Orson Clark-11/30/81 - Pg 8

was a good teacher. He was cautioned, we would keep cautioning him but he wouldn't change He said he believed it and he would preach it and teach it.

Interviewer: To me, Orson, it is amazing that polygamy died as easily as it did. The church had defended it, fought for it, suffered for it, and there are many Mormon families who suffered individually for it. Ezra T. was in jail for six months wasn't he? And yet with the Woodruff Manifesto and then the other one in the 1900's the majority of the members of the church who were not married in polygamy went right along with it, except among those of the so-called Fundamentalists. But there seemed to be very little trouble with it. It was the abandonment of a principle in which so much had been invested. I am glad it went out. I am delighted!

Orson Clark: But there is this thing about it with these polygamists. When I was teaching school, there was a group of them here in Farmington and there was a group in Bountiful. Of course I would teach their kids. I'll tell you, they were good people. They weren't on relief. They weren't asking for a hand-out or the like. I know the group that was up here had two boys and a girl and I used to hire them to come down on the farm tehre. They were good kids to work. Their mother would buy our produce for the family. They were lovely people. One of them was a graduate nurse. A lovely girl. Then I was called to be their family teacher. I used to go there, there were two of us. The husband was there a time or two. Finally this one woman, with tears rolling down her cheek she said, "Brother Clark, I'll have to ask you not to come anymore. My husband doesn't want you to come anymore." So that ended that.

Interviewer: By then had they organized their own separate church? Were they holding their own religious services at that time?

Orson Clark: I don't know what they did for their religious part. There is a group in Bountiful and I used to teach those kids. I'll tell you, they were good. They would mind.

Interviewer: Is that the same group that is there now?

Orson Clark: I think part of it. They didn't depend upon the ward nor the town for a living. That's one thing about this polygamy, those people were good people.

Interviewer: There is no doubt about that. What was the church's attitude? Did it search them out to excommunicate them if they were living polygamy or did it leave them alone unless they actively preached it? There are a lot of faithful Mormons who were living polygamy until the twentieth century.

Orson Clark: You grandfather, they were polygamists. My wife's