Short Creek she returned to was different from the one she’d left. The town was in transition. Many members of the church still lived there, and FLDS members ran the city govern- ment and police force. Apostates were quite literally taking the homes of evicted FLDS members, causing tension. “It felt like there was a dark cloud over the entire Valley,” Jessop says. “People weren’t talking to one another. It find of felt like a ghost town, and it did not feel like we were wanted or welcome in any kind of way.” In 2012, the U.S. Department of Justice sued Short Creek and Hildale, finding that the government and police force were acting on behalf of, and as a wing of, the FLDS church and Jeffs. A court order imposed independent oversight of the towns. In August of this year, two years before the oversight was set to expire, the DOJ released Hildale and Short Creek from monitoring, a sign post of how much has changed. One such change was in Hildale city government. In 2017, Donia Jessop was elected as the town’s mayor, becoming the first ex-FLDS person in the position. Three other ex-FLDS members won city council seats. The election was not a sign of rapprochement with the FLDS community as much as a snapshot of the area’s changing demographics. Jessop and a slate of ex-FLDS candidates worked to register and win the votes of apostates. Electorally, FLDS members were considered some- thing of a lost cause. With fewer than 400 registered voters in Hildale, Jessop won the mayoral race 129 votes to 81. Not everyone is happy with the changes in Short Creek. Sitting at a large dining table in her Colorado City home, 16-year- old Kathy Bistline snacks on green grapes while recounting a recent visit to the Dollar General. She was wearing a hoodie and leggings into the store — not the typical floor-length prairie dress for Bistline, who is FLDS. “Whoa, getting your freedom?” the cashier cracked. The comment stung. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Bistline says. “Like, I don’t have freedom?” Bistline now feels like the outsider in a town long defined by her own church. FLDS members are a common sight, but only around 6-8% of Colorado City resi- dents and only 3% of Hildale residents are church members, says Voice for Dignity founder Christine Marie. The towns are mostly inhabited by ex-FLDS residents or newcomers with no prior connection to the church. Bistline says she feels judged by people for her religion. Warren Jeffs still exerts influence on the church, but things have loosened up from the FLDS days of old. As she talks, Bistline’s hair is not in a braid but drapes messily over her silver Beats head- phones. She’s home-schooled, but her family has a movie room. Still, Bistline — who has never known a world in which Jeffs is not behind bars — isn’t a fan of what Short Creek is becoming. “It’s just scarier mostly,” Bistline says. “You feel like you’re being watched all the time.” Short Creek’s past hasn’t been completely washed away. Rulon Jeffs’ “Keep Sweet” motto can still be found on a chimney pipe of the massive home that used to belong to him and his notorious son. The meeting house where the FLDS would worship sits vacant and tattered, a block away from the elementary school. And when measles hit, very few were vaccinated, just as Warren Jeffs ordered. ‘A DAY LATE AND A DOLLAR SHORT’ With a largely unimmunized population to run through, the measles outbreak in Short Creek keeps growing. Keate says Hometown Wellness is trying “the best we can” to treat the influx of patients. There are a lot of them. Hometown Wellness employees instruct patients to stay in their cars when they arrive, meeting them outside and spiriting positive or suspected measles patients through the back door to a secure area. Once inside, patients are given antibodies, intravenous fluids and ibuprofen. If a patient can’t kick measles, they may have to go to the emer- gency room 30 minutes away in Hurricane, Utah. If things get really serious, the closest hospital is an hour away in St. George. Anyone who is that sick is dealing with something more than just measles. “It’s not why they have to go to the hospital,” Keate says. “It’s because of the secondary infection. Somehow it’s always pneumonia.” Families have been hit hard. The daughter of one of Decker’s friends got measles, along with 10 members of the girl’s household. They’ve been quarantining. Garcia says five kids in another home in Short Creek got the disease. Everyone in that home weathered it well, except for a 16-year-old who had severe symptoms. The outbreak has changed some tunes about vaccination. Keate says that when people see “how horrible it is,” entire fami- lies trek to get immunized, either at the Mohave County Health Department’s trailer-like nursing station off of Highway 389 or at the Creek Valley Health Clinic in town. From August through Sept. 21, the Creek Valley Health Clinic administered 689 vaccines to Short Creek residents, clinic CEO Hunter Adams says. Mohave County has not returned a request for its updated vaccination numbers. Creekers who visit the beige health department trailer by the highway are often “a day later and a dollar short,” Keate says. They still end up getting measles because they’ve already been exposed. Keate works to educate patients about the need to be proactive, but some are resistant to vaccines. Others believe, erroneously, that the shot will give them measles rather than guard against it. Even in this, Jeffs’ influence looms. Some Creekers are reluctant to get the vaccine because Jeffs said they shouldn’t. But as Short Creek changes, many others are hesi- tant for the opposite reason. For years in Short Creek, Jeffs dictated the decisions that governed people’s lives. Decades before that, the government tried to do the same, ripping children away from their families. As Short Creek grows, community leaders are “very careful not to push belief systems,” Donia Jessop says. You can hardly blame Creekers for being slow to trust. “We push out education, but we don’t demand,” Jessop says. “Never again will we be told what to do.” The abandoned FLDS meeting house in Short Creek. (Morgan Fischer) A reelection sign for Donia Jessop, the mayor of Hildale, Utah. (Morgan Fischer) The Hometown Wellness Clinic in Short Creek. (Morgan Fischer) The Mohave County Health Department nursing station in Short Creek. (Morgan Fischer) Uncontained from p 18
