Interview with Claude T. Cawley

Content Warning: Contains words that are inherently offensive, insensitive and harmful.

Claude Cawley was interviewed by Stephanie Griswold on August 5, 2019 in Centennial Park, Arizona. He discusses his childhood and being part of the Fundamentalist Latter-day Saints. Kathleen Broeder assisted.

SG:Today is August 5th, 2019. I'm Stephanie Griswold with Claude Cawley and our recorder is Kathleen --

KB:Kathleen Broeder.

SG:Broeder. Sorry! I'm always afraid when I mess up people's last names. Mr. Cawley, could you please spell your first and last name and give us your date of birth and place of birth?

CC:First name is Claude: C-L-A-U-D-E. Last name is Cawley: C-A-W-L-E-Y. I was born in Ogden, Utah [on] fourteenth of June 1937.

SG:Oh, and we're in Centennial Park, Arizona.

CC:Yes, we're having this discussion in Centennial Park, Arizona.

SG:Would you tell us a little bit about where you grew up? If whether it be in Ogden or any places you lived in your childhood.

CC:Yeah, I was born in Ogden and lived there until I was seven-years-old. My father was killed when I was six-months-old, so I lived with my grandmother and my aunt and my mother in my grandfather's house there in Ogden. He died, my grandfather, when I was about two-and-a-half-years-old, so I have no specific 00:02:00memories of him or my father.

SG:And this was your paternal grandparents?

CC:This was my maternal grandparents and they are Woolley family. Franklin Benjamin Woolley and Ellie Seegmiller Woolley was my grandmother. She was born in Toquerville. A daughter of Dan Seegmiller and she was a daughter of his plural wife. They lived in Kanab early on and then moved to Logan and then moved to Ogden where they finally settled for the latter part of their lives. They had twelve children: three boys and [nine] girls, and that's the environment in 00:03:00which I grew up in. These are the people that I knew when I was a child: my aunts, my mother and my grandmother, Aunt Mary who lived in the house. I lived with them, so they were the principal rearers of me. I essentially grew up as an only child in that environment. There were other -- I had cousins that were living very close by that I associated with, but most of my time was with these three adults. I spent one year living in Los Angeles and went to kindergarten there: Los Angeles. My mother went there under circumstances that I have no memory of, but her brother was in the army -- both of her brothers, the young ones. She was the youngest child and then these two brothers preceded her in the order of birth and the oldest child was a boy and then the between was all these girls. The wife of one of my uncles was in the army and stationed I guess there 00:04:00or had been stationed there and his wife went there. My mother went to kind of join her and that lasted for a year.

Came back and started the first grade in Ogden and in the middle of the second grade my mother moved with me to Salt Lake, and from that point on I lived in Salt Lake. Went through the Salt Lake City school system and the Granite school system. So, my first school in the Salt Lake school was actually a little church house that was on 21st east and 21st south, which is now occupied by a service station, but at that time it was a little church house. I went to the second grade and then they bussed me to Wasatch Elementary in the third grade through 00:05:00the sixth grade and then I went to the seventh grade at Forest Elementary and the eighth and ninth grade at the junior high school there -- Now, I can't remember the name of it. Why not? Anyway, Forest Elementary today doesn't exist. There's a Smith's supermarket on that property there on 21st south about 9th 00:06:00East. And Irving Junior High School, which is up the street up on 21st south, and that no longer is a school, but the building is there and it's used for business purposes now. I went to South High that -- it no longer exists. Salt Lake Community College occupies the building the South High was in down on State Street and about 17th South. Then, I spent a year at South High in my sophomore year in high school, and then we moved out in to Holladay and I spent junior and senior year at Olympus High -- graduated in 1955 from Olympus High. The house we lived in Holladay has been torn down. All of my tracks are covered.

SG:During your school age time, what could you say about your religious 00:07:00upbringing especially leading away from Woolley [Inaudible]?

CC:My mother was a member of the church until she joined the fundamentalist group. She married Alma A. Timpson, and that was about in 1944, and so then it was necessary to move to Salt Lake -- we came. So, my experience early on up until then was in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. We were members of the 9th ward up there in Ogden and I went to Sunday school there and into meetings there, so that I had some of flavor of how the church goes. But, after being seven-years-old she moved to Salt Lake and she had affiliated 00:08:00herself with fundamentalist Mormons. My experience from that point on has been with the fundamentalist group.

SG:Do you recall -- Because obviously now especially in the 21st century, but also in the late 20th century we start to see a lot of their specific--

[Cellphone Rings]

CC:That's my fault.

SG:Okay. I was like, "I swear I turned mine off!" Now we know that a lot of the groups very separate and very kind of scattered all over geographically and I guess socially and culturally--

CC:And philosophically as well.

SG:Philosophically, right. But, I believe in the earlier 20th century that wasn't necessarily the case, so you do you recall how that--

CC:Yes, I can kind of describe the history of all that. The early days of the fundamentalist movement, as far as perpetuating the practice of plural marriage goes, were done within the church in a sense. That is to say that presidents of the church after Wilford Woodruff, Lorenzo Snow, and Joseph F. Smith participated in continuing to do plural marriages even though the manifesto had been signed by Wilford Woodruff 00:09:00and accepted by the church in 1890 that they continued that work. It was done under auspices of the authority given by John Taylor" in 1886. You probably know about the famous 1886 meeting and our disputes to just what happened there. But, as far as this fundamentalist movement is concerned that was the origin of the movement where men were given authority to carry that work on. If you're going to carry that work on, you're going to carry all the work on. The authority that's able to carry on the sealing ordinances is all the authority there is and the keys that go along with it, speaking in Mormon terms. After John Taylor and Wilford Woodruff, who were the last men alive holding that 00:10:00authority from Joseph Smith -- they got from Joseph Smith, it went into the hands John W. Woolley and his son Loren Woolley when John W. Woolley died.

Now, these are what we refer to as the underground days because of federal officers were -- had been prosecuting polygamy and anti-polygamy laws were being 00:11:00enforced, and the church was putting out to the world the face they had issued the manifesto and were no longer performing plural marriages and that was not true. They were, but they were doing it clandestinely, and even [some of] those marriages were solemnized in the temples and many others outside the temples. You can read John Taylor's testimony where says it's the authority that counts not the place where that ordinance is performed, and so they were all done in secret because of the circumstances. Eventually, John W. Woolley was excommunicated from the church and Loren Woolley was excommunicated from the church. Lauren Woolley's successor, Joseph Leslie Broadbent, was excommunicated from the church. And it no 00:12:00longer became viable to have church auspices fostering this practice and it had to be done then on the outside, but many of the people that were engaged with that priesthood authority maintained their membership of the church. Then, they took the advice and counsel John Woolley and later on Loren Woolley. And as it came down from those men that were set apart by John Taylor in 1886. Loren Woolley was the last living one of those, and so he passed that authority onto another group of men and the first one was Joseph Leslie Broadbent and then John Y. Barlow and Joseph W. Musser and there were others, but those were the key people. So, there began to be people gathering around these men and Brother Broadbent started having what they called Cottage Meetings. They would meet in a person's house and gathering and teaching people.

During that period of time, we're talking about 1930 -- mid 1930s and late 00:13:001930s, Loren Woolley died in '37 -- not '37, '35 and I was born in '37. And so there came to be a following and the following was pretty much attached to Loren C. Woolley, and there's a group of people that hung on his words and took what he had to say as being every word the gospel's truth. And they didn't understand that in Mormonism there are eternal principles, there are policies and practices and projects that are executed. And all of things it's the eternal principles that are unchangeable, policies change. What the 00:14:00authority administers at one period of time has to be maybe different in another period of time, not the principles but the practices. You can see. If a group of people was gathering around the priesthood, you have to have a way to handle them as a people. Loren Woolley never had this problem. It was just a collection of individuals that would come and talk to him. So, the group of people grew but Leslie Broadbent died. He died within a year of Loren Woolley and that left John Y. Barlow who was the next one because the presidency -- what they called the Priesthood Council goes by seniority of ordination, and it was Brother Broadbent, Brother Barlow, Joseph W. Musser, and then down to the other men that were called.

SG:So, before we get to John Y. Barlow, as your family 00:15:00became a part of the fundamentalist Mormon movement in your childhood how did that -- I don't want to say impact because maybe it didn't necessarily make a big change, but how did that affect your life personally?

CC:It was a seamless transition for me at age seven and I just went with mother and she was diligent in teaching me gospel of Jesus Christ and after she joined the Fundamentalist Work that was the orientation that I had, so from a very young age I had that orientation.

SG:And was there group distinctions? Was there group distinctions as you were growing up or changes in group distinction?

CC:Yes! Yes, I understood the group and I understood the church.

SG:I meant within the fundamentalist movement as you were growing up in fundamentalist Mormonism, did you start seeing group distinctions?

CC:Yes, I'm getting there in telling you this story because it goes clear back to Loren Woolley.

SG:Right.

CC:The people that revered him took everything he said as being the gospel truth and anything deviating from that was not good, was bad, and yet when John Y. Barlow came into the presidency he had to do things a little a different cause he a people on hand that were being excommunicated from the church during the mid '30s and so on into the '40s. Loren Woolley had counseled the people because they came to him and they would say, "We're being 00:17:00disfellowshipped, we're being --" Not being disfellowshipped, "We're affiliated with the priesthood, and what do you want us to do?"

And Loren Woolley said, "You're a member of the church. You keep going to meetings, you pay your tithing to the church, and you do all these things." And that was good advice until they got excommunicated, but then after that the church wouldn't accept their tithing and they were on the outside. It became no longer possible to use any of the facilities of the church for these people and their lives. They were kicked out so to speak and the priesthood had to handle that. This is one good example of what I'm talking about: the paying of tithing. They couldn't pay tithing to the church anymore. And on the other hand, after Loren Woolley died and Brother Broadbent died, John Y. Barlow had a group of people that he had to manage and it was, to me, a no-brainer, quite normal that he would accept their tithing.

The people that were hanging onto Loren Woolley said, "Loren Woolley said pay your tithing to the church. He has no right to collect the tithing." That's a 00:18:00near-sighted view. If he has the authority he claims to have, he can collect tithing. But, that's an example of the kinds of things that these people in following Loren Woolley had feelings against John Y. Barlow and they became disenchanted with Brother Barlow.

And so, we talk about these splits that occurred -- this really wasn't a split because it went to the each individual. It was just an individual and how they felt, and some of them affiliated with themselves with the Work and continued on their own with their loyalty to Loren Woolley. There are some publications coming from that era. I think I have some here in my bookcase. What's the name 00:19:00of these boys that did the publishing? I can't remember. I can probably go and find one over there, but their view and memoirs of Loren Woolley and various things they published. Those people made the mistake, which they were counseled not to make and people have been counseled this way all through these years that you cannot attach yourself to the man, it's the authority that counts. The man is a man. Every man has his weaknesses and you have to recognize that, but you have to respect the authority. They didn't. They hung onto the man and Loren Woolley said, "I'm going to go." Meaning he's going to be dying but he says, "My body will stay here for people to worship." Those people ended up disaffiliated with the fundamentalist movement as far the administration of priesthood went and we call them independents. There's a larger group of independents today that comes from a 00:20:00different source but that's later in history, but these are the original ones that you find out on their own hanging onto the words of Loren Woolley and they couldn't accept Brother John Y. Barlow and his administration. And there were some pretty strong feelings against Brother Barlow because he did things they thought, in their mind, Loren Woolley didn't approve of or wouldn't have approved of, and they had feelings against Brother Barlow, but it's pretty easy to see that he had a problem that was quite different from Loren Woolley's. And this group of people began to grow. By the mid-1940s -- the early 1940s, you had a congregation that was fairly sizeable and they located in what we call the Priesthood Home there in Salt Lake City, 2157 Lincoln Street. They modified the upstairs of that building to be a meeting 00:21:00hall because they had so many people and the fire marshal wouldn't let them meet there because it didn't keep the fire code, so they had to improvise. They met in the living room and people were on the stairways and in the other rooms. It was just a home there. I attended meetings there when I was eight-years-old so I have memories of that.

Many of these people I'm talking about didn't necessarily go away. They attended meetings. You can read the transcripts of those meetings and they're there and they're called on to talk, they're bearing their testimony, but the 1944 raid came along. In 1944, a group of these men affiliated with the fundamentalist movement were put in jail. So, you had a 00:22:00congregation probably in attending meetings that was upwards of 300 people. These men were put in jail, and more or less put an end to those meetings. So, 00:23:00by 1945 there's no more transcripts of those meetings because they weren't being held. When the Brethren went through the courts and spent their time in jail, came out, and began meeting again you had about ten percent of what the original congregation had been and they would meet in homes and had cottage meetings. Now you have another group of people that got disenchanted with [what] happened when the brethren were in prison. They kind of got divided because the state authorities took a look at the situation and they said, "These men really don't belong in prison." Which they didn't. The warden of the prison said, "You men don't belong here." It was embarrassing that they had put them in the first 00:24:00place because they were not criminals, other than disobeying the law against plural marriage. Other than that, they were upstanding citizens and family men and you really couldn't find anything against them. So, they came and said, "Okay, we will give you a way to get out of here. We want you to sign this oath that you will not teach plural marriage, you'll not practice it, blah blah blah."

And some of the men looked at that and said, "Okay, we'll get out." And they signed it.

And some of them said, "No, it's a violation of our principles. We aren't going to do that." And they stayed in, so you had that division.

My stepfather, Alma A. Timpson who was the one my mother married, told me about this incident and there are some -- if you get into the lore of this, there [are] some dreams people had and you can probably find a record of those, but this is what he said: "They came before the man who was going to administer this 00:25:00oath and let them out of jail." He said, "He knew we weren't going to keep this oath, we knew we weren't going to keep this oath. It was just a way to get us out of prison because they were embarrassed having us in there."

So, that's what happened and that's exactly what happened. Those men went out - He was one of them, he signed it, and continued to live with all of his families. And that's what every one of those brothers did, but the feelings that were generated by those who stayed in caused the split. Coming out, the only one I know -- some of them died, so I can't speak for them, but the ones who survived living years and years after they served their term -- they stayed and served their term -- The only one I know of that came back and associated with the group was Charles F. Zitting. And of course, he had a position on the 00:26:00Priesthood council. He was called by Loren Woolley. And when he came out and came back to meeting, the brethren put him up on the stand with them and that was his position. So, Brother Barlow and Brother Musser welcomed him back and he came back and he understood enough to realize his position, but these other men had a grudge and they didn't like -- I can name some names, but unless you want to I won't do it.

SG:It's all your comfort level. Whatever you'd like to say we can --

CC:Okay, I don't want to. But this is the origin of another group of independents, and that group is large today. Most of them are around Salt Lake City, but there's a whole community of them down here South of 00:27:00Centennial Park, what we call "Barlowville." A lot of them are Barlows, not necessarily John Y. Barlow's decedents but his brother -- brothers. He had more than one. And those are the ones primarily that we call independents today because the others have pretty well died off. I mean, it's been a long time. They ascribed to the idea that they have authority because they've been ordained by the brethren to be given Melchizedek priesthood and the office of an Elder in the church. Therefore, they are family heads and they can administer all there is to administer to their family and they don't need a priesthood head, which is totally contrary to all of the history of 00:28:00Mormonism if you're familiar with it. There's always been authority over and they don't want to recognize it because they think they can take it under themselves, so that's why we call them independents. They have continued to live their lives. They have come up with excuses for performing plural marriages when they don't have the authority to do it, and all kinds of things that they do, which I don't associate with them so I'm not familiar with particularly. I can only comment in the slightest way about what they really do, but that's really what you might call the first split in the group was as a result of the '44 Raid and this business that happened in not coming out of prison and staying in, which was the crux of that whole split in the origin of these independents we talk about.

So, it took 1944 to 1949 basically for all of the court action and all of the 00:29:00serving of terms in jail and so forth to happen. Brother Lewis A. Keltch went to jail twice in that period of time. During this period of time as well, starting in about 1941, Brother Barlow began to give authority to certain men, and again there was a backlash against that. People thought, "He has no right to do that!" I don't understand how they can put requirements on somebody that's over them in 00:30:00the Priesthood. And there were very strong feelings against Brother Barlow, and there was a -- not a defacto split, but a philosophical you might say split among the people between those who looked up to and respected Joseph W. Musser and those who looked up to and respected John Y. Barlow. There were people championing one side or the other that sowed discord or tried to sow discord between those two men or made claims that they were at odds with each other. I don't think that is historically correct. It's just people's temperament. Brother John Barlow and Brother Joseph W. Musser were very close. And if you want to get a little bit of the flavor from someone who was very 00:31:00closely associated, Joseph W. Musser's son, Guy -- If you read in these Priesthood Discoursers book some of his sermons he talks about the relationship between John Y. Barlow and his father, which he was right on the spot and had personal experience. You can take his word before you can take other people's word. He recounts in any number of his sermons different experiences with his father and some of them relate to John Y. Barlow and their relationship and you'll get a picture of it. And there was not any kind of division between those 00:32:00two men, but Joseph W. Musser was in Salt Lake and John Y. Barlow was here in Short Creek a lot of the time -- He ended up going back to Salt Lake. So, that wasn't a formal split but it was a sentiment and attitude on the part of the people -- I can say on philosophical grounds for want of a better term.

SG:As you're growing up through all of this development and jail times and everything with your step-father going to jail with the men that were holding the Priesthood to the group that you were with -- You mentioned you had been to the meetings in Salt Lake. What was your personal memory of these incredibly 00:33:00important men in Mormon terminology?

CC:I knew Joseph W. Musser on a personal basis. He was a guest in our home often enough from the time I was eight-years-old till I was twelve, thirteen-years-old. I never did know John Y. Barlow personally. I didn't have the privilege of associating in the venues where he was present, except in meeting but I was too young to even identify all the different men at that time. I didn't know him personally. I knew of him. I knew his wife, Susie Taggart Barlow. I knew her personally, but I just didn't get the 00:34:00opportunity to have contact on a personal basis with Brother Barlow, so I don't know anything about him other than what I hear. It's just the way my life went, so the division people were trying to make between those two men I never was confronted with and I was young besides. Brother Musser died in 1954 and Brother Barlow died in 1949. And in the process from '41 to '49 he called this other group, so at one time there were as many as twelve men that held that authority that were in the Priesthood council.

SG:And what were you taught whether it was at the time or later about the 00:35:00importance of him being able to call people? You mentioned that some people were like, "He doesn't have the right." But I imagine that it's fairly important to continue ordaining people because you continue a line of succession in the priesthood authority.

CC:Yes, if you take Loren Woolley's testimony, which you find -- it's recorded in his affidavit, Part of what he says is, "These men were given authority by John Taylor and instructed by him in the eight-hour meeting on that time in 1886." And he says in his affidavit that they were authorized to ordain others as the need arose, so these people who think John Y. Barlow is out of order in doing this had to come up with some kind of 00:36:00a pretext. In fact, as far as plural marriage is concerned this is the pretext of the independents. They claim the only authority those were given was authority to perpetuate plural marriage and that's all they could do. A man holding the keys -- if you go to the 132nd section of the Doctrine and Covenants it says there is only one man on the earth at a time hold these keys. The man holding the keys can delegate other men to perform plural marriages. Some of these independents think they've had that delegation. I only know of one that did and to my knowledge he was delegated to perform one and then he thought that gave him authority to perform others and went ahead and did it and that was out of order because he didn't get that kind 00:37:00of delegation. If you go back into the history, John W. Taylor and Matthias Cawley for example were given that delegation and they performed plural marriages --and some of the temple presidents: Canada at Cardston in the Salt Lake temple, so that was done and others far as that goes because you had a situation where the left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing and they had to go and do that. But, this is their claim: the only authority given to those men was to seal plural marriages and they didn't have any other authority. And that goes against what we understand priesthood as it was restored to Joseph Smith. Peter, James, and John gave Joseph Smith this authority. It's the highest authority that a man can hold on the earth and it embodies all the keys. If you have that authority, you have those keys. You can't parcel them out, but this is 00:38:00how they justified their position to be able to be independents and some of them even to perform plural marriages. And some of them do it on the basis of "We're just doing the best we can and someday everything will be set right." And that's kind of how they look at it because they don't want to come under legitimate authority. They want to be on their own and we call them independents. That's the way they act. They aren't together in a body, but you'll find little groups here and little groups there. It's all fragmented kind of along family lines and anybody else that wants to go along with them.

So, 1954 now, between 1951 and 1954 Brother Barlow had died then Joseph W. 00:39:00Musser becomes the president of priesthood. During those years he was disabled because he had a series of strokes. Now, I knew him personally and I was old enough by this time, I was in my teens -- fourteen, fifteen, he gave me the Aaronic priesthood when I was fourteen-years-old and you could hardly understand what he said. His strokes had disabled him so badly. If you want to accept the story that we tell and I cannot personally speak from my own experience about this because I never heard it myself. If I did I wasn't aware enough, I was a teenager. I'd sit in meeting and flip coins with my buddy instead of listening to the meetings. That's a fifteen-year-old kid, so if I heard it I wasn't aware and I didn't know enough about what was going on. But, Brother Musser told the people that he wanted them to look to his son, Guy, because he was going to be disabled and he was. When that happened in fact, his son, Guy, took over his responsibilities. So Guy published the Truth magazine, he counseled with the 00:40:00people, did all the things that were the things that his father was doing as the leader of the group up until the time Brother Joseph W. Musser died in 1954 and then Guy stepped back. The final volume of the Truth magazine that was in the mill at the time is the end of the Truth magazine. He had custody of the printing press and all the pamphlets that the Truth publishing company had published and he maintained that because it was housed in the priesthood home there, but as far as handling the affairs of the people and so on he was not the president. He stepped back and Brother Leroy Johnson took charge of the Work. Brother Barlow had called these other men, Brother Musser died, within a year of 00:41:00his death Charles F. Zitting died, and that left only two men that had been called by Loren Woolley, which was Legrand Woolley and Lewis A. Keltch and they didn't want to take up the cudgel to administer of the Work. Brother Keltch had his personal problems that came out of his experience in jail. Brother Woolley said, "My work is in the church." And he was still affiliated with the church -- I mean he was not excommunicated. He was a member. His funeral -- he wanted Hugh B. Brown to speak at his funeral and I went to his funeral. He said, "That's my involvement and I don't think I can take up anymore." He passed it off to Brother Johnson -- Lewis Keltch passed it off to Brother Johnson. Brother Johnson then took charge of the Work from that point on.

By that time, the 1953 raid had started and all of the court action so forth 00:42:00went along where that was beginning and with the death of Charles F. Zitting, which was after the '53 raid occurred, this group of men that was called by John Y. Barlow then administered the Work under the presidency of Leroy Johnson. That's where they were. In the interim between 1951 and 1954 when Brother Musser had his first stroke and when he died Rulon Allred took custody of him, and he had turned the Work over to Guy and then under the prompting of Rulon Allred he ostensibly gave him authority, but I don't think he did. He brought Rulon Allred to a meeting with the other brethren 00:43:00-- these brethren that Brother Barlow had called -- and wanted them to participate in ordaining Rulon Allred. They wouldn't do it. They knew it was out of order, so they refused to do it. And the only one who didn't was Richard Jessop. Brother Jessop's philosophy was, "The president of priesthood, whatever he says you do." And there was no question that Joseph W. 00:44:00Musser was the president of the priesthood of the time. I was there, I know what the order was, I know how people looked at it, and he was recognized but he couldn't function. Guy had taken over the functioning and along on the side Rulon Allred was using him for his own purposes, and I knew Rulon Allred. He also was a guest in our home. At the period of time, they had some Sunday schools that were up in Farmington at Brother Burnham's place that Brother Hammon put together, and I went to those and sometimes Rulon Allred would give me and some of the family members a ride to go there so I knew him on a personal basis.

KB:What were your impressions of him?

CC:I hate to even tell you this experience because it's a spiritual kind of experience. We say that the spirit of the lord inspires our minds. One day, we were living on 13th East -- we had a house on 13th East in Salt Lake City, and I was maybe twelve-years-old and he came to the house, came in, and it just happened that I was the only one there in the living room. I don't [know] whether any other family members in the rest of house or not, but it was just him and me and I'm a little kid and he was tall -- he's a tall guy. And I looked up at him, the spirit of the lord revealed to me what he was. It said -- it 00:46:00didn't say. You just get these impressions that he was a man of false piety. That's what was conveyed to my mind. I'm looking in his eyes and he's looking in my eyes. And what reason did I have of having any ideas about when I'm a child, only twelve, and he's a part of the adult world, but that's what came to my mind. I know he was a very smart guy and he knew a lot about the gospel, but his piety was false. It turns out he was an ambitious man and he wanted in the priesthood council and he used Joseph W. Musser to do that, and then he started his own congregation, which is the United Apostolic Brethren today, and brought other men to Brother Musser and had him 00:47:00bring them in to his priesthood council as if it were under Brother Musser. Brother Musser was so disabled from his strokes that he didn't really have a clear view even of what was going on, and so it was just a manipulation. Like I've said many times later on when the split occurred over here in Colorado City, this Priesthood that we are administered by is from God. You can't usurp it. You cannot usurp the Priesthood. It's in the hands of God and people are called to that calling by revelation through that proper authority. And so, when someone who is ambitious seeks to gain that position he's out of order and no 00:48:00matter what happens, if hands are laid on his head or whatever, it's an out of order situation. He can't officiate. And that was the condition Rulon Allred was in, but he carried on. The UAB has to claim that all of the men in the Priesthood council on that occasion have apostatized so they're all apostates. I know every one of them and I know them better than that. That's the UAB.

SG:As we're seeing the Allred split, and like you said you knew so many of these men personally or had experiences with them as a pre-teen and teen, had you had any experiences whether it be geographically or culturally with the Short Creek fundamentalists?

CC:No. The first time I came to Short Creek was in 1958. By that time I was in the university, a student in the university, so I knew nothing of the history of Short Creek and didn't have any personal connection whatsoever with it. We lived 00:49:00in Salt Lake and didn't come down here until along about '55 after the people had gathered back in from being scattered in the raid. The brethren made an effort to improve the town over there and they called on people in Salt Lake to come down, and they would come down on weekends for what they'd say "workdays." They put in the water system and they did various things trying to improve the community, and it was in that milieu that I first came to Short Creek in 1958. It was just a weekend and then that wasn't the only weekend. I'd come down for some other weekends as well, but I didn't know the people, didn't know the history, didn't participate in their culture.

SG:Despite not having any direct exposure to Short Creek, I imagine that the '53 raid did have some impact on your family and the other Salt Lake families.

CC:It had a great impact. The '53 raid occurred and of course that was down here, so I wasn't personally involved, but of course I knew about it. Speaking personal impact on me, I'm at Olympus High School. We are rehearsing for the school play. That year we did Our Town and I was in the play. And sitting there 00:51:00after rehearsal with members of the cast and they got talking about this '53 raid. I'm not going to say anything. I just shut up and listened to them because that's how I've been taught. You don't speak up. You get in trouble if you speak up, but here they were talking about a situation which was my people that were involved in it. They didn't know that. I went all the way through high school and my group of friends that I associated and palled around with didn't know that I was a polygamous kid. And this is part of the impact of that situation on children. I could go to their house but I couldn't invite them to my house. I just couldn't because the chances are it would start to expose my family. And I went through junior and senior year in high school and associated with this particular group of boys and they never did know that I was fundamentalist. I 00:52:00didn't talk about it. As far as they knew, there was my mother and myself and I had a little brother and that was our family -- she was essentially a single mother trying to eke out a living for her two little children. As far as I know, the authorities, the staff, and administration of the school didn't know any more than that. It was all secretive. That's the kind of impact it had on me and I was that remote from it.

I graduated from high school, went on to the university, I took my degree there in mechanical engineering, I spent a year in graduate's school working on a 00:53:00doctorate in engineering, and then one day S.M. Hammon invited me to his house and I went there and here was a little group of people. Brother Hammon was there, I was there, Sister Dorothy Knudson was there, and Brother Cyril Bradshaw was there and he said, "I want [to] start a high school in Colorado City," Which by that time they changed the name trying to distance themselves from the publicity of the raid, "And I want you to come and be on the faculty of the school." So, I agreed to do that and that was 1960. I graduated in '59 with my bachelor's degree and then I spent a year in graduate school, so it was '60. In the 1960-61 school year was the first year that the academy operated. Sister 00:54:00Knudson, Brother Bradshaw, and I were the faculty -- the original faculty of that school. Brother Hammon got his daughter, Helen, to teach a history class and she was associated with it to that extent.

SG:Before we get too far into your teaching, you mentioned that in high school nobody knew your family dynamics. Did that change during your undergraduate work?

CC:No.

SG:Did you find more people from your religious community in school with you?

CC:There was one person that was in the university -- there were two -- one of them didn't last long because he washed out. John Y. Barlow's son, Johnny -- we called him Johnny -- had been in the military and he went 00:55:00to the university on the G.I. Bill and he was there in the beginning when I was a freshman. He was there as well on the G.I. Bill, but he couldn't hack it at the university and had to drop out. So that's one. The other one was Loren Broadbent. Loren Broadbent was the son of David Broadbent, lived in Short Creek, Colorado City, and the brethren sent him to school to become a lawyer. He was brilliant. He was a very smart guy. He was there at the same time and we had a little bit of association in the university. He went on, got his law degree, and practiced law, but he committed suicide. He could not handle what you have to do 00:56:00as a lawyer put up against the ethics he had been taught by the priesthood. That's why he committed suicide. Very tragic thing. He was very smart. But, at that time the brethren were not prone to send people to the university. I went on my own and I didn't consult with them because I was damn well going to do it, and I just did it. My mother kept telling me, "Don't count on going to the university. You stay away from those girls -- they're not for you." I just wanted to learn at least calculus and that's where I could learn it because they didn't teach it in high school at that time.

SG:You mentioning staying away from the girls kind of brought a question to my 00:57:00mind: During this time, what were the marriage practices? You're a young man at this point and I imagine that was maybe on your mind. Was it what the placement marriage that people consider typical fundamentalism today? Could young ladies that fell in love with fundamentalist boys convert perhaps or anything like that?

CC:It was not ever on my mind. If I had been left to my own devices, I would probably be a bachelor today. I just was not a sociable person. I had been trained to be so secretive about my life that I was really a loner and I didn't cultivate social relationships. Doesn't mean I didn't have friends who were girls in high school. I did. You can talk to my brother and he'll tell you his perspective on that. But, I was not looking to marry any of them and I had a 00:58:00conversation with the one I got closest to, and we're talking Mormon people here of course. One time, sitting in the back of a car and talked to her and I told her. I said, "I believe that there is someone that's appointed for you to marry." And she said she believed the same thing. She knew it wasn't me and I knew [it] wasn't her. [Laughing] We didn't even talk about. We knew that. She's the closest a friend I had as a girl when I was in high school. I associated freely with them as friends, but I didn't date per say. There were a couple of occasions that I had to in high school because of circumstances. One of them was the junior prom. I was on the committee that put the junior prom together, so I 00:59:00had to go and I had to ask somebody to go with me and I did that, but it's the only contact I had with that particular girl. I was manager of the football team and they had an occasion and I just wasn't going to go. You had to pay ten dollars or something and I didn't have any money so I thought that would get me out of it and I won't have to go. The football coach paid my ten dollars, [laughing] so I had to do that and went to that occasion with this girl that I was talking about. It's not that I didn't have any contact at all. And there were many other girls in the school that I knew and associated with and had 01:00:00classes with. You can read what they wrote in my yearbook if you want. So, it wasn't that I was totally isolated from the social activities of the school. I was the most active student in school activities of any of the students in that school when I was a senior. I was in a lot of different activities. If you'd look in the yearbook, you'll see all the things I was involved in. I was in every performance that they did on the stage while I was in Olympus High. Every one. Mothers' [and] sons' night and they did a little melodrama. I was in that. Wrote a little play for the Christmas program and I was in that. Everything. There wasn't a performance they did that I wasn't involved in. So, in that way I had a pretty full high school career, but nobody knew I was a polygamous kid. Didn't talk about it.

A long about 1958, '59, Brother Johnson and the brethren started a program which they called Firesides for the young people. And they appointed Bill Draper and Clarence Wayman to be the teachers for the young people in the Fireside. They would get together in somebody's house and they would have the meeting and these brethren would talk to them and they would even call on some the kids to talk and they would have refreshments and it was that kind of a thing. The purpose of those Firesides was to convert the young people to the idea of placement marriage. And the doctrine that they taught was that 01:02:00"you boys have no right to set your eyes a girl because you don't know who she belongs to. She doesn't necessarily belong to you and it is out of order for you to attract the affections of a girl." That was the way they taught. And then you bide your time until the Priesthood makes a proposal to you of marriage and that's placement marriage. I took all that very seriously and I tried to be real careful not to attract the affections of a girl at least from my overt acts. I really made an effort to follow through on those teachings. And so being as 01:03:00occupied as I was with my interest in mathematics and now with teaching in the academy, when that time came in 1960 I wasn't thinking of marriage. The idea of going out and dating girls and trying to get them [to] marry you was so foreign to my thinking and I don't think I would have been very successful if I had to do that. Probably wouldn't have gotten anybody to marry me. That's what I think.

When Brother Hammon came to me one day and talked to me about marrying his daughter, which she and I had -- she was in love with me so she and I had a close relationship, but I was trying not to attract any affection. My view is if she lets her affections go out, that's her responsibility. I'm not going to cultivate it. Doesn't mean I'm not going to associate with her. We spent a lot 01:04:00of time talking together. So, I said, "I think a lot of this girl."

And he says, "Go and tell your parents."

I went and told them. I said, "Brother Hammon came to see me about marrying his daughter."

And Brother Timpson said, "What? Which one? Which one?" [Laughing] He wanted to know. Make sure it was the right one. [Laughing] But it was. And that's how I got married and I wasn't looking for marriage prior to that.

KB:How old were you?

CC:I was twenty-four when I got married. I'd been through the university, graduated, spent a year in graduate's school, taught a year at the academy, and then the summer after the first year, which was 1960, '61, is when I got married 01:05:00in that summer. So, that's the way it went for me. Now, that's how they instituted the idea of placement marriage. Brother Johnson had enough influence with the people that he could enforce that procedure and he did. The Brethren would consult and they would get their inspiration on who should be married to whom, and Brother Johnson would just stand people up and marry them. There have been cases where a sister went to the wedding of her sister and Brother Johnson can now catch her, stand her up, and marry her to somebody like that. He had enough influence with the people that they would go along with it. I think the Brethren today don't have that kind of leverage with the people in placement marriages receiving some backlash from the 01:06:00young people today. There's a lot of bitter stuff on Facebook about it, but it's still possible for a girl to fall in love with somebody. If she can get the approval of the brethren to marry him, they'll do it. The effort by the Priesthood today is to get the young women to submit to placement marriage. It takes a lot of faith on their part to do that, especially if their affections have gone to some boy, which often happens. If they go through that process however, it's very much in keeping with the teachings of Mormonism. If you read 01:07:00in here [TAPPING BOOK] The Lectures on Faith, they say that "a religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things never has power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto salvation." Those are the exact words. And so if you go through a process of sacrificing your feelings like that, if a young girl will do that, she is in keeping with that teaching in The Lectures on Faith. Being able to do that and submitting to the will of God instead of your own will is a character building experience.

As far as I can see, my own personal experience with not only my own situation 01:08:00but others that I observed, the placement marriage works very well. The Priesthood has put two people together that never knew each other even, never associated. Their teaching was courtship after marriage. You fall in love after marriage and this happens and it happens in the majority of cases and the people get along very well in their marriage and are happy. And they take a look back on things and see what would have happened if they married who they're in love [with] and they're glad they didn't do that. Now, that's not one-hundred percent of the cases because people are willful and they go through the motions, but then they're not comfortable with the results because they haven't made that sacrifice and they haven't submitted to the will of the God in that way, so then it doesn't work out. What happens is they come to the Priesthood and they say, "I'm in love with so-and-so."

And the Priesthood will say, "We'll marry you."

And the marriage goes sour and then they say, "You placed me here and it didn't work out." And then they have a grudge against the Priesthood when in fact it was their own will that they follow. And that happens in most of the cases where 01:09:00the marriages don't work. It's on some kind of a basis rather than what the direction of the Priesthood originally was. In my experience, the majority of marriages worked. I know people and I know how their marriages have gone. I know how mine have gone. But, there's a lot of sentiment against that practice among the young people right now in Centennial Park. I don't know what the outcome is going to be, but we're in a situation that they didn't have in Colorado City in those days when Brother Johnson was doing this. Because we have a community down here, Barlowville, the men there prey on our girls and capture their affections and they go off and marry them. We have a community that is in shambles and their men prey on our girls and woo them away. Like I say, we don't have the leverage with the people that Brother Johnson had, so we can't just go and stand two people and marry them. We have to go through a process and we're 01:10:00trying to implement that as best we can and that's where it is today. But the girl can always say no. We don't force a girl to marry against her will, and I guess if she could kick hard enough against Brother Johnson she could have said no then but nobody kicked against Brother Johnson.

SG:In the comparison between Brother Johnson's time and now, was it a gradual change of how the women reacted or was it one of those things where once Brother Johnson was gone or once the split happened then --

CC:It was gradual. In that respect it was gradual change.

SG:So you were talking about before I asked you about plural marriage -- excuse me placement marriage. You were 01:11:00talking about you were teaching at the academy and so we're still in Salt Lake at this point, correct?

CC:I was still in Salt Lake when the Fireside meetings were started. I was about nineteen, I was in the University.

SG:The academy was down here and --

CC:The academy was down here, which I came after I had spent a year in graduate school. By that time, I was twenty-three, twenty-two, twenty-three. Something like that.

SG:So can you tell us about your time at the academy and things like that?

CC:My time at the academy, I really had what you might call a good time at the 01:12:00academy because there was never a year that I didn't teach something I had never taught before, so I always had a challenge and it was fun. It was good. I taught everything, I taught every subject in the school except for Book Keeping and Home Ec. [Economics] So, for every year I taught something new and I taught for five years, and then the Brethren sent me back to the University to get my doctorate's degree so that was 1965. I spent '65 to '68 in Salt Lake earning my doctorate's degree and by that time I had two wives and three children and I had two more children born during that time. And then I came back and I graduated 01:13:00and got my doctorate's degree in '68 and came back and taught in the academy again until about 1975 and then they kicked me out.

SG:And both of your degrees were from the University of Utah?

CC:From the University of Utah. I spent all my university time there.

KB:Did you find it stressful to be pursuing a doctorate's degree while you had a family?

CC:No, I didn't and when I look back on it I don't know how in the world we survived. That experience might have be[en] stressful to other people but I'm kind of a laid-back person and I don't get stressed very often. There have been about two times in my life where I've felt a little stress and anxiety. One of them was personal enough that I don't want to talk about it and the other one we'll probably talk about in the course of this conversation. My second wife was Fawneta Broadbent. She was David Broadbent's daughter and she died here six, 01:14:00eight years ago. At that time, the Brethren would not send a girl to the University unless she was married. They didn't want to take a chance on her floating out in the wide world. [Laughing] I don't know how much of these personal experiences I want to tell here. Fawneta was a member of the student body at the academy and I was teaching at the academy. I didn't have any ideas about marrying her. If I had any ideas about any of the girls in the academy it was not her ever. But school ended at the end of her senior year she was a member of the student body presidency, she was a student body officer, and my 01:15:00responsibility was to work with them and when school ended we had some post-school business to do. The academy building has been torn down. I don't know if you're familiar with Colorado City and its layout. You know where the reservoir is up there?

SG:Yep.

CC:And down from the reservoir there's a couple of houses? Okay. The western most house was my house that I built with the help of the community. We moved in when I came back from the University in 1968. Before that then and before while I had my first wife, Helen, and our oldest child who is Jessikah -- She teaches 01:16:00in the school. Jessikah Timpson. I don't know if you know her or not. We lived in a little -- Fred Jessop was trying to provide a motel for people to stay in. He built his little things that were supposed to be motel units. Those places are across the street from where the businesses are. The pub that's there and you go across the street west and there's these buildings and then --

SG:Yes, I know exactly --

CC:That's where I lived. So it's in walking distance of the academy, so I walk 01:17:00up there and back. So, I walked up there and we did these things. I'm walking back home through the field where the LSJ building is now, it was just a field, and the path through the field and I'm walking there. It was like a voice in my head that said, "Fawneta Broadbent is going to be your wife." Out of the blue because I wasn't -- and we didn't have any kind of that kind of relationship. She was a smart girl. One of the outstanding students in the academy. I had to respect that but -- I did like people do -- this [is] the thing about the spirit of the Lord: Joseph Smith said you get flashes of ideas and if you accept them 01:18:00they will turn out to be true later. That's the influence of the spirit of the Lord. This is what Joseph Smith said. We don't do that.

We get these crazy ideas and we go, "Oh no, that can't --" And that's what I said. Casted it out of my mind. I think it was like three days later, it certainly wasn't more than a week, sometime in the next week [there's a] knock on my door down there in this motel unit and it's David Broadbent.

And he said, "Brother Hammon wants you to come and see him." And so I did and he said that I should marry this girl. She was slated to go to the University and she majored in education. She became one of the best professionals in education in the state of Arizona before her career was over. And she was a person loved 01:19:00deeply by the whole community because of the service she did to it. But they wouldn't send her to the University without her being married. It was time to go to school. She had to go to Salt Lake, so Brother Hammon said, "You come to my house such-and-such a day and we'll do this marriage." So I went there and she went there and we're there and he's not there. And we waited and waited and waited. And now you've got to understand Brother Hammon. He had a lot of stuff on his plate. So, we waited and waited. He didn't show, he didn't show, we waited, didn't show. About eleven-thirty PM he finally came and he did the marriage. She and I have had an argument all of our married life of whether that marriage was performed before midnight or after midnight [laughing]. I maintain 01:20:00it was after midnight so it was this date and she maintains it was before midnight so it's this date and we never could agree on what day our marriage was.

That marriage took place. I borrowed her father's truck. David Broadbent let me take his truck, we got in it after the ceremony, I took her to St. George. Now, in St. George -- Dick's Café used to be down there. That was the bus stop where the bus stop. So, I took her to Dick's Café, dropped her off, I drove his truck, and she took the bus to Salt Lake and that was our wedding night.

KB:Alrighty.

CC:That's what it's like to participate in placement marriage with the Priesthood. She was in Salt Lake and started school and I was 01:21:00down here. Her first year of school we were separated and I didn't get to see her except once in a while when I might go to Salt Lake. But then they asked me go and work on my Doctorate and so then after that one year I relocated to Salt Lake, took my family with me, and started at the University again. She was living with my mother and it took us almost a year to get the family together because of living conditions and the plural marriage situation. I was happy to have her stay there, but Brother Timpson he's not that kind of man. He wants you out of there, so eventually I had to move and move her out. We were living at that time in an apartment on Bryant Avenue and 10th east. 01:22:00By that time, she had a baby and we moved in that little apartment and we had two babies eventually in that apartment. I had the two girls -- I don't know whether you know these people or not -- Jessikah and Mary were my two daughters. Mary works in the Musada school as well. She's in the administration. This little girl was born to Fawneta and her name is Miriam and she tends to kids. She was the one that supervises the little kids that are kids of the faculty in the school. And then we had a boy born and he name is Eli and he lives in Salt 01:23:00Lake. So we had this situation with babies and the other tenants complained against so we had to move. We first moved into a house that we rented and left that under circumstances. Part of that was my ego and part of that was circumstances that I didn't want to continue to perpetuate. We got to live in that house, it was a duplex, because there was a lady living in the other part and we agreed to provide her meals and kind of take care of her. When the family expected us to get the ambulance and take her to the hospital and they wouldn't participate and I got angry and bailed out of that situation. That was own -- 01:24:00should have been more compassionate or something. I don't know. I didn't feel like I was obligated to do that service. I would have done it with them, but they just expected me to do it.

Then we moved into this apartment and then we had to leave that. We moved into a house down on Ramona Avenue in back of where the Dee's hamburger place used to be, which no longer -- nothing is there anymore. That's why I don't care whether I go back to Salt Lake or not much. [Laughing] It isn't my Salt Lake anymore.

SG:It's very different.

CC:But, we lived there and then we had the house. My second child with Fawneta was born in that house, which his name is Alma and he just died here in the last year [from] Cirrhosis of the liver. But, the owner decided to sell that house, 01:25:00so we had to move and we moved into a house up on Hollywood Avenue in the old neighborhood that I was in when we moved down to Salt Lake in the beginning. It was in that same neighborhood. Lived there and the owner of that house decided to sell it, and so we thought we had to move. He came and stayed there -- he didn't stay in the house, but while he was trying to sell it he stayed there so he could show the house. Didn't come inside and it was his house! He could've done it. But he was very considerate of us and told us we could take the kitchen stove when we left, which was good [because] we needed stuff like that. But I 01:26:00thought we're going to have to move, so I contracted a lease on a house up on Yale Avenue up in hoity-toity district of where the University people are. And then it turned out that the people that bought that house on Hollywood Avenue asked us if we would just stay and rent it from them. By that time, I made this lease and I had to move. We lived in that house on Yale Avenue until about the end of the school year [which] was in June and I didn't graduate until August, so we had from June to August. The people I was leasing the house from wouldn't extend the lease for a couple months, so we had to move out of there. At that time, my wife, Helen, came back down to Colorado City. The house I was building 01:27:00was far enough along to move into. She took the children and moved in. Left Fawneta and me and we lived in the basement of a house 9th east, which was rented by my brother and owned by Calvin Nielson, who was a member of the group, that he had for his mother but she died. And for a month we lived there and then moved out and I was back teaching in the academy and Fawneta was teaching in the public schools because she had her degree and her teaching certificate.

I graduate in'68, came back down then in August of that year, and taught again in the academy till about 1975. By that time, the split was underway over there that resulted in Centennial Park being created. At that point, they kicked me 01:28:00out of the academy, Brother Johnson kicked me out of the community, and he said, "You can keep your family here if you want or you can take them with you." In my opinion, the best thing to do is keep them there. I didn't want to take them out of the community so did, but I had to leave. I went to Cedar City and lived for a while. By that time, I had five wives and eight, nine children. The family grew.

One of those ladies said to me, "Well, if they don't want you in this community, they don't want me. I'm coming with you." So, we went and lived in Cedar City for a while and I worked on construction a little bit. Got fired from that job. 01:29:00I've been fired from every job I've -- [laughing]

KB:That's a good sign.

CC:Yeah, I could be. [Laughing] It never hurt me.

SG:Would you mind kind of explaining what the circumstances for you personally were during the council split and Roy Johnson's transition to one-man and how that played in your life and causing you to be pushed out?

CC:Quite a story from my personal standpoint because of the prominence I had in the community being on the faculty of the academy and associating with a lot of the children. The first inkling I had of anything going on was in 1972. One day, 01:30:00standing in the halls of the academy talking to Cyril Bradshaw about these Barlow boys, the sons of John Y. Barlow -- I don't know if you know their names, but there's a whole backstory to that. But I said to him, "These guys want to control my life."

And he laughed and he said, "Oh, no." But they were beginning to conspire and the split in Colorado City came out of a conspiracy among those people along 01:31:00with Fred Jessop and the Barlow boys. The motivation for what they did was that they knew Brother Johnson was going to die, and if Brother Johnson died then Brother Hammon would become president of the Priesthood because he was next in order. And they did not want to come under his jurisdiction, they did not want to have him be the administrator of that community, and so they worked to plot against him to prevent that from happening. That's where the split came from.

SG:Did you have any awareness to why they did not want him?

CC:There had been animosity between them and Brother Hammon from the day he walked into that community. Brother Hammon, before he died I had an interview 01:32:00with him and he practically with tears in his eyes he said, "I don't know why these boys have feelings against me. I have tried --" And he did. He gave him his daughters for wives and he tried to include him in community affairs and he was trying as hard as he could to make them feel good about [it], but they never did. The social situation was they couldn't overtly show that, but when they were younger -- and I don't have direct personal experience with this but I think it's the circumstance. When they were younger they sowed discord between him and their father, John Y. Barlow. Brother Hammon loved Brother Barlow and I don't think Brother Barlow had anything against him, but those tried as hard as they could to sow discord between them. Their idea was 01:33:00because they were the sons of John Y. Barlow the community belonged to them, so they wanted jurisdiction over it and they weren't going to get it if Brother Hammon became the president of the Priesthood. That's why the plot was engaged to work against him and the whole propaganda part of it was this one-man doctrine that they rode that on through the split.

In growing up and learning about the doctrines of the Priesthood and going to meetings and being taught and so on, I gathered what was said during those 01:34:00years, which was these brethren and the Priesthood Council all hold equal authority which is true. Their authority is equal. If it wasn't equal you couldn't have the succession procedure that it automatically falls on the next one in line by seniority when the president dies. It doesn't require organization. He just steps into that because the authority is the same. It's like the Revelation of 1880 says, "You all hold the same authority but there's one among you who presides for the sake of order." Priesthood order requires a head and that's why there's one man. That is the situation but it wasn't put out in that way neither in teaching or in practice throughout the '40s and '50s in going to meeting and listening to the Priesthood teach. It was just these men 01:35:00all hold the same authority. In 1886, they were given the same authority which is true. The practice of the underground where each person who was delegated or had authority to perform these marriages -- When John W. Woolley was the president he counseled with Joseph F. Smith as president of the church and Brother Snow as president of church over particularly the management of plural marriages. It was done by the people who were delegated to do these marriages. It was done pretty much independently because it had to be secret. They absolutely shielded Wilford Woodruff from that so he could come up publicly and 01:36:00say what he said in that document of the manifesto. "I know of none that have been done and I heard there was one and I can't find out who did." As a protection to him because he was the figurehead of the church.

So, that practice was coming from the underground into the era of President Johnson and these brethren - I don't want to give the impression they didn't look to Brother Johnson as their president. They did. In fact, he asked them that if they would project that image to the minds of the people, so If you read their sermons, like you go into these books and read it, you'll find every once in a while they make that kind of an appeal: "You look to Brother Johnson. This is his administration. We're behind him" kind of language. But, it was a little 01:37:00bit loose in performing of marriages because of what they inherited, so there was a tradition that came from the underground that was practiced. And there's nothing wrong with that tradition or that procedure, but the time came when it was creating confusion and Brother Johnson said, "From now on, I want every marriage to go to me and I will authorize them." Because Brother Hammon would send a boy to girl to get married and Brother Johnson sent a different one and that created confusion. So he made this policy and from that time on, pretty much that was the policy that was followed.

SG:So it was more of a geographical policy or due to the geography of where the council members were?

CC:Yeah, that played into it and I think that as a result of that aspect of it when the machinations of the split matured. It took time. Like I say, the first 01:38:00inkling I had was 1972 and there wasn't an overt separation of the people until about 1980. Something like that. That's a solid period of years in there in which a lot of things happened. By the time Brother Johnson made that policy, the split was proceeding. It was moving along. So they would, they meaning these men, would go to meeting -- Brother Johnson was sick, so he wasn't in the pulpit and there was several years there that he was out of the pulpit, so they pretended to speak for him but what they spoke was not his doctrine. And before he got sick he published his books and his sermons. He says, "This is what I've 01:39:00taught. I'm putting these books out so you know what I've taught." Because people were saying things that he -- they're speaking in his behalf and he really wasn't behind it and they were putting it out publicly. It was when he was out of the pulpit and sick so that they could do that.

SG:In the late '60s through the '70s, were there other -- besides plural marriage and placement marriage -- Were there other principles, policies, and practices that were being taught differently depending on who was presiding? It's my understanding through reading some of his sermons that --

CC: Yes, there were --

SG:That there were people talking at the same time in different places or something like that.

CC:Yeah, they began to teach doctrines that were not correct and it got to the point where I could not attend meeting and listen to it, so I stopped going to public meeting. Still went to Priesthood meeting, but I didn't go to public meeting because what they were teaching was just not right and I couldn't sit 01:40:00there and listen to it.

SG:Was it specific men that had been ordained to the council that were --

CC:No, no, no --

SG:Just the Barlow boys in your experience?

CC:It was the Barlow boys and Fred Jessop that would say these things, but the main thrust of it was this one-man and Brother Johnson was the man and you had to look to Brother Johnson. And the idea was to create a gap between Brother Johnson and the rest of the brethren. He was [the only] important [one] and [you] didn't have to listen to [the others].

SG:Would you say it was reminiscent of what you described with Loren C. Woolley?

CC:Same exact thing. Attached to the man instead of respecting the authority and understanding the authority. These splits occur because people don't understand Priesthood.

SG:At this time, what memory do you have of Rulon Jeffs' position in the 01:41:00conflict within the council?

CC:To me, these brethren were the brethren and I held them up and revered them including Brother Jeffs. Every one of them because regardless of the man they had the authority, and I understood that principle enough that my loyalty and my respect was to all of those men regardless of sides -- eventually there were sides. It didn't make any difference to me, which is part of the problem because 01:42:00I still upheld Brother Hammon and Brother Timpson and Brother Musser as long he lived, and they were going around [with] stories about Brother Musser. They didn't come and tell me the stories so I don't know what they are. They knew damn well that I wouldn't buy it, so they didn't have the -- but they came to Loren Zitting for example. Came to him and the most recent one with Brother Naylor and Ivan Nielson. Tried to get him to go with that group of people. I had a talk with somebody the other day that gave me a little bit of what they said about Brother Guy and it was this issue of doing marriages not authorized by Brother Johnson. Brother Guy did that when he had the work of his father to do. 01:43:00He counseled people, he did all of these things as if he were his father and if he continued to do that in Salt Lake during this period of time. I don't hold that against him, but they used that to slander his character and they would go around and tell people these stories -- Whatever they had about Guy, which like I say they didn't tell me, didn't come to me.

SG:Guy Musser passed before the culmination of the split --

CC:Yes, that's right. He died before Brother Johnson did.

They really hit hard on this one-man doctrine. There's nothing wrong with a one-man doctrine if you understand it, and like I say, the revelation of 1880 explains it as perfectly as -- but there's a couple of articles in the Truth 01:44:00magazine that address this issue too that was put out by Brother Musser and Brother Barlow. They did those things together. It wasn't Brother Musser on his own and then putting it in the Truth magazine. In fact, I think one of them is ascribed to Brother Barlow, but not by a byline in the Truth. So, there's enough basis to understand that doctrine, but they had to create this mistaken idea of the doctrine that "there is only one man. Hundred-thirty-second section parenthetical says there's only one man. All you have to do is listen to him. You don't have to pay attention to the other brethren." And they downgraded the other brethren, and that includes whoever was there, including Uncle Carl who died in '72. Seventy-two? I always say '78, but I think it was '72, so my memory is faulty. He died early on there and didn't really go through the split. And then Uncle Rich died. They tried to make it look like he was their side of the split and I don't believe that for one minute. He had this faith that the president of the Priesthood whatever he said, whatever he asked to do you do. He had that till the end of his days, so you can kind of take that and make it look 01:45:00like he supported this doctrine. I don't believe it. They hit this so hard. They continued to hammer out and hammer out and hammer out, and they created the image in the minds of the people of this one-man. It became a situation where Brother Johnson was like a monarch with a court. He had all these people that gathered around. They followed him everywhere they went. It came to be that when he came into the building in meeting everybody had to stand up. There was a bunch of stuff that went along with it to try and reinforce this one-man. That was the main vehicle that they [used] to progress the split along so that they could denigrate the other brethren. Brother Carl died, Uncle Rich died, Guy died, and it left Brother Hammon and Brother Timpson on one side and Brother 01:46:00Jeffs and Brother Johnson on the other because Brother Jeffs affiliated himself with the movement. That's the way it was. This split in the 1970s, 80s is different from every other split in that in this split the council is divided. In every other split the council was united. And that's really damaging. That's 01:47:00really damaging to the sentiments of the people trying to decide what to do under those circumstances.

SG:It's my understanding that Rulon Jeffs was actually very close to Joseph and Guy Musser--

CC: Yes.

SG:And being that you knew them both, did you have any experiences with Rulon Jeffs in those early days? And did you see anything during the split that would explain how that happened because they stopped sustaining Joseph Musser after the split as historically relevant to the line of succession?

CC: There's a whole story about that. Guy and Rulon kind of came along together 01:48:00about the same age and they were scions of the Priesthood in their youth and they became very close friends. You can read Rulon's sermons in here [TAPPING BOOK] where he bears his testimony about Brother Guy and any other brethren too. But, there's an aspect of his personality that I've observed -- and by the way, a stepdaughter of mine went into his family. Married one of his sons. That's the closest contact personally I had with him and I really didn't have a lot of contact with Brother Jeffs other than listening to him talk in meeting. I knew him. He knew me. He has an aspect to his personality -- how do I say? I was going to say it's hard and fast. It's like black and white. If he decides on a certain thing, it's that thing and there's no allowance for any deviation from 01:49:00it in his view. So, when this split came along and he affiliated himself with Brother Johnson -- I shouldn't say Brother Johnson. I mean, he outta affiliate himself with Brother Johnson so should Brother Hammon and so should Brother Timpson here. They did as far as they could. Their loyalties were to Brother Johnson. Mine were. He was the president of the Priesthood [and] I wasn't going to go against that. Brother Hammon and Brother Timpson had the same attitude and respect, but this movement that created the split was against them and they turned the sentiments of people against them and there's not much they could do unless Brother Johnson himself were to make amends. He could've done that. Anytime he would walk into a meeting and smooth things over and bring the people [together] -- he could [have] done it but that was not what --

SG:In '85 he did the exact opposite so --

CC:Yes, that's right. That was not the order of the -- it just wasn't the order. This is hard to really make an assessment of. Hindsight, looking back from 2019 looking back to 1985 and the subsequent events that occurred especially after Brother Jeffs' death, you can see the error that occurred there among the people because they got so converted to this one-man thing and they had--

SG:[Inaudible] organization all together.

CC:Yeah, they had one-man in person of Brother Jeffs that they could -- and as long as he lived, he held the authority that he could administer to them. The difficulties with that with respect to the other brethren is another subject, 01:51:00but he did that to the day of his death. And I have no problem with that, except that the color of it because of this one-man doctrine was now he's the prophet and they had been convinced that they had to listen to him and him only. That's not according to the scheme that Joseph Smith restored when he restored the Gospel. Every department of the church has a quorum. There's not one man. There's a president [of the] church but he has two counselors. You have a quorum. There's twelve apostles. You have a quorum. There's the Seventy and all the way down to the Deacons. There's a quorum. You don't put it on one -- and it's because of this business that we have experienced in the work of the 01:52:00fundamentalist movement. They attach their sentiments to a man and they go overboard with his quirks and his personality and his administration and the way he did things and then they think somebody else can't do it differently and if he has authority he can do it differently. And they don't understand enough about priesthood to realize that. I'm not talking about going against eternal principles. That's something everybody has to recognize don't change, but policies and procedures and the way you do works and so on and so forth they have to change as time changes. You can look at the history of the Work and see that so plainly.

They got so taken in by this one-man thing that when Rulon died and somebody else came in, who was Warren Jeffs, with no authority whatsoever they put it on him and gave him the same allegiance, and he raped the 01:53:00community. That's what happened over the period of time between the time that his father died and time they put him in jail in Texas. That community was thriving. And even though I wasn't a part of it I lived there, but I wasn't a part of it because I was affiliated with Centennial Park. But it was thriving and it was looking good, and Warren took over and he began sucking out the resources using them for his own whims or whatever, he and his brothers, and they did that and they just destroyed that community. They destroyed it economically. I shouldn't say economically -- structurally. All of the progress and building and so forth that was underway and life, living was taken away. The people were captivated and oppressed. It is absolutely tragic what they had to endure under the administration of Warren Jeffs who is a psychopath.

SG:To get back to the early time we were talking about, you going through the 01:54:00split and so you were working on your experience and what caused your removal.

CC:What happened to me was that I was teaching in the academy after I came back with my doctorate's degree and reports were made to Brother Johnson about my doings. All of which were false. He was told that I didn't believe in Joseph Smith. He was told I was corrupting the young men and there was particular ones that he named to me. One of which I didn't know and never had met. I was 01:55:00teaching evolution which wasn't true. I wasn't doing that. He had been told these things by somebody and Brother Johnson was a believer so he believed them. I wonder sometimes because of the position that I held in the community if these people used me as a trial to see if they could take me down then they could take Brother Hammon down. And they were able to take me down that way. So he called me in and confronted me with these accusations and I could see very plainly that there wasn't much I could say to dissuade him from believing them, so I just told him. I said, "I don't think these things are justified. They aren't true, but I can see you're not looking for any arguments so I'm not going to give you any." I wouldn't argue with Brother Johnson. I had too much reverence for him, so that's all I said. You get in a situation like that -- you see it all the time in the prominent trials that are publicized. "He didn't show any remorse. 01:56:00He must be guilty. He didn't defend himself. He must be guilty." That's false logic.

SG:Right.

CC:But people used it and he also thought the same because I didn't defend myself that I must be guilty. He didn't listen to what I said because I did defend myself as far as I thought I could. I says, 'These things aren't true, but I'm not going to argue with you about it. I can see you're not looking for any argument." It was plain. He had Brother Guy there as a witness to witness that conversation. Now, Brother Guy knows me maybe better than any of the brethren except Brother Hammon and Brother Timpson, my stepfather. Other than those two, Brother Guy probably knew me -- I lived in his house, associated with 01:57:00his family, his oldest son was a very good friend of mine, and so he knew me. Of course he didn't say anything. He was just there as a witness. So they started the campaign of separating the people. And the way they did it was by barring certain people from coming to Priesthood meeting, and a lot of the young men if you didn't cut your hair right they would not let you come to Priesthood meeting. I went through that routine with one of my sons and they barred him. I won't tell you the -- It's like the experience I had with Rulon Allred but this was with Fred Jessop during this period of time when I was trying to work through this problem with my boy who was barred from Priesthood meeting.

They put a guard at the door and then you would come there, and they would say, "You can't come in because of this and this and this." So, one day I came to go 01:59:00to Priesthood meeting. Now, this was at the time when the split was pretty full-blown. Brother Hammon and Brother Timpson were meeting with the people that wanted to get with them. Brother Johnson and Brother Jeffs -- and Brother Johnson not really being fully able to do his duties as the head of the priesthood because of his health looked to these Barlow boys for assistance, like Truman Barlow for example. They sat him on the stand and he was with Brother Johnson and he kind of took care of Brother Johnson. They took custody of Brother Johnson just like Rulon Allred took custody of Joseph W. Musser. It's the same routine, same exact routine. So, I came to the door and Nephi Barlow was the guard of the door, and he said, "I can't let you 02:00:00in here." He said, "Brother Johnson doesn't want people meeting with Brother Hammon and Brother Timpson to come in here." And I hadn't done that. I was -- Brother Johnson is the president of the Priesthood. I'm going to meeting where Brother Johnson is. I don't care whether it's my step-father or Brother Hammon, whom I loved, or anybody else, Brother [Johnson] is president of the Priesthood. That comes first.

And so, I said, "Well, have I done that?" And he couldn't say that I had done that, so he let me in.

So, the next time I came the same thing happened: "I'm not authorized to let you in here"

And I said, "Why is that?" And he didn't have a reason.

He just said, "I'm not authorized to let you in."

And I said, "Well, it looks like I'm being accused without any accusation."

And he said, "Well, I'm not authorized--" It's all he could say over and over. And finally, he said, "You are welcome to go and meet with your father."

I thought, "Well, he's the spokesman, he's at the door, they've assigned him that he represents the Priesthood, that's his role, and he gave me permission to go and meet there."

Brother Timpson told me, "Don't leave until they kick you out." So, I didn't. But I not only got kicked out, I got permission to go and meet, and by that time the meetings were held in Centennial Park at Brother Timpson's house. So, not having the way to get into Priesthood meeting there in Colorado City the next best thing was to go there and I started going there, but I did it with permission from the authority. That's what happened to me. Later on, Brother Johnson barred me from another meeting.

I went in there one time and he said, "What are you doing here?"

And I said, "I thought I belonged here."

He didn't say anything, but the next time Truman was at the door and he said, "If you want, you go and see Brother Johnson if you want to keep coming to this meeting." So, I went to see him and then he told me I couldn't live in the community. I had to leave and I could keep my family here, but I could take them if I wanted.

SG:And what year was this?

CC:Hm?

SG:What year was this?

CC:1975.

SG:So, his -- if I recall correctly, it was during this time that his health was severely diminishing and he shortly thereafter stopped presiding the meetings, correct?

CC:He presided over the meetings when he could come, but he was really sick and he was taken down and they were giving drugs and he was having side effects coming from those drugs and he was just out of it. But you've got to understand Brother Johnson. He is going to do his duty come hell or high-water, not like 02:03:00Brother Joseph W. Musser who said, "Okay, I will agree to go through this period where I'm disabled if my son, Guy, can take over. And people, you look to Guy and I'm going to go and do this work." That's the way we view it, which was to call the congregation and then Allred's UAB came out of that. Brother Johnson didn't do that. He continued to the best of his ability to preside and administer, but he had all these people around just like the king and the court. That's what it was like -- that were really trying to take custody of him and manipulate him as best they could to serve their own ends, which was to get rid of Brother Hammon and Brother Timpson. They finally got Brother Johnson to ask Brother Hammon to step down from the stand. That meeting was in Salt Lake. I was 02:04:00there [and] saw it happen. They didn't get Brother Timpson. He outsmarted them.

He came in at the last minute and there wasn't time and Truman said, "Well, what about him?"

And Brother Johnson said, "We'll take care of him next time." Which the meeting would be down here. Brother Timpson didn't come the next time to be kicked off the stand. At that meeting, and I was there, Brother Hammon and Brother Timpson came in [and] sat in the audience. That was the last meeting they attended on that side of it.

KB:So, they kicked those two out before you?

CC:Yeah.

KB:So, they were having already Priesthood meetings but you could not attend?

CC:Yeah, they're having meetings in the academy because Brother Hammon acquired ownership of that building, and so they met there until Brother Johnson got Brother Hammon to transfer ownership back to the UEP. These people had been 02:05:00feeding Brother Johnson all these stories about Brother Hammon being against him and everything and "he's taking this property" and blah-blah-blah. Brother Johnson--

SG:Sorry, he had to consecrate other properties as well, correct? Kind of during this 1970s period?

CC:Yeah, one of the properties was the property where my house is that Cyril Bradshaw got me to do a survey of that property and submit it to the county and conveyed ownership to me. I had a deed and Jack Knudson lived next to me got one too. But later on Brother Johnson called me and told me to give that property back and get down to Kingman and transfer it over. I wasn't going to do that. I was in Salt Lake and I had no real way of doing that. Shortly after that, Jack Knudson came to see me at my house there in Colorado City when I was there and 02:06:00he had a quit-claim, but I decided to sign the quit-claim and give it back because my understanding of the Priesthood order in that community was that the property belonged to the United Effort Plan, which was the instrument of the Priesthood in administering land, and that I had no rights to anything and that if I was given a lot to live on, which I was, it didn't belong to me, which it didn't legally. It belonged -- except this deed had been created and it did belong to me at that time. I couldn't continue to take that, so I signed the quit-claim and it went back to UEP. And there was a big lawsuit over this thing and I was never involved in it because I had that philosophy: "It's not mine. How can I go to court and try and get it." So, I didn't participate in that lawsuit because my understanding of the Priesthood order or the United order or 02:07:00whatever it was we were doing there was that I didn't have any rights, and the day the Priesthood asked me to give it back I would give it back and that's what I did. These other guys they felt like they had some claim to it, so they went to court over it. They thought I was participating in that lawsuit because my mother's name was on it and she used the name Cawley, but it wasn't me it was her.

So, I had to leave the community. What I did is I would come down and visit my family twice a month and spend a weekend. I did that and only that because I didn't want it to look in anyway like I was living there because Brother Johnson told me I couldn't, and I would respect the loyalty to him until he died that's the way I did. After he died, I didn't worry about it so much. By that time, I 02:08:00was established in the business world up in Salt Lake and I had to spend my time there for business and I could still only visit my family on the weekends.

I went to Cedar City, lived there for a while, decided I needed to find a job, and went [for a] governmental job -- whatever they call it. Can't remember. Looking for a possible job -- there's nothing in Cedar City. Cedar City is a college town. You have the University and you have the all farmers, all the agriculture that's around it. There are very little opportunities. It may be a little different today than it was then, but then it really was. So, I applied for a job in Salt Lake in Salt Lake County on the planning board because I was 02:09:00an engineer -- I had background in engineering. I got all the way to the finals in consideration for that job. There were maybe four candidates left and then they said, "Well, we're going to hire from within." [Laughing]

But my brother, step-brother really, Alma, started this business in about 1972 making hydraulic seals. One day, I was talking to him and I guess I told him I was looking for a job. I don't know, but anyway he said, "Go and see Gordon." Gordon Zitting. I did and he hired me and so I got on there in that business, which is Polyseal. I don't know if you've heard about it or not. It began in about 1972 and this was 1975. So, I started working there and then I got involved with that business and eventually became CFO of the division -- It 02:10:00wasn't a division. The company that had four different production plants associated with them. Over a period of time, developed into that business and I worked there for thirty years.

During that time, my family was here and I was there. I knew that would be difficult for them and it was. And they still have recriminations about how they were treated in all that process, but I wasn't going to go back on Brother Johnson's word to me. I thought, "If they learn how to survive on their own it'll probably be a good thing." Boy, they did. They did really well. But my condition being what it was I didn't have much involvement with, so they had to do a lot of the stuff themselves. That was not good, but it was good to keep 02:11:00them in the community. That part of it was good. That was the right decision.

KB:How come?

CC:Because it kept them affiliated with the Work--

KB:Okay.

CC: And my sentiments with all of this happening and I could go to meeting in Salt Lake. They had it at Brother Wayman's house but I didn't. I stopped going to meeting because of what they taught. It just was tinged with false doctrine and so I didn't participate. I would go to meeting when I came down here, but I didn't go in Salt Lake. I did that for a number of years. I went to meeting at Brother Wayman's house one time with Helen. She happened to be there in Salt 02:12:00Lake and we went to meeting. It's the only time I went to meeting after I went back in 1975 to Salt Lake, but I would go down here in Brother Timpson's house to those meetings.

So, 2006, we sold that business and then I was pretty well liberated from that. I still own part of what was that business. I still own it and I go there every month and go in there for a week, but the rest of it was sold. That kind of liberated me, and then I was able to move down and then take up with my family again and lived in Colorado City there in that house that I built. And would 02:13:00travel out here to go to meeting. Totally cut off from everything that was happening in Colorado City because they wouldn't talk to you. They wouldn't associate with you, so I didn't have any idea what was going on with the Warren Jeffs thing or anything like that. All I heard was rumors about it. They exposed themselves to some real bad experiences just because they bought in so solidly into this one-man doctrine and placed it on Warren Jeffs when he didn't have any authority to preside.

SG:For your wives and children, you mentioned your first two wives and the kind of things they were doing in the families that they came from. Do you recall your family having to go through any specific challenges with their extended 02:14:00families during this split period? Whether it be the '80s or even into the '90s because they are living in Colorado City and perhaps around extended family members that stayed with the Jeffs rather than coming to Centennial Park.

CC:No.

SG:None of them have any--

CC:None of my family had. Our contacts were among the people that eventually ended up in Centennial Park even though a lot them live in Colorado City before this place was initiated, and some of them still do. No, but my children did because my children went to school with these people and they made good friends. Then, all of a sudden, their friends couldn't talk to them and they couldn't associate with them and they didn't understand why. That had an impact on them 02:15:00and to this day it does. You can talk to them about those things and they know those people still and some of them have picked up a little association again with some of them, but for the most part they have been so destroyed in their view of life. The people that are still affiliated with the FLDS still have that attitude. The whole world is their enemy and Centennial Park is a bunch of apostates and they won't talk to them and they won't associate with them.

I would like to make one point perfectly clear because the people have a great misunderstanding about this: The Fundamentalists Work went through all of this and the split and Brother Jeffs taking over, administering Colorado City, [but] 02:16:00the FLDS did not exist until about 1992. By that time, the split was all over, Centennial Park was established, and to call people here FLDS is a mistake. We were never part of FLDS. It was organized way after the split and things got settled down, and yet people have coupled us with the FLDS and I resent that because it isn't the truth.

SG:Yeah, I believe that church name was actually legally incorporated in 1991.

CC:Yes, '91. Okay. Yeah, and that was along after we had settled.

SG:There's Centennial Park because 1886--

CC:1886, right. Hundred-year anniversary of the 1886. That's why it's called Centennial.

SG:Because it's my personal interest to not always focus on FLDS things, can we talk a little bit about the Nielson/Naylor split you alluded earlier?

CC:Yes, yes. Now that is to some degree problematical. It's the same kind of thing. The question is: did Rulon Allred really get authority from Joseph W. Musser or not. On the one occasion where he came to the brethren and wanted to get him ordained, he did not. Uncle Rich stood there with him [and] laid his hands on his head. Afterward, my mother asked Uncle Rich, "Just what is it that Brother Musser gave him?"

And he said, "He didn't give him anything. Just gave him a blessing." So, I don't think he got any authority on that occasion. After that, Rulon Allred, according to the testimony of my little brother and I don't 02:18:00know where he gets it from -- I didn't ever have this knowledge. Rulon Allred would take Brother Musser's hands and put them on his head and have him do something. [Laughing] By that time, Brother Musser was pretty well out of it. With Brother Naylor, what happened was Brother Hammon died, so Brother Timpson was left with the Work all by himself. He figured he needed some help, so he got Frank Naylor.

My mother was a witness to his ordination and she says he didn't use the right 02:19:00words. It's questionable just how much authority or what Brother Naylor got, but publicly he announced to the congregation that he had brought Naylor into the priesthood council. Now again, I knew Brother Naylor. I had a long association with his family. If not him, his son, Frank, and also his son, Laird. We were young and together and associated. I knew him well and I knew him. He knew me. Brother Naylor's personality was of a nature, "You're going to play dishes or I'm leaving. You're going to do it my way or I'm not going to participate."

What happened was Brother Timpson trying to get some structure because he was all alone [he] organized a bishopric. Ivan Nielson was the bishop and he had two counselors. As far as the duties of a bishop go, it was his responsibility and he was getting involved like that. Brother Timpson and Brother Naylor created an organization called the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Kingdom of God. It was a legal fiction like any other corporation. I don't know 02:21:00what the nature of it was. It was a 501(3)(c) or a regular corporation or whatever it was. That's what they wanted to do: business, because Brother Timpson was collecting tithing, putting it in a bank account, and if the IRS ever got that connection they would come to him to pay taxes on all that tremendous amount that was coming in in tithing and he couldn't do that. So, they created this organization to relieve him of that situation.

In the course of time, Brother Timpson called other men into the council. Brother Naylor had a grudge against John W. Timpson because of some business dealings in -- and I've heard from Brother John W. Timpson what the deal was and he was not at fault in the deal. It was his son that felt bad about what had 02:22:00happened, but it wasn't that his son was cheated or had anything done wrong to him. It just wasn't. In fact, Brother Timpson doesn't do business that way. Anyway, whatever their feelings were about it he had a grudge against him. I guess he didn't particularly look on me very well either. I don't know. He wasn't as bad about me as he was about John. So, that started a little difficulty. Then, it came to the place where Brother Timpson called Ivan Nielson in, and I was there and John was there, and asked him to turn the tithing over to John, who was a member of the Priesthood council, and Ivan was a bishop. That 02:23:00was then end of Ivan's association as subordinate to Brother Timpson. Ivan had had all of the pamphlets that were produced by the Truth publishing company and kept in custody of Guy Musser until he died. Ivan got those. They were stored down here in Centennial Park along with other things. He has the scrapbook that Brother Guy compiled of the '53 raid. All the newspaper articles and everything.

SG:Wow.

CC:He took all that and left. Allied with Brother Naylor to create this following that they went around -- they went to Loren Zitting and he didn't buy 02:24:00it, but a lot of people did. Most of them were family and various related people to the Naylors. In the midst of all this, the movement to Missouri took place and Brother Naylor went to Missouri because of the nature of his personality. Brother Timpson was doing things that he didn't agree with, so he was not going to participate. "You're not going to play with my dishes, I'm going to gather them up and go." That's what he did. Set up in Missouri and the people that went there went there and they did whatever they did. I sat with Brother Timpson and Brother Naylor and he talked to Brother Naylor about what was happening here.

He said, "Brother Naylor, don't gather a congregation."

And Brother Naylor said, "I'm not but I'm open to counsel if people want to come 02:25:00and see me." But the fact of the matter is, and I think it was Ivan's influence more than Brother Naylor's, there was a congregation gathered and they ended up in Missouri and they had whatever they had there.

Along with that came this legal fiction, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Kingdom of God, which Ivan bases his position on because he says, "This is the thing that was created when Brother Naylor and Brother Timpson were united together, and therefore it's the only thing there is to go forward with." Which means he doesn't accept the other actions of Brother Timpson and calling men into the council. It didn't occur until he was asked to give the money up. That's when he split is when he was asked to give the money up, and then he went to Salt Lake and started the Naylor group or whatever they call it. In the meantime, in Missouri, Brother Naylor came back to Salt Lake and 02:26:00went up to some cabin somewhere that they had and that's where he died.

SG:Do you recall the year or timeframe when they separated from Centennial Park?

CC:I am terrible on dates. I don't keep track of dates. It would have been in the '90s. I would guess '92 or it might have been later. I don't know. But Brother Timpson died in '96, so it was in the period between 1990 and '96 because he started calling these other men in '90 and that's when Brother Naylor 02:27:00got disenchanted because the number one that was called was John Timpson that he couldn't accept. Here again, it goes back to an understanding of Priesthood. The president of Priesthood has the keys. If he gets revelations to call a man, he's going to call him. It's nobody else's business. No man has the right to be ambitious about getting into that position. That was Rulon Allred's problem. He was ambitious. He wanted to be on the Priesthood council and he did his machinations to try and get that authority. It is not the prerogative of any member of that council to reject a man who is called into the council. There are historical times in which you hear -- I don't know how true it is because I wasn't born yet. I don't know anything about it. You can find it 02:28:00in Charles F. Zitting's journal. You'll find an account where the council accepted someone's calling and they voted on and agreed. They have the prerogative to agree. They don't have the prerogative to reject. That's the way Brother Naylor felt, so he went out on his own. That all happened between 1990 and the time Timpson died. I can only guess the year because I live in the present. [Laughing] Past, future I don't think about. I don't believe in dates so I just don't remember.

SG:We just like to get kind of an idea.

CC:It was in that time frame. He began calling in 1990 and over from then until 02:29:00'95 or something he had these brethren that are the current Priesthood council called over a period of months in 1990, '91, '92. I don't know. I just don't keep track of time pegged to dates. I've got kind of a stream of conscience way of living and it's all here at the instant. The next instant is the next instant is going to be all there then and I just have to see what it is.

SG:Let's move to the present. What is your current affiliation with the Work and tell us about the present [laughing]. Let's do it that way.

CC:I tell you what happened to me. I was in Chicago at the Palmer House Hotel on 02:30:00business and it was very late at night, like 11:30 PM, and I was in bed and I got a phone call. It was my mother and she says, "Brother Timpson wants to see you."

I'm in Chicago. [I] can't go and see him. I said, "I'm here in Chicago. I'll come and see him as soon as I can get back." I knew what it was for. When I got back, I went to see him and he informed me that I had called into Priesthood council -- I knew that was going to happen. I would rather not have taken up that burden frankly. It's how I felt about it. My position and everything that had happened and where I was situated, I didn't think it was something I wanted 02:31:00to do, but you don't refuse a call like that. That would have been really bad if I had said no, so I went ahead and -- John and I were called at the same time, but he was called first so he's the president.

You talk about these witnesses from the spirit of God or inspiration. There was a group of people, which is essentially Ivan's group, meeting in Salt Lake in the Naylor's house -- Frank Naylor's house. Our group was meeting and they alternated two Sundays a month. The one and the other. When I was called, 02:32:00Brother Timpson went there to that meeting and I was there and he announced the calling. He said, "Now, I want you people to counsel with these brethren." That's the last time he went to Salt Lake to a meeting, but I had to keep going and preside over those meetings. One Sunday, I was sitting there on the stand and it was the living room of Frank Naylor the III. Frank Naylor was Frank Naylor junior and then his son Frank Naylor III, who was my age, in his house.

I looked down the row and people were coming in and sitting. I looked down the row and I saw a Clayne Wayman sitting there and a voice said in my head, "That 02:33:00man should be in the council." Next month, I came and sat in the stand and I looked in the row and saw him sitting. "That man should be in the council."

Before two months more had gone by, he was. Brother Timpson asked us when we met with him: "I need some help in calling another--" And this is after he had all of these men except Brother Zitting. "I need some assistance."

And I had a dream. I don't have dreams that are meaningful [laughing]. People talk about their dreams and the experiences and they're so significant and they apply to their life. I just don't have those experiences, but I had a dream in which I saw Loren Zitting and he was to be called into this council. I didn't 02:34:00say anything about it. It's not my prerogative, but sure it enough it happened. The first two were me and John. Don't have anything to say about that, except I just knew when I got that phone call in the Palmer House Hotel I knew what it was about. I knew it was going to be-- But of the other four, half of them I got some inspiration about their calling. I think the reason I didn't get it on the other two is because I'm prejudice in my mind. I have things in past experience with each of those men that kept me from being open to receiving any kind of -- I don't hold those prejudices today, but there's a lot of back history that 02:35:00created those attitudes in my mind. If I hadn't had those prejudices, I probably would have got the message on them too, but I wasn't open to it.

So, that's what happened with me. At this time, I'm still involved in business in Salt Lake and that's where my life is. It was like that. I was up there -- of course then I had a responsibility to go to meetings at Frank Naylor III's at his house. One day he called me up and he said, "Look, it's just too much for me and my family to do two of these." What he really was saying, "Get out of my house." So, we started going to Brother Wayman's house again, which he had held 02:36:00meetings there before like when I was up there after I got my doctorate's degree and was in Salt Lake and that one meeting I went to was there. From that time until now, we've been holding the meetings in Salt Lake that way. I don't think there any of those men-- because we had Priesthood meeting with them and I had to supervise it to conduct those meetings. I don't think there's any of them outside of the Wayman family members who moved to meetings at Wayman's after we had made that move. They all stuck with Ivan and his group and that's been his group, which is falling apart because Ivan is ready to die and he can't 02:37:00administer. He's losing his capabilities, and who knows who should succeed him. Nobody knows and I don't know what kind of ideas they have because I have no connection with them, but I hear rumors and that's all I can go on. But, I know he's not capable of -- he's not in that condition of health. I'm surprised he's lasted as long as he has in fact. Don't know what's going to happen to that group when he dies, but they seem to get along one way or another. Might split up into more fragments. Who knows?

KB:How large is the Naylor group?

CC:How large? I don't really know, but it's a pretty good size group.

SG:Before we wrap up, are there any other whether they be principles, policies, 02:38:00or practices that your group holds whether it be garments, word of wisdom, gender polices, whatever that you'd like to touch on or discuss?

CC:No, I would just like to say we are trying to perpetuate what Joseph Smith restored and we have the authority to do it. Our sentiment is that we are not going to deviate from what he laid to the best of our ability. Some of these other groups are doing some of that stuff, like the endowment and plural marriage. They're not authorize to do it. They're out of order. The consequences or outcomes of what they do have no weight with God. 02:39:00Their history shows that they don't have authority. You look at their claims, which we've gone over, they're pretty flimsy for the most part. Ivan Nielson's group, he has no basis for doing things like endowments or plural marriages. He was a bishop. Never had any authority to possess the Sealing Keys. He's leaning on this organization and I don't know the details of how operates with that. If you believe, which I can't substantiate in history and I've inquired with the brethren to answer and they haven't been able to answer it, [that] "this Priesthood has been restored to the earth never to be taken away or given to 02:40:00another people" Joseph Smith -- I can't find anywhere where he said that. He didn't say that. Oliver Cowdery did. I found a place where Oliver Cowdery said it, and that's pretty good. He was very intimately associated with the prophet during the time of the Restoration. I have the greatest respect and reverence for him and what he did and hold nothing against him for whatever it was over which he was excommunicated and his sentiment was together back with the church, but he died before he could work that out. But, if you believe that, and like I say Joseph Smith never really said it, but we say it all the time -- I don't say it because I can't verify it. This authority, whatever it was, that was given to 02:41:00Joseph Smith in 1829. If it's true that it was restored never to be taken again, it has to be somewhere.

You can go to all these places around that claim to be Fundamentalist Mormons and examine the foundation of their efforts and their work, and you will find that it is devoid of authority. If there's any authority from Joseph Smith today, this is where it is because it has been passed down from one holding that authority by laying on of hands directly from Joseph Smith to today. There really isn't another group that can make that claim. The Work as we carry it on today is very much more like the Work I knew when I grew up in the '40s and '50s and '60s than any of these other groups. That's a testimony to its validity 02:42:00because we haven't departed. Over in Colorado City, they got hooked on this One-man thing and made a total destruction and created one of the great tragedies of our fundamentalist history. The Allred split was based on the ambitions of a man that had no prerogative to exert those ambitions and he manipulated a weak and sick man to try and get them. You can't usurp the Priesthood. It's questionable just what authority Frank Naylor had, but if he did he was out of order the day he walked away from Brother Timpson who was his president and senior. Ivan coupling with him didn't give him authority to carry on a Work. There's no basis for it there in authority. All of these groups you 02:43:00can go around and talk to, the Independents in particular I've worked with them a little bit, they don't want to talk about authority. They don't want to address the issue of authority. We don't bring it up. I don't bring it up. I just entertain the question, "Can we do something for each other?"

"Yeah."

Things like that happen. They organized a consortium to try to politically work against Reynolds vs the United States, which should be thrown out. We cooperate with them. We donated money to help that, but we don't talk about authorities. They don't want to talk about it because it's pretty evident that if you understand how God deals with his children. When it come to bestowing them with 02:44:00authority, it's done by the laying on of hands. That principle is enunciated in the fifth Article of Faith, and that's the way he operates. So, anybody that gets a [warm and] fuzzy feeling and thinks he can take authority somehow and gather people around him is out of order. Anybody that claims authority that hasn't been delivered by the laying on of hands by somebody who has that authority to give is out of order. You look at all of these groups and look at their foundations and you'll recognize pretty easily that that's the case with them. We don't have anything against them. There are many people that we love, especially in Colorado City. These are people I associated with, I knew. Getting old now, lots of them have died, but even their children. My heart goes out to 02:45:00them. They were dealt a despicable blow by Warren Jeffs and they have suffered because of it. There are ones that have recognized that now, struggling to get some kind of a life together that they can feel like they can have a spiritual life. It's a terrible tragedy. We say it's a Priesthood issue and it is a Priesthood issue. If there are ordinances to be administered to people and they aren't sanctioned by God, they have no value after people die. Says that in the 132nd section of the Doctrine and Covenants. The authority to do it and have it last beyond this life has to come from God. It's his authority.

SG:One last question that kind of inspired through that: How you found -- I happen to know that you have at least one or two converts into the Work here in Centennial Park. Have you found that there are people that have either been pushed out or left FLDS that tried to come find their spiritual home here in Centennial Park?

CC:We have a few. One in particular that -- it's not the only one. There are several that have come here, been rebaptized, they attend their meetings, and they're affiliated with us. There may be others in the future that will come. I'm talking to one right now that has been through this debacle over there and 02:47:00realized that he had spent time being dominated by a reprehensible character and finally recognized that he didn't have to buckle to it and got out of the FLDS. He's got a history of at least eight years going through the transition of getting out of that and living a life and having a family that -- he has ladies that are still in it, so they don't want anything to do with him. I wouldn't say they don't want anything to do with him, but they won't come along with him. They'll associate with him, especially his children he has a relationship with. He's going through a seeking for something spiritual that he hasn't had in his life because he's been through this experience, and yet in his growing up years 02:48:00until the time he was a teenager he was in the group and he has that background. He believes in Joseph Smith and he believes in the scriptures Joseph Smith generated and he believes in the Priesthood.

But, they have been so embittered over there against the Priesthood that's here that it is very difficult for them to turn around and say, "Yeah, that's it." Some of them have and they've had life experiences that caused them be converted to that. I took a look at the situation, and this is after the split and this after really when Brother Jeffs died when it really got bad, and I thought about this proposition. All of these people that have been deceived and they have been deceived.

Fortunately, the Lord says, "I will gather up the deceived, but woe onto the deceivers." And the deceivers are going to get their comeuppance. We believe that. I don't hold it against those people. They're the salt of the earth. But, the people that deceived them are going to have to account for it. So, what I perceived was that when the split occurred you had the group of people that were my peers. People that I had interacted with, associated with, come to meeting with, I had heard their testimonies, I knew what they had to say about the Work and how they felt. Now, it's changed and there's a lot of hate generated in this split against brother Hammon and Brother Timpson and all the successor people in 02:50:00Centennial Park. They won't associate with, they won't talk to him, you can't -- you're just forbidden to do that. The little kids who would throw rocks at Brother Timpson when he'd take his walk. They're in Colorado City and stuff like that. That kind of hate could not be exhibited by the elders because they had experience prior to the split. So, whatever their feelings were, and they might talk against Brother Hammon and Brother Timpson and then it falls down to their children, but first generation in spite of the animosity that they generated couldn't have hatred for those brethren for these people. They could not associate for whatever reasons, but their children absorbed it. The second generation. It's pretty evident that if you come to the third generation that's 02:51:00going to be diluted because years have passed by.

I thought, "Okay, by the fourth generation there are going to be some people from there that are going to take a look at their lives and they're going to be asking questions." They have been in an environment where not only is the Gospel not taught -- the things that were taught were in the image as if it were the Gospel, but the Gospel is not really being taught. Christianity is not being taught, just plain Christian conduct is not being taught.

They're going to take a look at it and say, "Hey, wait a minute. And what is the truth? And what is the Gospel about?" And if there is somebody that can answer their questions, they might recognize the value of Priesthood and we have a few 02:52:00that have done that. But, it's just beginning over here. It's just beginning. What we call ex-FLDS, people that have realized that they were in a bad way and got out of it and they were trying to put their life back together. Either they don't have a religion and they're into the drug scene and they're all like that, or they are saying, "Hey, wait a minute. It's not good to treat your fellow man like we've been taught to treat those people over there. I believe that we should love our neighbors ourselves and I'm going to start doing it." There are people over there that feel that way, and in fact they're making overt efforts to try and bring people together. But, there's no talk about Priesthood. Any of 02:53:00those people who get curious about living the Gospel and learning it and putting it in their lives eventually it comes down to the authority, and so they're going to have to address that one way or the other.

Long time ago, Loren Woolley said, "People will come. First, it'll be just a trickle. Then, it will be more and more. It's like wheat coming out of bin. It's a little bit and all of sudden it's a flood." I don't know whether that will happen or not, but we're seeing the trickle.

SG:Awesome. Are you good?

KB:I'm good.

SG:Awesome. Thank you so-so much for your time.

CC:You're welcome. My pleasure.

SG:We're very happy to collect this oral history from out of Centennial Park. You're the first one for this project.

CC:I have told people that anybody who wants to know the history of the Work should come to me because there are a lot of mistaken ideas. I lived through 02:54:00[it] and I'm old enough that there aren't too many people left who did live through it. So, that I can tell the story at least from my standpoint and what I experienced. The conclusions about it that I have made from those experiences, which as far as I'm concerned is the true story of the fundamentalist movement to this point in time.

KB:Thank you so much.

CC:You're welcome.

[END OF RECORDING]