Former Mormon Polygamist Speaks Out

Poverty, fifty-eight children, nine sister-wives, and a murderous, rival cult leader brother-in-law - Irene Spencer's life story shows the destructive nature of polygamy


By Jeremy Reynalds
Special to ASSIST Ministries

April 2008

Illegal in the U.S. and banned by the mainline Mormon church in 1890, the practice of polygamy still survives today. Some people say it may be on the verge of a comeback. Those still practicing plural marriage, termed fundamentalists, believe in attaining God-like status based on the number of wives and children a man possesses.

Book Cover, Shattered Dreams

According to a news release from her publicist, at 16 years old Irene Spencer became the second wife of her brother-in-law Verlan LeBaron in 1953. From a fourth generation polygamous family, it had been pounded into the young girl that plural marriage was required to enter heaven. A few months later, the government raided one of the polygamists' camps at Short Creek, Arizona and the LeBarons fled to Mexico, joining Verlan's fundamentalist brothers Joel and Ervil.

Over a half century later, Spencer, now in a monogamous marriage, reveals the trials and tribulations of being a polygamist's wife. "I wanted to be able to tell it like it is," says Spencer in her book, "Shattered Dreams."

She continued, "All the books I had read on Mormon polygamy were vivid accounts of sacrificing women who upheld and emphatically stated they loved 'the Principle.' Yet, I was convinced that these committed women had done as I'd been taught to do-to.stubbornly maintain its advantages over monogamy. They had been forbidden to give way to their true feelings, so they smothered their own agony and wrenching pain, as I too had been emphatically instructed to do."

Spencer's publisher commented that her obedience, intended to guarantee her a place in heaven, landed her in hell on earth for the next twenty-five years, moving around a variety of encampments in the Mexican deserts, mountains, Nicaragua and later, California.

On the run from LeBaron's brother, Ervil, a psychotic who with his cult followers butchered twenty-five to thirty people including former wives, a daughter, and rival members of polygamous clans including brother Joel, the family-or at least Verlan-moved frequently. Most of their dwellings were just shacks with no electricity, running water, heat or the most minimal of necessities - all the while housing a growing community of children and an expanding number of wives.

During her twenty-eight year marriage to LeBaron, who later became President of The Church of The Firstborn, a cult group within the fundamentalist Mormon movement, Spencer gave birth to 13 of LeBaron's 58 while sharing her husband with nine other women.

They shared communal chores, moving often, living in sub-standard conditions in remote villages, mass child-rearing-for a time caring for 26 children on her own-Spencer's toughest cross to bear was sharing her husband's love.

Spencer finally made good on repeated threats by leaving LeBaron after 24 years of marriage. However, she was pulled back into the situation to live another year with her husband after receiving an ominous prediction, which turned out to finally release her completely from Verlan's spell. He was killed in a car wreck in 1981.