarily to Utah. So, but my faith was in a sense... manipulated. Because I believed. I believed. And... so where went to Maryland. That experience happened. It was an awful experience. I prayed and my answer was no, you need to stay. I was like, all right. And then I was like Martin Harris, I fail, and I prayed one more time, it's like, "No, you can go home." Like okay, great, I can go home. I can leave this abusive situation. Because when I moved out of that nanny house there were other ward members who rescued me. So again, I had this -64- 08-17-17 Mary Ann great rescuers. So I prayed and they're like, "Yeah, you can go home." So I made plans to go home for Christmas like December 12th or something. And on December 5th I met my husband. [02:05:39] Interviewer: In Maryland? Mary Ann: In Maryland. Interviewer: Oh, okay. Mary Ann: And so, we met and we dated like every day for a week, and then I went home. And I went home for Christmas and -Interviewer: (Chuckles) Good thing you stayed for a little while. Mary Ann: Exactly. So I was like my prayers are answered and this is why I was guided to do this. This is why I had to go to Maryland, because I had to meet my husband. And I had to stay when I didn't want to, because I hadn't met my husband, and then I finally got the answer that you could go home, because I had met my husband. And then I go home for Christmas, spend some time with my child, and then I was like, "Mom, I'm going to go back to Maryland, I've got another nanny job lined up. And come summer, I'm going to then bring James out to Maryland with me and that will be when I become an adult and I'm going to take over." Interviewer: Did you know you were going to marry your husband? Mary Ann: I strongly suspected. So like on that very first date it was almost like a 10-hour date. It wasn't intended to be, but it happened to. And I feel like I had that similar experience that my dad did that was like, I was told -- psychologically, I thought -- but we're sitting in his car talking after our date, and I was told "You need to stay and get to know this man as best as you can before you go home because you are going to marry him." And I'm like, we were just kissing. (Chuckles) Why? So I was like, so that's how I manipulated -- you know, I took that prompting and was like, our first date -- and it wasn't a real date. We met at a wedding reception on a Saturday. On a Sunday is where we kind of, we think is our first date, but it was like hey, there's choir practice, there's a lunch after choir practice. There's a Messiah sing-along, there's a First Presidency fireside. Let's do all of this together. And then when it kind of turned into a date was we had carpooled so he's driving back to my car and he's like, "Hey, you're new to DC, have you seen the monuments at night, they're so beautiful." So then we went to the monuments and we're out for several hours and then he kissed me on -65- 08-17-17 Mary Ann the steps of the Jefferson and I was like... he's pretty fast, we've only been doing -- we've known each other for a day, and he's kissing me, and I'm going home in a week. Is he just trying to scam on me? (Chuckles) So all those thoughts went through my mind. But then three or four hours later I was like, no, you need to get to know -- and we had planned a date for Thursday and this was Sunday. And was like, "Thursday's too far away." So we saw each other every day until I went home. [02:08:25] Interviewer: And your first date was this extended Mormon event? Mary Ann: Exactly. (Chuckles) And our official first date was on that Thursday was supposed to be to go to the Washington, D.C. Temple to see the temple lights because they do a beautiful display at Christmas, and they have music and programs and other -- and festival of trees. So it's a great date destination. So it was all very much surrounded by Mormonism. And also because it was Sunday day, I remember once we were in DC, we had been out all day, and it was getting time to -- like I was hungry, and we had the conversation like, "it's the Sabbath, but like do we eat?" And we decided not to, and so I was thinking he's a very orthodox Mormon because he won't take me out to eat. So... I went home, did the Christmas thing, decided I needed to go back to get to know this man, and to seal this relationship. And I was back with him for a week when my son died. Interviewer: Unexpectedly? Mary Ann: Unexpectedly. Interviewer: Oh, I bet that was hard. [02:09:37] Mary Ann: And so those prayers I felt were -- I felt that entire year had been guided because I was very involved with my personal prayers and that is was like... yes, you need to stay to get to know him. Yes, you need to go home to spend time with your kid before he's gonna die, and yes, you need to go back to Maryland because if I didn't I would've stayed home. I would never have gone back to see my husband. Or this man who I had been dating. So... Interviewer: So you married? Mary Ann: So I married in the DC Temple. We got him sealed that day. -66- 08-17-17 Mary Ann Interviewer: Him, your son? Mary Ann: Yeah. And we got married on his birthday. Interviewer: Oh. Mary Ann: So it... so it was very healing. Like it came full circle in a sense for me. Interviewer: And had your husband ever met your son? Mary Ann: No. And you know, I mentioned that first date I was like, this is going to be my husband. But my son died on a Sunday. And we were getting ready for church, and my husband came to like -- I think we, at the time we lived maybe an hour apart, and he drove over and I'm making arrangements to fly back to Oregon. And he offered to come with me. Interviewer: Did he come with? Mary Ann: And he did. He dropped $800 in 1994 Interviewer: To get on a plane with you and -Mary Ann: This woman he barely knew. Interviewer: Sounds like a good man. Mary Ann: He is. So that experience, being sealed, understanding that the doctrine that my child is now perfected and living in the Celestial Kingdom meant that I now had to live a Mormon existence that was... worthy, that I would live a life worthy enough to be back, and to be the mother I always wanted to be to that child. And so I felt that that really cinched my belief system. [02:12:01] Interviewer: So that was a very strong point in time for your faith and your religious conversion? Mary Ann: Yeah. Interviewer: So you stayed in Maryland with your husband? Mary Ann: We did, for I think 14 years. -67- 08-17-17 Mary Ann Interviewer: That's a long time. Mary Ann: Yeah. Interviewer: And how did you end up here? Mary Ann: He had a job offer. So he was recruited. Interviewer: What does he do? Mary Ann: He's in health care finance. And I think he still -- he just doesn't tell me about it a lot now, but while we were in Maryland he would be contacted by headhunters a lot. And so he wasn't actively looking for work, but -Interviewer: But he was in his career working in Maryland when you met him? Mary Ann: He had just moved there. Like we met on December 4th, he moved there December 2nd. Interviewer: Oh, you literally had to stay to meet this man. There's no way you could've met him sooner. Mary Ann: Exactly. Interviewer: And so, did he come for school or did he come for a job? Mary Ann: He came for work. He had graduated from BYU, then served a mission. So he was outside of the norm in that regard. So he was a college graduate before he went on a mission. [02:13:12] Interviewer: Oh, because he had graduated and then gone on a mission? Mary Ann: And so he'd just come home from his mission, was 27 years old, and his degree is in political science, and he was interviewing to be a foreign service diplomat, so that's what brought him to DC. Interviewer: Okay. And if you stayed there 14 years then he didn't end up being a foreign service diplomat. -68- 08-17-17 Mary Ann Mary Ann: He didn't. He started working for a temporary agency, got placed in the finance department of the children's hospital. Kind of found a career in that. He continued to interview for the foreign service like it's a long process. And part of his personal research for interviewing was meeting with other people who were foreign service officers. Well, and I think one of the processes is involved in doing negotiations on behalf of the federal government and he saw the ugly underbelly of not intending to fulfill your negotiations' intentions and he's like, I can't do that. I cannot. Interviewer: You mean the government not intending to fulfill their -Mary Ann: Correct. He's like, I cannot be an agent for a government that is going to go to the table knowingly lying. Interviewer: In bad faith. Mary Ann: In bad faith. Interviewer: Okay, and so then he stopped doing that, and stuck with health care finance. Mary Ann: He's like nope. He's like I'm gonna do this health care finance stuff. Interviewer: And you did that for 14 years and then he got a job here you said? Mary Ann: Correct. Interviewer: And you had said previously that you came here for your school, so. [02:14:48] Mary Ann: Yes. So we moved to Murphy's Borough specific for school. Interviewer: But you came to Tennessee -Mary Ann: We came to Tennessee for his work ten years ago. Interviewer: Because you were already in Tennessee but you moved to this city -Mary Ann: Correct. Interviewer: -- for you to go to school? -69- 08-17-17 Mary Ann Mary Ann: Yeah. Interviewer: Okay, and he got a job here then? Mary Ann: He works from home. Interviewer: Same company? Mary Ann: Same company. Interviewer: And you mentioned he was a Mormon Studies person, is that -Mary Ann: Correct. Interviewer: -- on the side or is that -Mary Ann: That's on the side. He started Mormon Studies about seven, eight years ago. And that worried me because I was like, oh, he's gonna have a faith transition. I'm gonna lose my priesthood holder. This is scary. But that didn't happen. Interviewer: So when I asked you if he was LDS, you made a bit of a face. Mary Ann: I did. Interviewer: Catch me up. [02:15:36] Mary Ann: So to catch you up on that, do you want my story first or his? Interviewer: Either one, whatever order you want to tell me. Mary Ann: All right, so my faith transition again occurred around trauma. My... my mother had a heart attack on a Saturday and she was seemingly doing fine despite the heart attack. I had called her that night and we were chatting. She's like, "I'm doing fine, I ordered a sandwich, blah, blah, blah." The next day, Sunday, they were not only splitting the ward, but putting us into new stake. And during that sacrament meeting I got a text from my sibling saying that my mom had 12 hours to live. And so I flew out for that. She continued to live for another six weeks but it was... so when I returned from that trauma of the death of my mother and her sickness and illness -- -70- 08-17-17 Mary Ann [02:16:42] Interviewer: You stayed for the whole six weeks? Mary Ann: I was gone for two weeks, but I came back to a new church community. I didn't know anyone. My support system was yanked out from underneath me while I was gone, and I was shifted to not only a new ward, to a new stake. And if you understand Mormon culture, in a sense, you don't keep up with your friends who are in a different stake. Mormon lifestyle keeps you so busy that you can really only focus on your immediate church family. And friendships are so connected within your ward that it's hard to maintain. (Sigh) So at that same time I had opened a sandwich bakery shop with a friend. And the day I returned home from my mother's funeral she quit. Interviewer: Your friend quit? Mary Ann: My friend. She sent me a text and said, that she needed to quit the business. Interviewer: She was an owner? Mary Ann: She was a co-owner because she had goats to take care of. Interviewer: Wow. Okay. Mary Ann: And I'm like, I just got home from my mother's funeral, I have three kids and you have no children, and you have goats. And then she was called as my Relief Society president. And her husband was in the bishopric, and her mother -Interviewer: So you were just left standing there with the business or did you have to close the business? Mary Ann: I had to buy her out. Like... you know, this is my side of the story, but so my... integrity demanded of me to buy her out. Interviewer: Because she wanted out, and you couldn't just stiff everybody and everything? Mary Ann: Yeah. So I paid her to leave. Interviewer: To watch her goats? -71- 08-17-17 Mary Ann [02:18:39] Mary Ann: Uh-hmm. Interviewer: Okay. Mary Ann: While I didn't draw any money from the business. And she's my Relief Society president and her husband's my bishopric member and her family were antagonistic towards me. Interviewer: Because of the business situation? Mary Ann: Uh-hmm. Interviewer: So was there harshness, like bad words? Mary Ann: Yeah. No, she wouldn't -- she used her husband to talk with me. Like negotiations on me buying her out, she wouldn't show up. The first meeting she did, but she turned with her back like this. Interviewer: So had you been friends prior to this? Mary Ann: We had been friends. Interviewer: And had there been problems in the business? Mary Ann: Not really. Interviewer: So you're not really sure what happened there? Mary Ann: I think she, like she's like, "this isn't fun anymore." I'm like, yeah, running a business isn't fun. It's not like you go in and bake a pie and then go home. And then she felt like overwhelmed and left with the business because I was gone for my mother's illness and death. And she's like, "You were gone for your mother's illness, and I see all of these Facebook posts about you being out eating dinner with your family." I'm like, you need to eat. So -[02:19:51] Interviewer: So the situation related to your mother's death was what she blamed the business failure or the business -- -72- 08-17-17 Mary Ann Mary Ann: I kept the business open for another year. But she was bitter about it. I'm like you're getting paid and you're being bitter and rude. So church was not a welcoming place for me, and also because I didn't, it was a new place. So I had no history with the people, and all they... and in the previous ward I was the Young Women president and -Interviewer: So that calling got dissolved when the ward split. Mary Ann: Uh-hmm Interviewer: So it wasn't like years before you had been in the Young Women's president, that was a loss with the wards? Mary Ann: Yeah, so I was mourning the loss of that because I loved that calling. I loved the girls, and I loved the women I worked with. And I was put in at like first counselor. But the Young Women president was -- we bucked heads like seriously. She was doing so many things wrong and I air quote that "wrong." I was kind of a different person back then, but she... a lot of the girls were complaining to me. And she was -- and so I had to chat with the bishop. I'm like things aren't working out, you're going to need to release me. And he's like, "But I put you in there so you can guide the president." I'm like, you don't guide a president. If you want her to learn how to be a leader, you make me the leader and you put her in as a counselor and I can mentor her into how to do this job. But you don't mentor somebody in from underneath. I mean, that's a whole philosophy, but. So that didn't work. So I'm like yeah, you're going to release me, I'm not working with her. And I didn't have -- and I'm mourning the loss of my mother -[02:21:44] Interviewer: Your mother, the business, the ward, the calling, the friendships. Mary Ann: Friend, the ward. So no spiritual fulfillment at church. So I'm like, I need spiritual fulfillment, I'll go to my old ward. So I did for a little bit, but then I'm like, I'm not sitting with my family, this is not a family, this is not building community. So this isn't working either. Interviewer: And your family were continuing to go to the new ward? Mary Ann: Correct. My husband was very well-loved and was the Young Men president. Interviewer: And your kids are LDS? -73- 08-17-17 Mary Ann Mary Ann: My kids are... were, are -- they're still on the records. So my faith transition occurred because I was like, if I'm not getting fulfilled I will do my own church spirituality at home like I did when I was pregnant and 16. So I dove into the scriptures and my husband had started his Church history stuff so I like read the Journal of Discourses and I'm like, oh! Interviewer: Yeah, I wouldn't think that would be faith-building. Mary Ann: Oh, this is not the religion I thought it was. So... so I kind of transitioned out. I was like, oh... oh... yeah, no. This, I can't affiliate myself with this. [02:22:58] Interviewer: Because of the things you had read and -Mary Ann: Yeah, because of -- and I don't necessarily want to hash that out because they're out there, and you can a faithful perspective or not, but it blindsided me, all the -- whitewashing of Church history, the elimination, the retelling the way stories are perpetuated at church. You know, things from the Kirtland Bank failure to Fanny Alger and from the Kimball -- Helen Mar Kimball, Joseph Smith. One of the final straws for me was I had studied a little bit of the Islam faith and knew that Mohammed married a 14-year-old and I was like always, "Ew, Mohammed marrying a 14-year-old, this is awesome." Like these Islams, they worship this man who marries a 14-year-old. And when I found out that that was in my own personal history I was like, I can't be a hypocrite. I can't have publicly said something about Islam in ignorance, and that's my -- so there were a lot of last straws. I'm like, I can't. Interviewer: So this was your first introduction to all these concepts? You said your husband had been studying Mormon history but you hadn't previously encountered this historical narrative being different than this doctrinal narrative that you were getting? Mary Ann: Correct. Interviewer: So you intended this to be a at-home faith-building time and instead it was not that at all, it sounds like. Mary Ann: Correct. The combination of encountering non-sanitized Church history coupled with their current contemporary standings on issues was too much for me to want to continue participation. Interviewer: And you say "they" you mean the Church? -74- 08-17-17 Mary Ann Mary Ann: Correct. Interviewer: The Church's contemporary standing? On what issues? [02:25:02] Mary Ann: Well, it's kind of starting with their support of Prop 8. Gay marriage. Their response, like I was really hopeful -- my faith transition occurred maybe about the year -- it occurred before Ordain Women formed. And so when they started to form, and I saw this Mormon feminism thing coming out I was like, I'm not sure how I think about these women because you know, the Church is never gonna change. But I was still attending because I didn't want my -- I knew the stigma that part-member families have and so I was not publicly to my church community, out as an unbeliever. So I personally had taken my garments off and like, "Honey, I've had this faith transition, garments are repulsive to me, I can't put them on my body anymore." And I fully expected him to be like, "Okay, we can't be married." But he said, "No, Mary Ann, I married you, not the Church. And I still love you." So that was, you know, like a fabulous thing. And I continued, I said, "Well, I don't want this stigma on my children," so I put garments back on to go to church so that I could signal to others that I was still believing. And at that point I had returned to school to finish my undergraduate degree. And we knew, at just at the local community college, and I knew at that point I had gotten -- I was granted a fellowship at this university I'm currently at, so I knew I'd move. And I was like, okay, I will continue up this charade until we move. Interviewer: And you were doing that to protect your husband and children from what you said the stigma? You felt like they'd be ostracized or? Mary Ann: Correct. Or we would be what's called "love bombed" Interviewer: What's that? Mary Ann: Trying to show an increase of love and attention and inclusiveness to a family that has concerns that they, you know, like, "Oh, no, we really do love you, we really are sweet, and nice people, we really want to bring you cookies and invite you to all of our parties and all of our events." And I felt those are empty. Interviewer: So you didn't feel like that they were sweet and nice people, they were just acting sweet and nice to fellowship you or bring you back to the organization? Mary Ann: Correct. Yeah. And I didn't want people to look at my children like, "Oh you poor kids your mom saw the light and she doesn't anymore." -75- 08-17-17 Mary Ann [02:27:55] Interviewer: And how old were your children at this point? Mary Ann: A senior in high school. Maybe a freshman, freshman or a sophomore. So that's four years ago, so... fifth grade. Interviewer: And you have two children? Mary Ann: Freshman -- I have three kids. And then a high schooler, a senior. Interviewer: Okay. And so you finished your degree and the family was moving here? And so you said -Mary Ann: And so I had said, kind of delineated, said, "When we move to Murphy's Borough I will never attend church because I don't want to signal to them that we are a part-member family. Where want them to know that our history, as far as they are concerned is that you're a man, like a husband man, going to church with his children." Interviewer: And you just didn't want them to know about you at all? Mary Ann: I didn't like care that he's like, "Oh, yeah, I have a wife," you know, and he did. Interviewer: But what's the part-member family, like what's the -- is a part-member meaning a former member as part of the family, is that what you mean? Like you didn't want them to know that you were a former member? [02:29:10] Mary Ann: Yeah, like an inactive, former member. Like yeah, Interviewer: Because I mean, him going to church with a wife at home, the only way that I can think of that it would be different would be that they didn't know you had any connection at all to Mormonism? Mary Ann: Correct. Interviewer: So they weren't trying to bring you back to something you had been. You could be Jewish or whatever, like -- -76- 08-17-17 Mary Ann Mary Ann: Yeah, he's very private. And so it's not like he would be like, "Oh, well she used to come to church, but she doesn't believe anymore, or she doesn't -- she can't stomach." Interviewer: So it's still part-member family, but there's this particular definition of part-member family you're talking about that is married to a former member or a former member of the church in the family? Mary Ann: Correct. And also, trying to distance myself. Like the previous church, they knew I was active, they knew I was the Young Women president. And then all of the sudden I -- so I felt like in the new ward they'd be like, we have no history with this woman, we don't know who she is. Interviewer: So they wouldn't love bomb you, and wouldn't ostracize you, they just would say hi maybe if they ran into you in the store. Mary Ann: Yeah, and that was basically it. And it was great. And my family went for a while. Every week. And then in November -- well, October of 2015 my daughter told us that she was gay. Interviewer: Your daughter's the oldest? Mary Ann: My oldest. So she was 19 at the time that she told us she was gay. Interviewer: And this was 20 --? Mary Ann: '15. Interviewer: So this was after Prop 8, and -[02:30:43] Mary Ann: After Prop 8, but before the exclusion policy. Interviewer: Okay. You knew the question I was asking. Okay. Mary Ann: Yeah. So, we're like, okay, thank heavens I left the Church. Was my thought. Was that -- and she had transitioned out. Like she... Interviewer: Out of the Church? Mary Ann: Out of the Church. Yeah. I meant -- these words we use. So it was a -77- 08-17-17 Mary Ann delicate dance that I was, as a mother, and a wife, and a human of respecting my husband's belief, and my children, but understanding that if I helped foster their continued belief in the Mormon practices that I want be involved in their weddings. And that was more than I could handle. Interviewer: Okay. Mary Ann: And so I was working to create this idea to question and to not marry in the temple and to find other -- if they happen to date and marry other Mormons, that they would pick Mormons that are nuanced and would be okay with marrying into part-member family, and okay with not marrying in the temple. So really trying to walk that line of -- I have a believing husband, I have children who have been raised to believe, but I don't want them to believe, but I don't want to -Interviewer: Because it would exclude you from their lives? Mary Ann: Because it would exclude me from their lives. Interviewer: Complicated. Mary Ann: And so how do I navigate that? So it was a four-year slow navigation dance of... of that. And then my daughter came out as gay which is fine. Like it was great. I mean I don't mean like great, but I thought okay, she's out (chuckles). Interviewer: There's one I don't have to convince. (Chuckles) Mary Ann: There's one I don't have to convince, that's great. And then the exclusion policy came out and I was like, I cannot, in good conscience keep my name affiliated with an institution that has declared that my daughter and anyone she chooses to love would be automatically be apostates. And this was before the clarifications, etc. So I resigned, and my husband took my resignation into the bishop and... I received my resignation letter within a week. Interviewer: Your husband took that in for you? Mary Ann: He did. Interviewer: As the believing -Mary Ann: As the believing member. Interviewer: -- with the relationship with the bishop. -78- 08-17-17 Mary Ann Mary Ann: Uh-hmm. Interviewer: Okay. [02:33:23] Mary Ann: So that was kind of a real act of service. About a year, even 18 months, two years prior to me actually resigning, I did have the conversation with my husband. I wanted to understand what his thoughts were if I ever wanted to resign to say, if I resign, do you think that, would it change our covenants, would it change our marriage in your eyes? He's like, "No, you can resign if you feel like you need to. God knows your heart." He's a very nuanced believer, which I didn't know. I was a very black and white -- these are the rules. My father was authoritarian. And we can get into this, you know, dynamic -- the sociology of that, the education, the rural versus urban -- my husband had a very different upbringing than I did, and I thought because we were both Mormon we had the same upbringing. So, we had the conversation about resigning. When the exclusion policy came out I said, "This is it, I'm going to resign. And I will use the lawyer." There is a lawyer that offers to do it for free because some people have a hard time, negative experiences with resigning. Either their bishops or stake presidents don't process it or they're called in for interviews. There can be a lot of resistance to resignations and so there's a lawyer that gets involved. And finals. And I was like, "I don't have time to deal with this, but I need to make a statement because I need to send a statement to my daughter, and to this institution that it's gonna have repercussions." And I know I'm just one little tiny pebble, but if more people resigned, they'll be like, oh, well. That was the hill I wanted to die on. And he said, "I don't want a stranger to process your resignation. Let me write your letter." [02:35:19] Interviewer: Your husband said this? Mary Ann: Uh-hmm. "Let me turn it into the bishop and I can have the ward clerk process your resignation tomorrow." Interviewer: That does seem like an act of service, right? Mary Ann: Yeah. So when he handed it to had bishop, the bishop said, "What does this mean for you, what are you going to do?" And he's like, "this is where the truth is, where am I supposed to go? Where else am I supposed to --?" So this is his own story, but from my perspective, after that exclusion policy he's only been to church a handful of times. -79- 08-17-17 Mary Ann Interviewer: Oh. That isn't what I expected you to say based on his answer to the bishop. Mary Ann: Exactly. He went that week to A, turn in my resignation, and B, to find out what was being said at church about the exclusion policy. Nothing. It's like nothing was ever said. And then like to cap that story, when we were at Sunstone, he attended Sunstone with me, and we were chatting with people afterward, kind of the, "Oh, what kind of Mormon are you?" And my husband, and I'm like, "Oh, I've been out for four years, and you know, I resigned this day," and kind of that's the end of my story. And he's like, "Yeah, I've been out for 18 months." Interviewer: And you were surprised? Mary Ann: I was. Interviewer: Have you talked with him about -- why is he out, what does that mean? I mean at whatever level you're comfortable expressing for him. Mary Ann: Well, what it means is... I told you about my little nuanced dance of... respecting his spiritual heritage, his spiritual needs while trying to detangle my family from the cultural expectations that would exclude me from their future lives. So... at some point he too took off his garments. And so I'd have these conversations trying to navigate like what's your belief in God? Well, this Mormon practice, this Mormon belief, this is why I don't agree with it, this is why it's wrong. And chatting, and trying -- like years of these conversations trying to drive this critical thought process. And also, I found not that he's not a critical thinker because I mean not everyone with an advanced degree learns to critically think, but he has an MBA and that doesn't mean -- anyhow -- we had these conversations. And then as I began to study Mormon feminist, and the sociology of religion, and how women experience religion separately from men, and really understanding his experience versus my experience, the male experience versus the female experience, and having those conversations with him, I think he finally got an understanding that organized religion can be very damaging to people. [02:38:41] Interviewer: Interesting, okay. So he had been studying Mormon history, he had already been exposed to the historical narratives that often cause people to say, yeah, I don't want this. And he had kind of helped you get to that place, right? Mary Ann: Correct. -80- 08-17-17 Mary Ann Interviewer: But it wasn't that. It was the... member the patriarchy or the -- and when you say "organized religion can be harmful," what does that mean? Maybe rather than put words in your mouth I'll ask you to tell me. Mary Ann: Well, what it means to me, you know, as I've already kind of said was that it would exclude me from the weddings of my children because of religious dogma and religious belief and practices. That you know, I'll get on my women not holding the priesthood means that women who are abused, raped, they go to their ecclesiastical leaders for that spiritual healing or that protection, and they are shamed and punished and ignored. And they have no institutional power or authority to fix that. And so they're at the hands and mercy of men to believe them and to protect them. Interviewer: And those things, those examples seem like Mormon examples, not organized religion examples. I was looking for the bigger answer to the -- I mean did he come to realize that Mormonism can harm or did he come to realize that organized religion can harm? Do you see the difference in the questions? Which one are you saying? Mary Ann: We talked Mormon. That was -- because that's my end -- to say it, I mean that's my end game was really to like, "Hey, I want you to be able to see things from my perspective. And whether you keep believing or not, I want you to be able to understand that my experience, the experience of the women I interviewed, the experience of my new friends, this is why it's so damaging to them." Oh, and what kind of got me onto that was Kate Kelly's excommunication. So those very Mormon examples are similar -- I don't know, I don't study other religions as well as I -- my lived experience of Mormon and my study experience, but patriarchal religions in general have those types of outcomes where it's women's role is to -- men have power and influence over women therefore... they can -- it's brushed under the rug and women's voices are diminished. [02:41:45] Interviewer: So it's structurally easier to harm women? Mary Ann: Yes. Interviewer: So I'm an organizational communication scholar, right? So this is why I'm pushing on this point, I'm super interested in the relationship of individuals and organizations and the language we use to form ourselves into groups or not -- or take ourselves out of groups, that kind of thing. So you've given some examples and you've used the word of "patriarchal religion" and you've given some examples of Mormonism -81- 08-17-17 Mary Ann and its potential or actuality in your experience to harm specifically women, it sounds like, in a lot of your experience. But the difference in the question of organized religion versing Mormonism is a question of whether that particular organizational structure is harmful or whether submitting yourself to an organized structure period is harmful. Do you see the question? You know, like to be part of a group, a book club, a classroom, a corporation, a church, congregation -- to be part of a group we adopt the behavioral markers of the group. We agree to certain things that are the norms in a group community, right? And so organized religion is that joining of a group, that being part of -- I don't know if it's group-defined norms of behaviors, but expectations of behavior that are based on a social interaction, not an individual decision, right? They're not done in -- I'm not explaining this very well. Mary Ann: No, you are. And I think maybe what -- I have been interchanging institutional and organized as the same. Interviewer: And talk about that. Mary Ann: So... I believe that -- when organized religion works for you, it's really good, it really works for you. It provides support and community and belief systems and norms and -Interviewer: And you've given lots of examples of that in your story of the community you felt being part of something, right? Mary Ann: Yeah. So that is very... builds solidarity in the community that you need and the connection and the tribes that you need as humans. So that could be very good when it's working. Interviewer: Except you've talked about how lonely you felt when your tribe was removed in some way, right? Like whether you were sent off to live in foster or aunt care or whether your stake was reorganized underneath you when you needed it. So you've talked about both sides of that. You've talked about how important that community has been to you and you've talked about how absent that was a problem to you. Mary Ann: Yeah. Correct. [02:44:56] Interviewer: Then you were going to talk about institutional. Mary Ann: So institutional in my opinion comes from the -- like the bishop and the stake -82- 08-17-17 Mary Ann president putting me on formal Church discipline for being raped. For... I was... it's a fun story but I was actually threatened with excommunication the week after Kate Kelly's excommunication because I spoke up. Interviewer: About her situation? Mary Ann: Kind of. And that's another long story, but... it's kind of -- I'll tell it. So as I said, I was kind of cloaking, if you want to use that word. So still attending church, still putting on my garments to attend church -Interviewer: Is cloaking like a Star Trek word? (Chuckles) Mary Ann: Yeah. Interviewer: Nice. Okay. (Chuckles) Mary Ann: Yeah, so still passing. That's the word, I think that's the -- sociological -- I was still passing as a believing member of my ward. I was the 16-17-year-old Sunday school teacher. Interviewer: So you were the example and influence, not just passing as believing, but you were the model? (Chuckles) Mary Ann: Sure. And so, I had begun studying the Mormon feminist movement, Ordain Women and I was actually finding hope in that, and re... redefining a more nuanced way to Mormon. Like oh, you can remove your garments and still be a believing, practicing Mormon. It's not black and white. It's not like -- so there's Mormon feminists who are like, "Yeah, I totally believe, but the garments to me represent these horrible practices that subjugate women in the temple so I don't want to perpetuate that, but I love the example that I find of being a woman." You know, so it's very nuanced. I'm like, I can maybe do this. I can be this -- I can help teach this new generation how to be a nuanced believer. Take them out of this black and white either/or, good or bad into well, what are God's first major commandments? To love God and your neighbor like yourself. Okay, so let's get that down. What does that look like? Well, okay, lesson on Word of Wisdom, let's really look at the Word of Wisdom. Okay, first it says, not by commandments or constraint. So what does that mean to you? Now, when it talks about these things like what is -- it says hard liquor. It's been interpreted this way. But did you know Joseph Smith was drinking red wine the night he was killed? Like that shocked me, and I don't want this to shock you. So Joseph Smith had this revelation, but he didn't necessarily -- because it doesn't say wine, it says hard liquors. And so that's subversive in its own regard, but that's how I decided that I might be able to still participate and embrace my Mormon culture and traditions by being a nuanced believer, -83- 08-17-17 Mary Ann like, yeah, we can believe in not drinking, but I want you to understand and make it as your own idea. Because now, given without commandment or constraint, in temple recommend interviews do you follow the Word of Wisdom? That sounds like a commandment to me. [02:48:35] Interviewer: Definitely a consequence if you don't. Mary Ann: Exactly. So, that's what I was doing as the Sunday school teacher and getting hopeful that I could maybe find a way to continue participating. I was asked to speak on Father's Day about the righteous attributes of a priesthood holder and I told this man, "No, I don't think its really, really a good idea that I speak." And I think he thought that that meant that I'm not willing to speak or that I'm shy to speak. And he asked me three times, and I'm like, "Sure, I'll speak, but you're gonna regret this." Interviewer: (Laughs) I'm sorry I'm laughing. Mary Ann: So I was like, "Bruce, yeah, I'm gonna give this talk." So I got up and used the scriptures and the missionary handbook of what the attributes of a righteous priesthood holder are. And then I said, "These attributes have no gender and the reason they don't have any gender is because men and women need to develop these attributes. And the reason they need to develop these attributes is because some day the fullness of the gospel will be restored and women will probably be ordained to have the priesthood and they're gonna need to have these attributes so that they can be righteous priesthood holders." [02:50:01] Interviewer: This is your sacrament meeting talk? Mary Ann: Sacrament meeting talk. Uh-hmm. Interviewer: In the middle of the Kate Kelly controversy? Mary Ann: Uh-huh, yeah. The day that Kate Kelly's disciplinary council was being held. So, and then I gave, I said, "Historically women gave healing blessings. During birth they anointed women to give birth." Patty Sessions, knowing that there were three descendants of Patty Sessions in the audience -- she explicitly in her journal says that Joseph Smith told her to lay hands on women and women participate in priesthood ordinances in the temple. So... next week I was threatened with excommunication. -84- 08-17-17 Mary Ann Interviewer: By your bishop? Mary Ann: By my bishop. Well, yes. Interviewer: The same bishop that you had been in business with his wife? Mary Ann: Yeah. So actually, he approached my husband because patriarchy, and my husband was told to "get your wife under control because I don't want to excommunicate her like Kate Kelly's bishop just excommunicated her." Interviewer: The words "excommunication" were used in this conversation? Mary Ann: Absolutely. Absolutely. Interviewer: That went over probably not so well with your husband given the efforts he had made to be open to ideas and loving and kind, right? Mary Ann: Yeah. So I sat with that for a long time. I'm like, Ooh, ooh, do I want to get excommunicated or do I want to resign? Interviewer: Or do you want your husband to get you under control, that's always a third option. (Chuckles) Mary Ann: Oh, (chuckles) I guess so. So we moved into different wards and I never attended really again. But meeting -- I have a friend who's no longer Mormon. Her husband was the stake executive secretary. And so from the back-end I hear this story that day the bishop, my bishop called the stake president. My stake president put him on speakerphone. My friend's husband was in the room. He called to say, "Mary Ann, this woman, just did this at church, and I threatened her with excommunication, and I need you to back me up and we need to start processing her excommunication." And the stake president said, "You leave her alone. I don't want you to ever say another word to her again." [02:52:38] Interviewer: Whoa, go stake president. Mary Ann: And so I didn't know this until later so I would never have gotten excommunicated. Interviewer: Oh, it's always so complicated when people to do things important together like worship together or you know, have children together or, right? (Chuckles) -85- 08-17-17 Mary Ann Mary Ann: So that's my Mormon story. Interviewer: I have to ask you this question Mary Ann: Sure. Interviewer: Since you've had experience with the Young Women program as an adult, are there changes you'd like to see in that program? Mary Ann: Oh, yes. So I mentioned I loved being the Young Women president, I went to girls' camp and did all these things as a leader. But what I would love to see changed in the Young Women program is an emphasis on their own personal development with regards to their education and career and stills outside of motherhood and marriage. Interviewer: And why is that? Mary Ann: Because while marriage and motherhood are... important... really important roles that need fulfilling, or that you need to fulfill those roles in good and decent ways, they don't -- having that focus on -- it doesn't create aspirations for Young Women beyond getting married and procreating. And life is larger than that. Interviewer: Interesting way to say that. Life is larger than that. Okay, so you feel like the current Young Women program doesn't focus on that and should have greater focus on that? Mary Ann: I believe so. [02:54:27] Interviewer: That being personal career and -- you said individual and career development outside of wife and mother. Mary Ann: Correct. And I don't know if there's been changes in the past four years, which I can't speak to that, but I do know that my cohort of Young Women attendees, and as a 1992 high school graduate was kind of a transitionary cohort of yeah, education is important, girls should go to college, it's a great back-up plan. And I know that's probably been the rhetoric for a good portion of women's experiences. But the women four, five years behind me, they had President Hinckley as their -- I had Ezra Taft Benson. So they were raised on Hinckley, and Hinckley's wife, who regarded education so important and Hinckley's wife went back to school and attended classes as an 80-year-old woman. And so there was this culture of yes, women and education are -86- 08-17-17 Mary Ann great. And so there was a larger -- women finishing their college education just right behind me was more increased. And so maybe that rhetoric has gotten less from when I was in Young Women's. But from my remembrances as the Young Women president, you have your Young Women theme, you have your choice and accountability, your goals, your Personal Progress book. And while it is for a personal development, it's for a personal spiritual development and I'd like them to see it as more of a holistic approach. Interviewer: What's your experience with Personal Progress? The program. Mary Ann: I loved Personal Progress. It was changed while I was a Young Woman. I remember we got new books and I think those are the same books that they're still using today. Interviewer: The little ones, the pink ones, the smaller ones? Mary Ann: Oh, no, that would be the third incarnation. Interviewer: So the white ones? Mary Ann: Yeah, we had the white ones. Interviewer: That is what it was changed to when you were -Mary Ann: It was white when I got in, but I think maybe it was white with a pink cover, or maybe white with a purple cover. Interviewer: And then it had like those parchment sheets and -Mary Ann: Yeah. And that's the one that got introduced when I was a Young Woman. Interviewer: Okay, so they changed it, you were excited about that. Mary Ann: So they changed it, and I thought it was... I thought it did spiritually what it needed to do. It taught me about my divine role because I'm a daughter of God. But that divine role ended at motherhood and becoming a wife. So what does this mean to women who never marry or who are infertile? Their whole worth is questioned because there was never instilled that I, as an individual am enough. [02:57:44] Interviewer: It was always about your relationship with husband or children? -87- 08-17-17 Mary Ann Mary Ann: Yeah. So I'd like there to be some... value that reinforces I, as not a daughter of God, but because -- not necessarily because of my relationship to God, but just because I'm inherently a human being, in our belief system, that means because we're children of God -- that I need to develop a potential that I've been given talents and abilities that need to be used outside of being a wife and a mother, and outside of my Church community. How am I going to contribute in the world? Interviewer: Okay. Did you... did you do the get the jewelry? Mary Ann: Yeah. I did do the jewelry. I loved it. Interviewer: Did you do all that before you were pregnant or during or after? Mary Ann: No, during. Before, during, and after. Interviewer: Oh, so the whole time. Mary Ann: The whole time. Interviewer: Okay. Because you had said there was a shift and I wondered if there was a shift in your Personal Progress involvement as well. Mary Ann: Well, when I mentioned that fall of my sophomore year, in high school was when I was like -- "these girls are mean, these girls are nice. If these girls are nice," so during that shifting I probably put my Personal Progress away. And I was -Interviewer: And then came back to it after? Mary Ann: And then came back to it. Interviewer: This has just been so fabulous. Is there anything else we want to talk about that we haven't talked about? [02:59:20] Mary Ann: I don't know, I covered so much. I took so much -- I'll be like your long interview. Interviewer: Nope, you're not. (Chuckles) I have some that are much longer. Mary Ann: I do -- that probably covers the majority of the highlights. I mean if you have -88- 08-17-17 Mary Ann other questions that might trigger -Interviewer: Oh, I often ask -- I do have two other questions I usually ask. Do you use the phrase "Utah Mormon" and what does it mean to you? Mary Ann: Oh. I do. In my opinion I would say I use it less than others in a sense. But that has no basis in anything other than just self-proclaimed, "oh, I don't do that." Interviewer: Is it a bad thing? (Chuckles) Mary Ann: Yes. I think so. For instance, my aunt, my mother's sister is still living, and she had found out that I was in Utah for Sunstone and I was very guarded with my time in Utah because A, needed to -- like I was at Sunstone to attend these things and meet people. I'm in therapy to deal with my family of origin issues so I'm like, nnhhh. Interviewer: Not necessarily wanting a family reunion? (Chuckles) Mary Ann: Exactly. And my sister kept getting me to try to go see my mother's grave and I'm like, she's like, "Oh, Heber is just a hop, skip, and a jump away from Park City." I'm like, no. And... and I went and saw the grave -- I took my sister to the grave of our fifth great-grandmother who divorced Parley P. Pratt because she was a feminist, and I had no idea that her grave was in Utah. So I'm like, we're gonna so see her grave. But, so Utah Mormons. My aunt said, "Hey, I see you're in Utah, your sister says you're really busy at a conference. But if you have time to chat --" anyway, so we chatted and I'm like, "yeah, I'm at this conference." And she's like, "I've never heard of Sunstone." I said, "Sunstone is kind of this, and it's all types of Mormons come to Sunstone from believing Mormons to ex-Mormons, and by the way, I'm no longer a believing Mormon." And she's like, "Oh that's cool, I'm not really Mormon either anymore." She's like, "These Utah Mormons are -- I just don't like 'em." And she had moved out of Utah. And she left the Church for a while and had come back previous, about the time my mom died and then I think she like -- stepped away again. But she, in a sense, derogatorily used "Utah Mormons." [03:02:16] Interviewer: So what's a Utah Mormon? Mary Ann: Oh... (sigh)... they put on outward appearances of being righteous without necessarily doing the work of being good humans. Interviewer: That was beautifully said. (Chuckles) I'm just thinking all the conferences I can (inaudible) shouldn't think about that should I? So why did you agree to talk to me -89- 08-17-17 Mary Ann today when you heard about this project? Mary Ann: Well, being a researcher myself I'm like, oh, it's important. So women's voices are important, women's stories are important. Amplifying and studying women's lives and lived experiences is important. So that's my overarching desire to do, help others doing research. And... I knew that I kind of -- again, I don't have evidence other than I think that my Young Women experience is probably quite different from so many others and my perspective is not going to be -- I don't necessarily say I want to be the outlier, but I know that in an oral history project I want that nuance to come out. Interviewer: That makes sense. Anything else? This is so great. Mary Ann: I guess only in the sense that I am learning -- like I wanted to repudiate all things Mormon for a while. And I think that's part of the healing process. But I can appreciate and claim it as a Mormon heritage of these are my people, this is my tribe, this is my upbringing. And I'm culturally and ethnically a Mormon. Interviewer: I bet it's taken a while to come to that -- to be able to say that with the peace and confidence that you sound like you're saying it with now. Mary Ann: I think so. That's where I think I've -- it's a fairly recent shift of being able to say. For instance, and I still would probably respond this way, but when asked if I'm Mormon I say, "I was raised Mormon. I'm no longer believing or practicing." [03:05:03] Interviewer: I'm thinking I should ask that question that way. Mary Ann: Okay. Interviewer: (Chuckles) That's a great way to answer that question in terms of honoring who you are, and what you've done. Mary Ann: And I guess -- you probably want to wrap it up, but I have one more thought. I'm also, again, that idea that was emerging when I had lost my belief but was still attending and tried out this nuanced. I started to see Mormon feminists and their nuanced beliefs and that was beautiful. And there are really beautiful teachings that can be found in Mormon faith and Mormon doctrines. And I feel a new desire to honor and respect that. Interviewer: That makes sense. Well, -90- 08-17-17 Mary Ann Mary Ann: There we go. Interviewer: Okay, so tell me what you were just saying? Mary Ann: So, at Sunstone there was an exhibit of artwork done by what's called Women of a Certain Age that are Mormon women who are probably 45 and above; but whatever. So each woman painted an individual portrait of the wives of Brigham Young. They were given descriptions of these women's lives and then they painted their own interpretations. And my favorite portrait was of a woman with red hair and her hair up in a bun, with her back turned so all you could see was her backside. And I knew the nuance and the symbolism of that right away. [03:06:54] And I was like, I bet that's the woman who divorced Brigham Young. And she was. And it spoke to me so much because I understand how hard that is, to step away from a belief system and a community and to stand strong for your own personal beliefs and convictions. Interviewer: You said that was one of the hardest -Mary Ann: And that was one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life. Interviewer: Okay. Mary Ann: And so when I mentioned my grandmother, whose grave I went to visit in Utah, her name is Mary Ann Frost Sterns Pratt. And she was Parley Pratt's second wife. They were both widowers. Parley's first wife died in childbirth, and so Mary Ann was Parley's second only wife before polygamy started. And she divorced him. And she went on to become a midwife, and she financially supported herself and her family and her children. And she was a feminist writer for the Exponent. And advised men to listen to women's voices. So I was thrilled to find -- I now, when I was at MHA, I had met a woman from Heber City, and so I was like, oh, that's where my family's from, do you know so and so? Like Dick Nichol, and everybody knows Dick Nichol. And she's like, "Well how are you related? Blah, blah, blah." And so my normal go-to would've been that I am related through Parley Pratt. But I said, "I am related through Mary Ann Sterns Frost Pratt. She was Parley Pratt's second wife." But I claim her because we need to claim our matriarchs. [03:08:49] Interviewer: Not just our patriarchal lineage. Mary Ann: Yes. So. Once I found out about her, I was like, wait, she probably did some hard things. It's not easy to divorce a prophet. -91- 08-17-17 Mary Ann Interviewer: No, especially not in that time (inaudible) Mary Ann: Exactly. So. Interviewer: Well... [END FILE] -92-