Wth kinda name is “Rulon”?
I looked around and the name Rulon, while WAY down in the choices for baby names, is not unheard of. There was the Olympic wrestler Rulon Gardner, who was on “The Biggest Loser”
The name is supposed to be Germanic in origin and a variant of the French “Roland”
It’s like when the leader is so awesome, followers say RULE ON, DUDE!
Gardner is also Mormon, as is Denver Bronco’s player Rulon Jones, and Rulon Jeffs (b. 1909) and Rulon Allred (b. 1906) were both polygamous cult leaders born in the early 20th century.
I’m not sure who the “source” of so many Mormons being named Rulon is though. I would understand Brigham, Heber, Orson, Moroni, Alma, Newell, Lorenzo, Jedediah, or Hyrum being frequently heard Mormon names even though they’re not very common- all were the given names of famous early Mormons or of figures from the Book of Mormon- but I’m not familiar with a Rulon of significance before the mid 20th century. Anyone? Rulon Bueller? Rulon Bueller? Is it a name from the Book of Mormon?
Well, maybe…I’ve read a lot about this group and in one of the books written by an escapee…it may be Escape but maybe not, I don’t remember…apparently a LOT of Rulon’s younger wives claimed to suffer from endometriosis, which is treated with birth control pills. The BC expenses for the Rulon household actually became quite high while he was in his coma…make of it what you will.
Bumped.
Jeffs seems to still be exercising control of the FLDS from prison. Some other ugly stuff, too, if true: http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/30/us/polygamist-flds-warren-jeffs-update/index.html
The allegationsagainst Hilldale and Colorado City are particularly disturbing.
I was so hoping this had been bumped to share his obituary. Too bad.
Yes, as DeathMistress of the 2015 Celebrity Death Pool over in Cafe Society, I have what you might call a professional interest in Jeffs. So does one of the players in the game.
Edited to add I didn’t realize how young he is. That’s forty one points hanging there.
Holy fuck, disturbing is right. How do two entire cities get away with running their own little kingdoms inside the US?
Such a weird story. What are the “husbands” getting from this deal? It always made sense what they were getting out of it before.
Because the mayor, the city council, the sherriff – all those people are members of the RLDS and are part of the polygamy compound. They get to be a little fiefdom all their own because outsiders are not allowed to live there.
Honestly, it’s Joseph Smith’s vision.
Not being killed or ostracized.
They aren’t RLDS, they are FLDS. Well, I’ll add that you even spelled sheriff wrong, so, basically, you got nothing right here.
From the article:
It would be nice if someone could uncover the companies working with FLDS so the public could pressure them to break ties.
Since the above was written, one of Rulon’s last plural wives, an apostate named Rebecca Musser, has spoken about her marriage to him. When they married he was 85 and she was 19, and he definitely tried to consummate the marriage but was unable to to because of a combination of his age and condition and her repulsion and crying killing what mood he had. When she refused him sexually on later visits, he spoke to Warren about it and Warren told her to NEVER refuse his father anything. After Rulon’s death, Warren- who married most of his father’s dozens of widows himself- tried to marry her to somebody else but she fled the compound and turned states evidence instead.
Where are the religious liberty advocates on this one?
Wrong religion.
Rulon is not a name from the Book of Mormon, nor are there any famous Rulons in early Mormon history that I’m aware of.
However, it has been a distinct Mormon name, although the strong association with the two famous polygamous leaders may have caused its popularity to drop recently.
As noted above, it should be the FLDS, but you are correct that this is a continuation of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young’s theocracies.
Little known fact: Some historians say that the reason Smith, acting as mayor, ordered the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor which ultimately lead to his arrest on charges of destroying the press and his subsequent murder while in jail, was not because the newspaper carried accounts of Smith’s then secret polygamy, as is commonly thought, but that it hinted at the supposed-to-be super secret Council of Fifty
Smith had had himself crowned King of the World, in addition to the other titles which he openly held, Mayor of Nauvoo and Lieutenant General of the Nauvoo Legend, “outranking” all other officers in the ante-bellum United States. Smith was also actively campaigning for President.
Young, of course, was the governor of Utah Territory, in addition to his role as the prophet of the Mormon church, and exercised almost complete control over the settlements and settlers to a degree much greater than almost anyone else in US history.
The two cities are located in a geographically isolated area, the cult has probably around 10,000 members - most who were born into it and know no other way of life, the cult controls the police force and the post office and all the local stores, restaurants and service providers are cult owned. The fact the the towns straddle state lines leads to jurisdictional confusion.
While women are often allowed to drive around town for errands the vehicles they are given have no license plates and they are not legally licensed to drive. The isolation means that there are a limited number of roads in and out that are can be heavily patrolled and outsiders are discouraged. When local reporters venture in to cover breaking news stories they form caravans and drive in together to help insure their safety.
But really, it is the psychological isolation and " the only life they know" aspect that keeps most women in.
Carolyn Jessop is probably the most well-known escapee, having wrote a couple of bestselling books on her experiences in the cult. But she was pretty high up in the hierarchy- she was closely related to Winston Blackmore, the one time leader of the cult’s Canadian branch and she was married to a Merril Jessop, a high level cult leader ( one of his daughters was the woman traveling with Jeffs when he was captured). She was one of the few women allowed to get a higher education ( a couple of years of teachers college ) in the outside world, she worked for a time at a motel located outside the cult owned by her husband ( IIRC the motel was just over the Nevade state line and was used frequently for marriages and “honeymoons” ( i.e., child rapes) , and she had a severely disabled child which put her in contact with outside health care professionals. This cured her of the induced fear of the outside world a lot of the cult women have.
After her escape her oldest daughter kept running away back to cult and left to go back to them for good on her 18th birthday. It’s a hard world to break out of.