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#Post#: 860--------------------------------------------------
Tom Kizzia, PILGRIM'S WILDERNESS: A TRUE STORY ... (2013)
By: agate Date: July 12, 2015, 7:47 pm
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Tom Kizzia, PILGRIM'S WILDERNESS: A TRUE STORY OF FAITH AND
MADNESS IN THE ALASKA FRONTIER (2013)
Every man, woman, and child in Alaska has automatically received
a bonus every year just for living in a state where oil was
found years ago. If this situation hadn't given rise to at least
a few opportunists over the years, I'd have been more than
surprised as the bonus is quite substantial (I believe, around
$1,000/year).
This book is an account of one person who was particularly
successful in availing himself of Alaska's bountiful system: one
Bobby Hale, who called himself Pilgrim (as in Pilgrim's
Progress), the son of an FBI agent. He began his family in the
community of Taos, New Mexico--at which time he was active in
transcendental meditation. Eventually he became an ardent
Christian, one who was sure that God was speaking directly to
him and who expected the end time to be just around the corner.
He ended up in the Wrangell Mountains of Alaska with his wife,
appropriating some National Park Service land to house his
growing family--and their animals, snowmachines, and other
paraphernalia.
Eventually seventeen children were born to Papa Pilgrim and his
wife "Country Rose." No one was ever allowed to be seen naked
but the family seems to have slept jammed into one or two beds
over the years.
Papa Pilgrim's word was law, and he trained the family to
address him as "Lord." At first he was home schooling the
children but objected to the books--and as a result all of the
children except the oldest daughter Elishaba grew up illiterate.
The author points out that Alaska has no laws mandating
schooling for children: "The parents have complete authority."
In the Pilgrim household, so much freedom from community
involvement was a license for child abuse and neglect.
For a number of years, the small community of McCarthy, of which
the Pilgrim family were a peripheral part, heartily approved of
their obvious piety, their sunny helpful spirit, their "one of
us" Christian acceptability.
But time passed and, though the true brutality and tyranny of
the household remained hidden, there were enough instances of
questionable behavior on the family members' part to cause even
the strongest supporters to back off. The Pilgrims, though
giving folk-music concerts that pleased their audiences, were
also a gun-toting group of bullying thugs.
However, there were others in the community who had their
complaints about the National Park Service and who felt that it
was an example of government control, an impingement on their
rights, and the Pilgrims became their cause.
Elishaba, however, was to escape--at the ripe age of 29--and
make known the truth about what went on inside the Pilgrims'
private lives. Wanting to father 21 children but estranged from
his wife, Pilgrim turned to his own daughter, Elishaba, to
provide ancillary excitement so that, as he claimed, he could
continue to impregnate her mother.
These sessions with Elishaba often involved brutal beatings, so
severe and catastrophic that she suffered permanent physical
damage. He often beat his other children very brutally as well.
Another devout Christian family, the Buckinghams (parents and
nine children), took in some of the Pilgrim children in their
flight from the prison of their family. This association proved
so fortuitous that a couple of the Buckingham children married
Pilgrims.
Papa Pilgrim had his day in court--and went to prison, where he
died. We don't find out whether his warped theology died with
him or whether some of the children remained the disciples he
must have hoped for though it sounds as if all of them were
relieved to be out of his clutches.
How such a violent, probably insane man can exercise total
control over his entire large family because of the isolation
of a life in the wilderness is an absorbing but horrifying
story. The author seems in thorough command of the facts--having
followed the situation for a number of years as a reporter for
the Anchorage Daily News.
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