Godless Mom in the Bible Belt

My great grandfather was a sonofabitch. A huge red-haired man with eyes like ice and fists like meat mallets, he plowed through life with little thought to the consequences of his actions leaving misery and scores of children in his wake.

He immigrated to the US from Denmark as a child, finding his way to Utah where his family joined the community with gusto. At the age of 19 he returned to Denmark to serve his mission for the LDS church. He served the mission without incident (as far as we know) and on the ship ride home he met great grandma. She was young, petite and beautiful, a heart shaped face and enormous blue eyes framed by pale blonde hair. She was immigrating with her family to the United States but had no idea where they would end up once they arrived. I guess grandpa was still in mission mode because he had converted her entire family before the ship docked and convinced them all to join him in Utah.

They were married five months later, within six years they had five children. At this point he became bored with his Danish bride and he left her for her sister. He fathered eight children with my great aunt then left her and returned to my great grandma who gave him three more children. Eventually he died and left both women without a cent to their names. Rumor followed his death that he actually had another wife somewhere south of Salt Lake, I'm sure there were plenty of children involved in that relationship too.

I don't know if he had delusions of following the traditional Mormon doctrine of polygamy but couldn't manage to bring himself to openly defy the law or whether he was just a scoundrel who couldn't keep his unit in his pants. Whatever the reason, I share DNA with a whole lot of Utahns because of that man.

My grandma was asked if she remembered anything about him. The only story she could remember was watching him carry a Shetland Pony across a bridge on a bet. So aside from being very fertile he was also very strong. It's sad that she couldn't remember anything better.

My grandma grew up without her father and married my grandpa when she was 14 years old. She had my father when she was 16. My daddy's eyes are ice blue too. That is where all similarity ends between him and his grandfather.