The Sound of Gravel: A Memoir

Ruth Wariner was raised in Colonia LeBaron, a Mormon colony in northern Mexico that was founded by her grandfather, Alma Dayer LeBaron, after he had a vision while walking through the desert. Alma saw lush farms, orchards, and families growing and flourishing in their righteous lives, and moved from the US state of Utah to Mexico with his wife in 1944 to begin the colony. Other families followed, and it grew. It was there that Ruth was born, her pale, soft skin no match for the harsh desert environment. She and her family always tried to live up to her grandfather’s legacy, although he died before she was born.

Ruth remembers being five years old and following her mother through their chaotic daily lives. One day her mother woke her to go to church while her four siblings (Audrey, Matt, Luke, and Aaron) stayed home. Audrey had a developmental disability and wet the bed, and Ruth had to hurriedly clean herself off before leaving. The colony was spread across farmland, with the church at its center, and the small town could be walked from end to end. At church, Ruth and her mother rushed to find a seat and then listened as one woman, Ruth’s stepfather’s sister, spoke her testimony about gratitude and how she conquered the jealousy she often felt from sharing a husband. Behind the woman was a photograph of Ruth’s father, one of the colony’s original founders. Ruth knew little about him but always heard that he was kind and humble. She asked her mother about him one day while she cooked beans, and Kathy (Ruth’s mother) told the story of how she married Ruth’s father when she was 17 and he was 42.

Ruth’s grandparents and mother lived in Utah when they heard of Ruth’s father, Joel LeBaron, who had started a church with followers and was looking to spread the word about bringing polygamy back into Mormonism. Ruth’s grandparents moved to Mexico and founded the LeBaron colony but later moved to Las Vegas due to financial hardship, where Ruth’s father and mother met. For Kathy, meeting Ruth’s father, Joel Le Baron, gave her a sense of purpose, and she wanted to help him serve the Heavenly Father. Kathy could not cook at the time and ruined their bean supper, and she now insisted that Ruth learn how to cook so the same thing would not happen to her. When Ruth’s father was killed by his brother Ervil, Ruth’s grandparents and many other followers lost faith in his teachings and moved back to the US. Kathy felt compelled to return to LeBaron and soon met Lane, became his second wife, and gave birth to Ruth’s youngest brother, Aaron. Ruth always noticed that Lane was nice to people in public but often threatened and yelled at her when they were at home. She wished her father was still alive because life with Lane meant that they had no electricity and often struggled to make ends meet. Ruth wondered why her uncle Ervil killed her father and worried that since FBI had not caught him, he might one day kill her or her mother.

Kathy constantly traveled to the US for food stamps and financial assistance, which she received through a form of fraud and which she and Lane justified by saying that the people of the US were funding God’s work. Ruth and her siblings traveled with Kathy to El Paso, Texas, and the bus rides were always chaotic, but Kathy seemed immune to it all. On one such trip, while returning to LeBaron, Kathy spotted a Mexican boy living in a box in Juarez. Ruth’s older brother, Matt, offered the boy his jacket, and they also gave him some socks and a sweater. Ruth envied her cousins in the US (whose families left Mexico after her father died): They lived in homes with running water and electricity. Nevertheless, upon seeing the boy living in a box, Ruth knew that she was still more privileged than some.

The bus continued its journey until it reached the Sierra Madre mountain range, where LeBaron was located. The drive down into the valley was steep, and Ruth was always jostled awake by the change in elevation. Above LeBaron was an L that marked one’s entrance into the colony. The bus dropped Ruth and her family off at the edge of the highway, and Lane never arrived to pick them up, so they walked through the dark instead. Their house was on the other side of a ditch that ran through the whole colony, and they regularly had to jump across it to get home. On this night, Audrey jumped only halfway and fell in the mud, causing her to moan and become upset, and Kathy had to jump across with baby Aaron in her arms. Walking up to the cold, dark house, Ruth felt unwelcome and perturbed. Inside, the air smelled like mouse feces, and everyone had to share two kerosene lamps. They played cards and ate tortillas with butter before going to sleep. Ruth went to bed and tried to get warm lying next to her sister.

Ruth awoke on Christmas Eve, again covered in Audrey’s urine, to hear Matt screaming. She rushed into the living room, where she found him in a panic after he awoke to see a mouse crawling on him. Ruth’s mom told him to calm down and distracted him by asking him to help load the barrel heater (a large barrel carved out and filtered to the outside through a tube). Ruth’s mom went to a local convenience store to pick up mouse traps and a few other things, leaving the children alone. They played and amused themselves for a while, but soon Audrey became agitated. She began to rock back and forth and clench her teeth, and despite Matt’s attempts to calm her, she became upset and attacked her siblings. She threw Matt to the ground, turned Aaron upside down, and bit Ruth. To get away from Audrey, the siblings ran outside, where Lane and their mother eventually found them. Lane and Kathy seemed confused to find the children so far from the house but not concerned about what had just happened to them, instead focusing their attention on Audrey.

Ruth’s parents often sang “Count Your Blessings,” a song about being grateful for what little you have. On Christmas Eve, Lane sang and played his guitar and then read the story of Jesus’s birth, something Kathy usually did. Lane and many other people in the colony didn’t believe in celebrating Christmas, considering it a false holiday and not the correct date of Jesus’s birth, but Kathy insisted on keeping the tradition. In the middle of the night, Ruth had to use the outhouse, which she always dreaded because it was dark, smelly, and there was always a risk of splinters. On Christmas morning, she and her siblings awoke to find peanuts in the socks they hung the night before, along with a couple of small candies and an orange. Ruth and Luke each received a Fisher Price toy, significantly used and worn, but played together for hours, grateful for what they received.

The following summer, Ruth was six years old and started to feel like she should be given more responsibility. One day she followed Matt out to milk the cows, and he reluctantly showed her how to do it, but not before squirting her with milk and upsetting her. Afterward, Ruth was walking past Lane in his work shed when he smiled at her. Ruth never knew Lane well, as he was often not around or distant when he was, but she felt courageous and decided to approach him. Ruth told Lane that she wanted to start milking cows, but he said she wasn’t old enough yet. He began to laugh and smile in a strange way, and when he asked Ruth to come sit on his lap, she instantly felt a sense of fear. Lane then picked her up and held her, asked for a kiss, and would not let go until Ruth obeyed. She pushed herself away from him and left the shed, vowing not to find herself alone with him again.

When Kathy announced she was pregnant again, she was thrilled, but it meant that Ruth had to grow up quickly and learn to do the things that her mother no longer could. She learned how to use the makeshift electric grinder, which had exposed wires she was warned not to touch, and to make bread from flour. Ruth relished learning these skills but soon grew restless and eager to start school, which she did the following fall. The school she attended was small and only taught up to the fourth grade, but it gave her the opportunity to learn to read and write and to meet people outside her immediate family. Ruth often longed for other girls to play with growing up, and when she asked her mother why her cousins and aunts moved away, Kathy explained that they lost faith in the movement. After Ruth’s father’s prophecies failed to come true and he was then killed, few still believed. Kathy was an exception and claimed to have no regrets about staying despite living in poverty with so many children to care for on her own.

Ruth awoke for her first day of school, nervous but eager to embark on something new. The school was a small building just across the highway, and children of all skin colors filled the schoolyard. Inside the classroom, Ruth realized that her teacher would speak in Spanish, and when the teacher saw that Ruth did not know the language, she assigned another girl who spoke English to sit next to her. The girl, Natalia, turned out to be one of Ruth’s many half-siblings who shared the same father. They bonded immediately and spent recess with another girl, Brenda, who was also a half-sister. Kathy later confirmed that these were indeed her sisters, and Ruth couldn’t wait to go back to school the next day.

Ruth learned Spanish quickly and always looked forward to seeing her sisters at school. In December, her baby sister Meredith (known as Meri) was born, and she and Ruth instantly bonded. Lane finally installed electricity in the home, and took a new wife, Susan, upon Kathy’s suggestion. Kathy hoped he would marry someone who was already her friend, and Susan’s eight children fit in with her six. When Kathy saved up to buy a shower faucet for the bathroom, she and the children looked forward to the day that Lane would bring it back from town. When he did, he gave it to his first wife, Alejandra, which irritated Kathy. She became irate and deeply hurt by his actions, but he tried to brush it off as nothing. Overhead, a storm brewed and thunder crashed. Kathy, who rarely got angry at her children, turned to Ruth and called her stupid. Lane grabbed Kathy by the hair and told her that all the family’s money was his to decide what to do with. He pushed her to the ground and violently whipped her with his belt as she screamed and the children watched, unable to move. When he finished, he threatened her once more to never talk back to him, and she screamed at him to get out. Kathy then got up and resumed her motherly duties, not mentioning it again.

The next morning at school, Ruth could think of nothing but what happened the night before, but said nothing to anyone about it. A girl from an older grade started teasing Ruth, asking if she and her siblings were “retarded.” Ruth had never thought about or felt embarrassed by her siblings’ intelligence before. Moments later, Kathy pulled up in her microbus and collected the children in the middle of the school day. She had clearly been crying and told them they would be returning home to get their things and then going to live with their grandparents in California. All the children were excited at the thought of living there and were glad to hear that Lane was not coming with them. Ruth was certain everything would be alright now as a rainbow formed overhead.