Orson Clark-11/30/81 - pg 9

father was a polygamist. Of course my father was a polygamist. Your grandfather was.

Interviewer: Were they excommunicated when they preached it or were they just left alone? I mean those who went into polygamy after the Manifesto.

Orson Clark: This one in particular that we had, he just picked up and moved away. I never knew where he went. I never heard of him after. He was a very good friend of mine, but he had to go.

Interviewer: Polygamy was a very controversial topic there toward the end.

Orson Clark: It was. Of course the government tried to enforce it and the like. I think if the government would have stayed out of it, maybe made a law against it and stayed out of it rather than come snooping around to people's places and trying to catch people and the like, I think it would have faded out easier and better than it did. The sentiment changed after the Manifesto, it just began to change. Polygamy shouldn't be practiced and therefore they wouldn't. But there were a few that did even then.

Interviewer: It was inevitable that there would be many. In fact, as I said I am amazed that so many were willing to abandon polygamy and that the sentiment did change toward it. It was so rooted in the church that it is a miracle that the sentiment changed as fast as it did against polygamy.

Orson Clark: But I think people who were living in polygamy at the time didn't abandon the women, they were provided for pretty much.

Interviewer: According to the agreement with the government, the existing polygamist families shouldn't be bothered. Only no new polygamist families shouldn't be bothered. Only no new polygamist marriages should be performed as I understand. That was the sort of agreement worked out with the Federal Government. 

Orson Clark: Yes. You have heard the story about Grandfather Clark, Ezra T., how they caught him?

Interviewer: No, how did they catch him?

Orson Clark: He had his hide-outs you know, for the Authorities too. Anyway they caught him and he said, "Give me three months to get things fixed up and then I'll go to prison." (I don't know if it was three months but it was a little period of time.) So they let him go and at the end of that time I heard Father tell about him getting the rocking chair and putting it in a white covered buggy and he took his father down to the prison. He served his time and then Father went and got him.