A former child bride hopes her meeting with LDS Church officials will lead to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints doing more to help people leaving abusive situations within closed polygamous societies.
Accompanied by a pair of Christian community pastors, Susan Ray Schmidt met Friday with LDS Family Services commissioner Fred Riley and Dana Templeman, the director of the LDS Church's International Adoption Development. She described the meeting as "warm and accommodating."
"They listened to my story and showed sincere understanding," Schmidt said in an interview Monday with the Deseret Morning News. "I feel very much like it was an issue that needed to be brought to their attention."
LDS Church officials confirmed the meeting but declined to say what, if any, type of support would be offered.
"We met together to discuss areas of common interest," church spokesman Scott Trotter said.
Schmidt was uncertain what support the church would offer, but she saw the meeting as a positive first step.
One group that could benefit is the HOPE Organization, a southern Utah-based nonprofit, provides resources and support primarily to people leaving polygamous enclaves on the Utah-Arizona border.
"If any of the churches want to help us, that would be great," said Elaine Tyler, director of the HOPE Organization.
The group needs help. A federal grant to state social-services agencies and local nonprofit groups that has been used to help women and children leave domestic violence situations in isolated communities is set to expire in a couple of weeks. There is no word if the grant will be renewed.
In recent months, Tyler said her organization has been seeing an increase in young women, ages 19 and 20, leaving the border towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz.
"Some were forced into marriages. Some left and have now hooked up with some of the boys that have left," she said.
In May, Schmidt sent a letter to the church asking it to provide financial resources and support to women and children leaving polygamy.
She contends the LDS Church bears some responsibility for the problem. The LDS Church no longer practices polygamy and excommunicates those who do.
Schmidt made her request public during an interview last month with the Deseret Morning News while she was in southern Utah promoting her book, "His Favorite Wife: Trapped in Polygamy." The book details her life as a member of the LeBaron polygamous group.
As a teenager, Schmidt was told she would marry polygamist leader Ervil LeBaron but was married off to his brother Verlan. She was 15 years old at the time, he was 38.
In the 1970s, Ervil LeBaron ordered the assassinations of rival polygamous leaders. Schmidt went into hiding when the murders started. In 1975, she left her husband and took their five children with her. She now lives in Idaho and has since remarried.
The LDS Church's level of support for people leaving abusive situations in polygamy was publicly questioned during an April town hall meeting in St. George. Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff defended the church, saying it has provided help in the past but has chosen to do it "quietly."
E-mail: bwinslow@desnews.com