LOVELL, WYOMING - A group formerly associated with the polygamists in Texas is living quietly in Lovell. They raise families and there, and run businesses in the Northwest Wyoming community. They are trying to stay out of the limelight.
Lovell is a small community near the base of the Big Horn Mountains. One block away from the main street is a small, unmarked building. Inside it is a church, where about 90 members of the Apostolic United Brethren worship with their families, some large families. A spokeswoman for AUB, Jacqueline Hooper, told KULR 8, “I personally have ten children.”
Hooper is a member of what other people call the polygamist group. She says they are actually pluralists, with only one legal marriage per husband. But, she says unions with multiple wives is God given. She explained, “I think a man naturally has the ability to love more than one woman, the same as a woman can love all her children.”
Hooper said she and her husband were members of the LDS, or Mormon church in England, before they decided to join what she calls the Allred group in Lovell. There is a large LDS church in Lovell, but according to the spokeswoman for the pluralist group, her church is not part of the LDS. And Hooper says her church broke away from the Fundamentalist LDS, like the group in Texas, in the 1950s.
“We didn’t agree with underage marriages, forced marriages, or any of those things. And, we don’t now. That’s definitely not practiced among our people now.” Could any of the Texas group be moving to Lovell? Hooper said, “I don’t have any association with them, and as far as I know, they don’t associate with anybody in our church.”
On the Texas group's practices, she said, “If they are performing underage marriages, I don’t think that’s right, why can’t a woman wait until she’s 18 years old. I don’t believe in arranged marriages. I think we have a right to choose for ourselves. I don’t think God forces anybody to do anything.” But Hooper does not hold the authorities in Texas blameless.
She said, “We pray for the women and the children. Those poor children. You know to be taken away from their families.” While the FLDS is fighting the law in Texas, Hooper says her church is abiding by the law.
A Lovell Businessman, Alan Bair, told KULR 8, “I do business with them and they do business with me.” Bair says the men of the Allred church are builders. His opinion of them, “Very fine people. Very personable, honest, hardworking. Just normal kind of people.”
When asked about rumors of underage marriages, Bair said, “I have not heard anything like that, nor have I seen it, and I frequent their homes several times a year.” KULR 8 contacted local law and health agencies, and spoke with an abuse counselor. There was no confirmation of illegal activities in the church.