They chose to relocate.
The women, followers of a breakaway Mormon sect that practices polygamy as a religious requirement, soon had even more painful decisions to make: which children to be near.
Though child welfare workers promised to make every effort to keep siblings together, it hasn't always happened. Steed's six young children have been scattered across the state, at four foster care facilities in three cities, San Antonio, Waco and Waxahachie.
She remains with theyoungest, her nursing infant daughter, at a children's shelter on San Antonio's West Side.
"It is so hard," Steed, 32, said tearfully, sitting in a gazebo beside a pond near the shelter Friday.
Jessop's four children are now in three facilities in three cities. She remains with her nursing infant son at the same shelter as Steed.
"These women are having to choose between children," said Steed's attorney, D'ann Johnson. "They don't know where to go."
Members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints rarely speak to news media. But desperation to win the return of their children drove Jessop and Steed to agree to be interviewed about their upside-down lives during the six weeks since state authorities, acting on a telephoned abuse complaint, raided their compound and seized all of its 464 children.
Name confusion
The children remain in temporary state custody while officials investigate whether minor girls were spiritually married to older men and sexually abused. The state wants permanent custody, arguing that simply growing up in the sect puts children in line for such abuse.
Child Protective Services officials acknowledge that siblings have been separated, but blame their parents, saying repeated attempts to deceive investigators have left caseworkers unsure of identities and family ties.
Jessop denied any of the parents intentionally misled investigators. But her explanation of her own name would confuse anybody.
"I say my name is Gladys Lindsay. They say, 'It's Gladys Jessop.' My legal name is Gladys Jessop but because I answer to Gladys Lindsay they say I am lying."
For women who have shunned the modern world, Sarah Steed and Gladys Jessop have become surprisingly adept at navigating it.
Connected by cell phone to the attorneys and CPS workers they speak with daily, they have become overnight experts on the ins and outs of Texas family law. They wear out their phone batteries each day, using the phones to determine their children's whereabouts and their legal rights.
Gladys, the combative one who often speaks for Sarah, says they've learned they can say no to investigators and reporters.
"It's none of your business," she said, when asked if she was in a polygamous marriage.
Torn from their community, they live with 16 other nursing mothers and their infants in a cluster of neat brick dwellings along a busy highway.
Lawyers with Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid, which represents 50 of the women, have asked the state's Third Court of Appeals to overturn a judge's decision to keep the 464 children in temporary state custody.
'Conspiracy of silence'
On Friday, CPS lawyers countered that the FLDS mothers have engaged in a "conspiracy of silence" that has hampered the investigation and forced state District Judge Barbara Walther of San Angelo to keep the children in state foster care.
To be entitled to the appeals courts' attention, the mothers must name and claim their offspring, the CPS response stated.
"(The mothers) cannot refuse to cooperate with the department, attempt to thwart the trial court's proceedings by refusing to cooperate in identifying or equivocating about the identity of the children ... and then claim to have standing to challenge the proceedings and the orders of the trial court," it stated.
Drawing on testimony before Walther last month, CPS lawyers recounted that no age, according to the FLDS members, was too young to be "spiritually married," that 16-year-olds at the ranch had given birth and had small children, and that two were 15 and one was 13 when they became pregnant.
lsandberg@express-news.net
terri.langford@chron.com
To see more of the Houston Chronicle, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.HoustonChronicle.com. Copyright (c) 2008, Houston Chronicle Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
More News:
Market Updates |
Stock Alerts |
All Trading News |
Stock Index
|
|
