I don't know who Emily Wilson is. I doubt anyone in my family does but she decided to leave a flower on my grandmother's "FindaGrave."

I don't think she knew my grandmother but decided to post this on her page. Poor taste. I think she has created a fantasy life for my grandmother.

"A courageous, smart woman who left future "prophet" Rulon Jeffs because she 'didn't want to be part of a cult.' She then lived happily ever after with a husband who loved only her, and avoided a life of servitude. God bless you Zola.
Left by Emily Wilson on 30 Mar 2018 "
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/60042341/zola-grace-hodson

For starters, someone has sealed my grandmother back to Rulon so the cult she stayed in decided to let that happen to her.

"Rulon Timpson Jeffs was the leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, based in Colorado City, Arizona. Jeffs assumed the leadership of the FLDS Church after the death of Leroy Johnson in 1986. Rulon Jeff’s first wife, Zola (Brown) Jeffs, was divorced from him in April 1941 because he insisted on taking a plural wife. Two weeks later, Jeffs was excommunicated from the LDS Church. He was caught in one of the government roundups of polygamists in 1944 and was held briefly in the Salt Lake County Jail. When Jeffs died in 2002, aged 92, as the leader of what is thought to be America’s largest polygamous sect, he was believed to have 19-75 wives, and to have fathered more than 60 children. (Warren Steed Jeffs, a son of Rulon Jeffs, took over the leadership of the FLDS Church, after the death of his father. The FLDS Church has been a source of controversy over the years because of its polygamist beliefs and allegations of men marrying underage girls. Warren Jeffs achieved notoriety—and prison time—because of his involvement with underage marriage.) Many wives of FLDS patriarch, Rulon Jeffs, are probably alive today and would not be considered suitable candidates for posthumous marriage sealings. In an apparent act of Mormon madness, however, on April 25, 2007—Rulon Jeffs, the polygamist leader with many wives—was sealed by proxy to his now deceased first wife—Zola Grace Brown (Jeffs)—the spouse he was divorced from sixty-six years earlier because she refused to submit to his polygamous urges. The off-the-wall marriage sealing between Jeffs and Brown occurred in the St. George Utah Temple. In the same LDS temple in Utah, Jeffs was posthumously baptized and endowed in 2005, and sealed to his parents in 2006."
http://www.pensitoreview.com/2009/06/02/brother-ervil-brother-ross-brother-rulon/

Also, my grandparents (the guy she married 4 years after divorcing Rulon) lived apart from each other most of their retirement time. She wasn't retired because she never worked after marrying the first time.

So "happily ever after" is a gross exaggeration. They were well known not to getting along by everyone who knew them. In fact, she confided in my father shortly before her death (and he told me) that she was extremely sad that she hadn't found an "eternal companion" before she was going to die.

How's that for "happily ever after with a husband who loved only her"?

And while I'm speaking for the dead I might as well let you know that when my mother told Waldo (Zola's husband) about my father's sexual molestation of their adopted daughters he said it was a shame "Dick(my father)" had gotten caught.

But the real kicker with regards to Sister Emily is her other offerings to the pages of the dead.

https://www.findagrave.com/user/49526851/memorial?type=addedFlowers&page=1#sr-60042341

It is obvious she knew polygamists with whom my grandmother would never, ever have associated.

She left Rulon and that was probably the last polygamist (that she knew because my sister was hiding her polygamy from her) she thought she had to deal with.

She wasn't a strong woman. She left Rulon because he was taking another wife and not to leave a cult. She relied on her father completely to do it. And he had to talk her into it. It wasn't much of a talking into. She couldn't be the socialite she was used to being with Rulon anymore. He had found "The Truth" from his polygamist kin. Rulon didn't put up any fight. It was obvious if you had known Zola that she would never ever have been complicit with polygamy or worn a prairie dress. She was always stylish according to my mother.

And as an aside. I found Rulon's page and I must say it is apropos that Warren is right there with him along with that creepy photo of the teen sisters who were marrying Rulon in that photo. That is a classic.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/10642480/rulon-timpson-jeffs

Is there nothing family members can do? Can they ask TSCC to remove/unseal her from Rulon?

I think I'm the only one who cares. My Exmo brother doesn't. My siblings either don't know or don't care since I got it out there on their grapevine.

My brother and I suspect my polygamist sister did it pretending to be a mainstream member and not what she is - a huge player (as much as a female can be) in the AUB.

Either way, I think my father (Zola's firstborn) probably wouldn't have a problem with it. If I could talk to him. I think he has dementia. He is coherent at times I'm told but mostly not.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/29/2018 11:38AM by Elder Berry.

Maybe do what you can to speak out about it. Voice your disagreement. Contact whomever you can. Let it be known to TSCC that she divorced him in life and shouldn't be connected to him in death.


JMHO

I think I will speak to my family more about it. Her children - my father, his brother and his half sister - would probably care less.

I read this piece about Zola and thought it sounded like it must have been in the "pioneer days" as we used to call it here in Zion.

And then I read the biography part and see that she was born 10 days earlier than my mother, who was born April 22, 1911. She was a good Mormon for her life but I know that she hated polygamy with a passion but not sure she knew any except the group that had a home drapery business.

They were located close to the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon where they had a big homesite for a big family. And there draperies were made so they could sell them cheaper than the ones at JC Penney at Cottonwood Mall, where my mom worked. THey could give an estimate for a draper job and then find themselves underbid by 20% from the polygs, as we called them.

And this year, I'm a nearly a year older than my mother was when she died, after 2 ugly years of cancer. Both of these things make me feel even older.

memikeyounot Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I read this piece about Zola and thought it
> sounded like it must have been in the "pioneer
> days" as we used to call it here in Zion.

Someone posted recently that probably a lot of the sitting highest Mormon leaders have grandparents who were polygamists. I had a grandfather bound and determined to continue "The Principal."

From what I gather, being a "polyg" is like going back to those times. It is my dysfunctional and disconnected big family with even more neglected and emotionally abandoned children...

I stumbled onto this fascinating discussion while searching what had happened to Zola. I was a missionary in Ontario, Canada in 1969 when President Hugh B Brown came to visit.

Zola spoke to the missionaries at one meeting and I recall being moved by her apparent class, and her comment that President Brown "was the kind of good Father that everyone wants." She also made reference to being divorced with some apparent discomfort. I didn't find out until recently that her ex husband was Jeffs.

Interesting. Thanks for sharing. My grandmother worshipped her father. I think he was a good one except he worshipped there church and wasn't home much from what I can gather.