Rulon C. Allred

Rulon Clark Allred ( 1906 - May 10, 1977 ) was an American homeopath and chiropractor in Salt Lake City and President of the Apostolic United Brethren, a Mormon fundamentalist group in Utah, Colorado and Arizona.

Life

After Allred had initially turned away from the polygamous religious community of his father and grandfather at a young age, he decided in his third decade as a result of an alleged vision to marry several women. The decision is sometimes portrayed as the result of estrangement from his first wife, told by Latter-day Saints President Heber J. Grant to leave her husband and their three children.

Allred soon assumed responsibility in a polygamous community in Short Creek (now Colorado City , Arizona ) after its spiritual leader, Joseph White Musser , suffered a stroke and was paralyzed. When Arizona Governor John Howard Pyle initiated the "Short Creek raid" (= Short Creek surprise attack ) in 1953 , Allred was arrested and convicted of bigamy. After his release, however, he continued his polygamous way of life. When the leadership of Rulon Jeffs and conflicts with the Lebaron family belonging to a competing sect who u. a. Wanted to gain control of several fundamentalist Mormon groups by means of violence, which caused internal tensions and ultimately numerous divisions, Allred took over the leadership of one of the newly formed groups.

As he got older, Allred hid his polygamous beliefs less and less. Finally, he spoke openly in interviews that he shared the principles of multiple marriage .

Rulon Allred had at least twelve wives and had twenty-five children. While Allred appears to be very conservative, the group around him was far more moderate than the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints around Rulon and Warren Jeffs, or the Ervil LeBaron-led community from which he has received death threats since the 1960s .

On May 10, 1977, two women dressed in wigs and sunglasses visited Allred in his suburban Salt Lake City office. With handguns, they immediately opened fire on him and others present. The women were able to flee. Allred alone was injured and succumbed to his injuries that same day. One of the two perpetrators was later identified as Rena Chenoweth, one of Ervil LeBaron's thirteen women.

literature

• Dorothy Allred Solomon: In My Father's House ; Franklin Watts, 1984; ISBN 978-0-531-09763-2 (The author is a daughter of RCAllred.)
• Dorothy Allred Solomon: Predators, Prey, and Other Kinfolk: Growing Up in Polygamy ; New York: WW Norton, 2003; ISBN 978-0-393-04946-6
• Samuel W. Taylor: I Have Six Wives ; 1953; Greenberg, 1956; World's Work, 1958 (The novel is based on Allred's life.)

Web links

• http://www.mormonfundamentalism.com/Photos/RulonCAllred.htm