UGP 285 - LeBaron Daughter Describes Upbringing in FLDS Community in Mexico—Mike & Rosa Abbate – Part 1
Rosa LeBaron Abbate’s grandfather was Alma Dayer LeBaron, Sr. who left Utah for Chihuahua, Mexico when polygamy was outlawed and polygamists were persecuted. LDS Prophet John Taylor had purchased 100,000 acres in 1885 so that 350 faithful polygamist families could live out their faith. They lived in Chihuahua until Pancho Villa kicked them out of Mexico in 1910 during the Mexican Revolution. After the Revolution, they returned. Grandpa Dayer LeBaron was eventually excommunicated from the mainstream LDS church. He truly believed (D&C 132) that polygamy was an eternal principle taught by Joseph Smith as the way to the Celestial Kingdom. In the 1940s, Dayer established a fundamentalist community called LeBaron. LeBaron’s sons started the Church of the Firstborn of the Fullness of Times with son Joel LeBaron as prophet in 1955. This community and the people in LaMora 4 hours away frequently intermarry. In 2019, the LeBaron family murdered in Sonora by the cartel was traveling between LaMora and LeBaron for a wedding.
Rosa’s father, Alma Dayer LeBaron, Jr., an overworked farmer and painter (of the St. George Temple), was born in AZ during the Mexican exile, eventually had 9 wives, 36 children, and 14 step-children and lived in LeBaron. Rosa was raised there. Her father was busy as a church leader and often gone from the family for months at a time, traveling to the U.S. to work. He rotated through his 9 families. Family teenagers were typically put to work to help provide for the family so she had a strong work ethic.
After Rosa’s abusive first marriage ended, she was living in San Diego, a single mom raising 6 kids. One of her girls arranged a date with a friend’s dad and Rosa and Mike began dating. In 1993, they traveled to LeBaron for a family reunion. The picture with Rosa’s father contained about 300 grandchildren. Mike and Rosa married in the U.S. in 1996. Having put his sons to the task of converting Mike to fundamentalism (he was a pastor in TX), Rosa’s father shared some fundamentalist prophecies with him. He shared Daniel’s 70 weeks with her dad. Then Dayer invited Mike to organize a 3-day LeBaron family reunion over the 4th of July 2006. And God began to work miracles...
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