Rulon C. Allred

Rulon Clark Allred
Allred in 1975
Born	March 29, 1906(1906-03-29)
Died	May 10, 1977(1977-05-10) (aged 71)
Spouse	at least 12

Rulon Clark Allred (March 29, 1906 – May 10, 1977) was a homeopathic physician and chiropractor in Salt Lake City and the leader of what is now the Apostolic United Brethren, a breakaway sect of polygamous Mormon fundamentalists in Utah, Colorado, and Arizona, United States. He was murdered on the orders of Ervil LeBaron, the head of a rival polygamous sect.

Biography

Having turned away from the polygamous religion of his father and grandfather as a young man, Allred's decision to take plural wives came in his twenties following what he described as a vision; the decision resulted in the estrangement of his first wife, Katherine.

Allred began to assume greater responsibilities in the Short Creek, Arizona polygamous community following the paralytic stroke of its leader, Joseph White Musser. Allred was imprisoned for bigamy following Arizona governor John Howard Pyle's 1953 "Short Creek raid", but resumed his polygamous lifestyle upon his release and during his imprisonment is when he met the LeBaron group through correspondence and eventually fled to Mexico to live on their compound with promises of wealth, yet that was not the case. Allred ultimately assumed leadership of a polygamous group.

In his later years Allred made no attempt to hide his polygamous beliefs and openly spoke of his adherence to the principle of plural marriage on talk shows and in print interviews. Allred was the husband of at least seven wives and the father of forty-eight children. His daughter's biography reveals that after the original seven wives, Allred was pressured by his peers to be "sealed" to widows and other women requesting to be bound to "their prophet." At the time of his death, he had been sealed to 16 women in total. Though extremely conservative by the standards of outsiders, Allred's sect was far more moderate than the community headed by Rulon and Warren Jeffs and certainly more so than the organization headed by LeBaron. He was not on good terms with either of the rival sects, and he began receiving death threats from the LeBaron group in the 1960s.

On May 10, 1977, two women, both disguised by wigs and sunglasses, visited his office in Murray, Utah and opened fire with handguns. Only Allred was injured; he died of his wounds the same day. One of the women was later identified as Rena Chynoweth, one of LeBaron's wives. Although acquitted (Chynoweth was found not guilty in a 9-3 jury ruling), Chynoweth later confessed to the crime in her memoir, The Blood Covenant. LeBaron was eventually convicted of association with several other murders, including that of his daughter, Rebecca.

Allred's family is the subject of two memoirs written by one of his daughters, Dorothy Allred Solomon: In My Father's House and Predators, Prey, and Other Kinfolk: Growing Up in Polygamy. Samuel W. Taylor's I Have Six Wives was based on Allred's life. Allred's niece, Irene Spencer, writes of her uncle in her memoir Shattered Dreams: My Life As A Polygamist's Wife. Spencer, now a remarried monogamist, was the second of ten wives of LeBaron's younger brother and opponent, Verlan.

References

• Dorothy Allred Solomon. In My Father's House. (Franklin Watts, 1984)
• Dorothy Allred Solomon. Predators, Prey, and Other Kinfolk: Growing Up in Polygamy. (W.W. Norton, 2003)
• Dorothy Allred Solomon. Daughter of the Saints: Growing Up In Polygamy. (W.W. Norton, 2003).
• Dorothy Allred Solomon. The Sisterhood: Inside the Lives of Mormon Women. (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007)
• Irene Spencer. Shattered Dreams: My Life as a Polygamist's Wife.
• Ben Bradlee, Jr. and Dale Van Atta, Prophet of Blood: The Untold Story of Ervil LeBaron and the Lambs of God (G.G. Putnam's Sons, 1981)

External links

• http://dorothyallredsolomon.com
• http://www.mormonfundamentalism.com/Photos/RulonCAllred.htm
• Florea, John (January 1, 1944; republished online, 2011), Rare: LIFE With Polygamists, 1944: Meet the [Rulon Clark] Allreds (photo gallery: Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images), Life magazine, http://www.life.com/gallery/49551/rare-life-with-polygamists-1944#index/1, retrieved August 18, 2011 
• Rulon C. Allred at Find a Grave

Preceded by Joseph White Musser

Apostolic United Brethren 1954–1977

Succeeded by Owen Arthur Allred