Irene Spencer: Escaping Four Generations of Polygamy

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in 1953 at age 16 Irene Kunz of Utah secretly married a man who was already married to her half-sister my mother warned me against polygamy because she was poor generations from polygamy and she had seen her mother and her grandmother suffer trying to live this law polygamy had been banned by the Mormon Church in 1890 and it was illegal in the US but Eirene belonged to a fringe fundamentalist cult and was duty-bound to become the second wife of Berlin LeBaron I was taught from the very beginning for as long as I can remember that we were to live the principle which meant that we should enter into plural marriage according to the principle women would go to hell if they didn't marry into polygamy Irene hardly knew Berlin the day she married him in fact they had barely spoken and she had fallen in love with another man this was by far the hardest decision she'd ever made I felt absolutely terrible giving up someone that I loved in order to live the principle the threesome hid from the Mormon authorities one of their own priesthood brethren performed a quick ceremony in a secluded park when the moment came for my sister to take my hand and place it in her husband's I saw this sadness in her eyes and I knew that she was just living her religion and trying to smother her feelings as disappointing as the ceremony had been Irene's wedding night was to be stranger yet when I got there we had literally no intimacy the first night he just had me lay on his arm and he told me that his eye was the key to plural marriage I was the key that was going to get him into heaven and someday he hoped to have at least seven wives and fifty children I lay there so disappointed because I wanted to be more than somebody's key to get somewhere Berlin in his first wife Charlotte fled to Mexico to begin a life far from the reach of the law two months later Irene joined them while I was absolutely shocked when I arrived to the ranch it was nothing but three or four adobe houses my led me to a three-room adobe edge and said welcome home Irene and he told me that we had no electricity we had no inside plumbing if I had known Spanish and I had had away and had them been so sheltered then I was so full of fear I would have hitchhiked to out of there and gone back to Salt Lake City by myself Irene stayed but soon realized that poverty and jealousy of Berlin's other wives would be her greatest challenges I really didn't feel loved at all by my husband because he couldn't show me any affection and it was against our religion to have intimacy except for procreation so we didn't bond very well and especially you couldn't really talk to him or say what you wanted the same because you had another wife and the house within four months Irene was expecting but by then Berlin was busy courting his third potential bride Lucy the pain that you feel when a man is giving another woman attention it's like having your skin peeled from your body when my baby was born Charlotte was there to attend me with a midwife Berlin was not home and I gave birth to this little baby girl but I found out later that I had toxemia and that is what she died of she only lived for 20 minutes and then she passed away Irene was distraught in Berlin's news that he would now marry Lucy was hard to swallow we were always told that don't betray the Brethren don't you betray the brother and yet when they married 14 15 year old girls we kept her mouth shut when they married a widow and then married both of her daughters that were young we kept her mouth shut when they whipped women gave them beatings we kept her mouth shut we did not betray the Brethren as years went by more wives meant deeper poverty and more children to feed Irene faithfully delivered a child every year because of Erling couldn't make enough money other mothers had to go to work so at Berlin's request Irene ended up taking care of 26 children getting 15 of the older ones ready for school each day I had to stay up the night before an iron all their uniforms I had to get up in the morning make breakfast which I usually made the hotcakes or whole wheat mush and we didn't even own toilet paper we'd cut up little rags to put out in the outhouse we were that poor during her 12 pregnancy Irene developed blood clots in her legs their polygamist cult didn't believe in medical treatment so she discreetly visited doctors who gave her serious advice they told me have had another child that it might be the end of my life and my husband did not believe in birth control we were told you to go straight to hell if you practiced it and I felt that I could not go on when I had my nervous breakdown I was absolutely in total despair and I had been threatened with hell for so many years if I didn't give my husband wives and I didn't live up to his expectations I'd been threatened with hell and all of a sudden during that break down I looked around and I realized that I was already in hell they couldn't send him in any place because I was already there still Irene endure two more years and incredibly delivered her 13th baby however her endurance had its limits when Berlin announced that he was marrying wife number ten she took seven of her children and headed to the US then our religion the children belong to the man but I took them and stole his children and went to Vegas to a new life I had one bedroom and I had seven children but I was in heaven when I first moved to Las Vegas I ran into some very nice Christians that actually helped me out with food and clothing for my children and I realized that they weren't these wicked Gentiles that I had been taught to believe as a child I saw the love that they had and it really influenced me to see how they acted after three years Irene returned to Mexico she wanted her children to see their father and she asked him for an official divorce he wouldn't even consider it he was in a rush to leave for one of his church conferences in Mexico City and I told him that I was leaving him for good that I was taking the children going back to the states and that I was just living in denial of all of this that I wanted to leave his religion and leave him and move on and he looked at me said you know what maybe I just won't be coming back and I'll do you all a favor Merlin never did come back on the way to the conference he was killed in a head-on car crash all fifty-eight of his children attended the funeral three years later Irene moved to Alaska to live near one of her married sons he had become a Christian and invited Irene to her first Christian service during the singing of the 42nd psalm she had a breakthrough I cried out and I said God whoever you are god I want to know you I want to know the truth and in that moment God actually spoke to me and he called me by name and he said Irene where have you been that you have never praised nor glorified me and I started weeping from the depths of my soul to think that for so many years I had worked and given my husband wives working my way into heaven and Christ whispered and said I am sufficient that day Irene went to the altar and her life has never been the same she tells her story in her book shattered dreams and her message is clear she was completely set free from pain depression and 28 years of deception and bondage God lifted three freight trains of disappointments of jealousy of heartache of disillusionment of being left alone and all the things to him he lifted those three freight trains for my shoulders and I tell you that I have had nothing but peace Christ said he will give you peace and joy and love and I've had a smile on my face ever since and I'm glad to be a child of the king

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Channel: Tipritv .com

Views: 299,658

Rating: 4.7290392 out of 5

Keywords: secretly, married, polygamy, mormon, taught, love, ceremony, sadness, religion, heaven, home, electricity, fear, poverty, affection, bond, pain, distraught, work, poor, despair, hell, endure, christians, divorce, denial, funeral, god, psalm, weeping, soul, alter, bondage, jealousy, joy, peace 700 club irene spe

Id: cB2lUHUb58Q

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Length: 8min 38sec (518 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 26 2011

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