Every act of fitness is part of how the Short Creek community rebuilds

June 17, 2024 11:55 AM

Fifteen-year-old Darlene hadn’t been in a classroom since fourth grade. She worked 11-hour days at a chicken restaurant, a step up from the slaughterhouse where she’d worked when she was younger. Every paycheck went to her parents who turned it over to the prophet. Everything the hardworking people did was in service to the prophet and to build up the church. Darlene’s future was determined for her: She’d be a wife and mother, and serve the church and her husband. from This Is Not an Escape Story [Runner's World; ungated]
posted by chavenet (16 comments total)

Thank you chavenet, this is a wonderful story.
posted by emjaybee at 12:21 PM on June 17 [7 favorites]

It really is — so many people helping each other out of so much hurt.
posted by clew at 12:32 PM on June 17 [2 favorites]

Excellent story, thanks for sharing. I remember seeing a Lifetime-type TV movie back in the 1980s called The Child Bride of Short Creek (featuring a young Helen Hunt). Even though the preface indicated the film was based on "actual events", I figured that most of it was exaggerated for ratings purposes. Who knew that 15-year-olds were actually being married off....
posted by Oriole Adams at 12:54 PM on June 17 [1 favorite]

As someone whose life was saved by the running community as a kid and who has found my way back to it again in my 40s to find it's just as great as I remember, this story just made me so weepy. I'm just so happy for these folks that their town is being reborn and that they've made themselves a running community to support one another out of absolutely nothing.

A few previouslies for folks who aren't familiar with FLDS and Short Creek
A Polygamist Cult's Last Stand: The Rise and Fall of Warren Jeffs (2016 lots of older previousliers there)

and a similar story of Short Creek's recovery from 2018 How Do You Rebuild Your Life After Leaving a Polygamous Sect?
posted by hydropsyche at 1:12 PM on June 17 [6 favorites]

is it normal in running writing to always mention shoes, outfits, and running times when discussing someone? i found it jarring, but i don't participate in fitness culture, so maybe that's the norm and not the author being weird?

great story, i can appreciate how reclaiming your physicality is a great way to experience empowerment after so many years in a community that tries to take your agency away.
posted by LegallyBread at 1:49 PM on June 17 [5 favorites]

is it normal in running writing to always mention shoes, outfits, and running times when discussing someone?

Oh god yeah. Runner's World is very much part of the corporate running media scene, but even on a casual level at my run club a lot of conversations during runs revolve around shoes, clothing, watches, personal record (PR) times, which race distance is best, etc etc.
posted by fortitude25 at 1:53 PM on June 17 [16 favorites]

I’d been digging into my family’s ties to the FLDS, a complicated history that goes back several generations. It involves Mormon apostles and murder and polygamy, and no one in my family talked about it when I was growing up.

I kept reading to find out about the murder, but it was never mentioned again.
posted by Miss Cellania at 2:27 PM on June 17 [5 favorites]

And just remember, plenty of Republicans want to weaken or destroy the already shaky and very problematic child marriage laws
posted by Jacen at 3:25 PM on June 17 [3 favorites]

GodDAMNIT I am so sick of these cults of sociopathic MEN literally keeping people hostage and torturing them for their own sick pleasures, they should be purged from earth. Fuck.
posted by tristeza at 3:31 PM on June 17 [12 favorites]

Oriole Adams, The Child Bride of Short Creek was set in 1953. For perspective, as mainstream a preacher as Jimmy Swaggart was, his cousin, musician Jerry Lee Lewis, married 13 year old Myra Gale Brown in 1957 and though it tanked his career it was clearly accepted within his community.

Pew Research says 57,800 minors aged 15 to 17 are currently married in the US and Unchained At Last says that between 2000 and 2018, five ten year olds, an eleven year old, fourteen twelve year olds, seventy eight 13 year olds, 1,233 14 year olds, 8,199 fifteen year olds, 63,956 sixteen and 148,944 seventeen year olds were married.

And, of course, a hell of a lot of those marriages are between adult men and young girls.

Feel free to draw your own conclusions about correlations between communities most up in arms over drag queens and "the gays" as groomers, and those who are engaged in this sort of coercive behavior.

Good story, I'm glad that people are finding healing, and I'm glad that people in these places are finding each other and banding together and helping to stand up against the local power structures.
posted by straw at 3:34 PM on June 17 [14 favorites]

California is one of just four states in the nation with no minimum age for marriage.
posted by Ideefixe at 5:09 PM on June 17 [2 favorites]

The obsession with gear, brands, and running times is so pervasive and yet also so off-putting that Runners World has/had a columnist called The Penguin who celebrated slow running, walking, and just finishing an event as legitimate participation in running, for folks who were discouraged before they even started. His column sign off is/was “Waddle on, friends.” I enjoy and appreciate being able to run as fast as I can as far as I can, but I also love the Penguin when I’m coming back from illness or injury.
posted by toodleydoodley at 5:44 PM on June 17 [10 favorites]

In this story I actually think the writer has used clothing to underpin the transformation in Short Creek - from trying to run in long dresses over FLDS garments, to running in jeans, work boots, etc. to acquiring some of the gear (especially shoes) that a lot of runners either care about, treat themselves with - or label themselves a tribe, kind of full circle back to the garments. I think it’s nicely done as well as Runner’s World’s house style.

Don’t let your knee jerk reaction prevent you from absorbing that outer transformation that matches the inner one, just because it’s often an ad.

This is really a beautiful story. I’ve come to see sport/activity as a pillar of recovery for myself and it really can be transformational. It’s so hard, when you’ve absorbed that your body is for the dictates of others, to take your own desires to use it for strength seriously. It’s hard to go shopping for an “athlete’s” bra…I remember when my former boss/friend found out I was starting to run and she took me to The Runner’s Shop for shoes and a bra. It was weirdly hard to listen to her explain what kind of support is different for runners, how you want it to adjust, why it’s worth the money. But it was so healthy for me to deal with breasts in service of my goals, not anyone else’s.

Not sure I’m getting this across but I know the women in this article get it. Thank you for posting.
posted by warriorqueen at 5:06 AM on June 18 [15 favorites]

Who knew that 15-year-olds were actually being married off....

There's a clip out there of one of the Duck Dynasty guys telling an audience that 15 or 16 is the right age for a bride, because if you let them reach twenty they'll have ideas of their own and "pick your pocket instead of your ducks."

As always, it is about control. It is about marrying not for love, but to fill a role, as if selecting from job applicants for the "do domestic tasks and have and raise kids and don't raise a fuss" position in the family.

Running is an excellent outlet for self-discovery because it's easy to do, but there's endless room for growth and stretching one's limits and really feeling improvement deep down. When you're wrestling with self-doubt and wondering what you're truly capable of as a person, it's one of many elemental and straightforward measuring sticks you can reach for.
posted by delfin at 6:30 AM on June 18 [8 favorites]

Marx almost had it right. Religion is not "the opium of the masses", it's the means by which the patriarchy exerts control.
posted by tommasz at 6:45 AM on June 18 [5 favorites]

This was so moving.

I found myself wondering about the full stories of some of the women mentioned briefly - the author's great-great-grandmother Louisa, who "rebuilt her life in San Francisco and never went back to Utah," and Anj's mother-in-law, Donia Jessop: "In 2017, Donia became the first woman mayor of the previously patriarchal town. She was re-elected in 2021 and is still in office."

But the gut punch was this:

In the November dawn, people mill about before the race, sipping hot cocoa and coffee in the crisp air. Strollers line the sidelines, and kids play.

They. Play.

I want to stand up and cheer Darlene for all the hours and work and love she's put into building a community of support and encouragement to replace prohibition and punishment.

What a hero.

Thank you so much for posting this, chavenet. I am glad and grateful to have had the opportunity to read it.
posted by kristi at 6:34 PM on June 24 [3 favorites]