Wednesday, October 17, 2012

What Really Happened in Idaho?

For two years from 2005 until 2007, I taught in a rural junior/senior high school in Southern Oregon. Three periods of seventh grade English and three periods of eighth grade United States history. Some of those eighth graders whined the common refrain of "why do we have to learn history?" so many times, that I used it as a classroom theme and made them create posters advocating reasons that knowing history is important. Here are some of the ideas they came up with:


  • So we don't repeat past mistakes.
  • History has a lot of good and interesting stories.
  • A common set of knowledge.
  • To understand how we got to where we are.
  • So we understand what the reporters on the news are talking about.
  • So Jay Leno doesn't make us look like stupid Americans in a street interview.
  • History helps us understand people and society.
  • Knowing history is important for good citizenship.
  • To understand what adults are talking about.
  • To improve our reading and comprehension skills.
  • History provides a cultural identity.


So, as I think about what happened in Idaho and why some of the members of the Marsing, Idaho Followers of Christ church decided to leave and migrate to Oregon City, I ask myself why it's important. This happened in the 1930s and 1940s. Most of the people involved are no longer living (probably all of the folks are, in fact, dead). So, why bring it up? Why is it important?



It is an important question to me because I want to understand the confusion and lack of direction, lack of understanding, and most importantly the lack of hope that I grew up under. Why couldn't we go to Idaho and get baptized? Why couldn't one of the preachers from Idaho come to Oregon City to baptize people and provide leadership?

As a child, I had the feeling that the entire state of Idaho was pure evil. Whenever Riley and Glenford spoke of the Idaho church, it was to warn us to stay away from their evil ways. The only answer I could get on what was so bad about Idaho, was the vague idea that the Idaho church encouraged young people to "sow their wild oats" before getting baptized, getting married, and settling into a serious pursuit of the faith. I don't know if there was truth to that claim, but I have heard that this sort of thing still goes on over there.

I've also heard that the split was over the issue of women's hair. The Idaho group (the one that we in Oregon City thought were so sinful) believed women should not cut their hair. The Oregon City group allowed women to have hair cuts.

I'd love to hear comments from folks who know more about why the Idaho-Oregon City split happened.

23 comments:

  1. I think fornication in the ministry was the big problem not hair.

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  2. Mama didn't cut her hair until we moved to Oregon city.

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  3. i think the church over there is bound to split again

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  4. I think it is interesting that idaho has not had laws passed to protect children medically.

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  5. the church in idaho looks like it didn't grow. or is there more buildings? the oregon city church did grow and they had to build a bigger building then build on. that picture make the idaho church look tiny.

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    1. This is the Marsing, Idaho church - it's a small congregation. There is also an FOC group in Boise.

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  6. My grandmother lived in OC all her life. She lived down by the new hospital and operated a beauty shop out of a converted portion of her home. She had a very heavy follower clientele and she was many different women's confidante. She heard many things over the years. She was told by one woman that the reason they came to Oregon was because they were worried about getting in trouble in Idaho for the lack of doctors regarding the children. Others told her about the cutting of the hair. And still others said that they followed Walter White to Oregon City and settled down in that area because he told them that the second coming of Jesus was going to begin in Atkinson Park, that he would actually be born there. Absolutely nothing concrete but very interesting indeed.

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    1. Salon gossip heard second hand, well that settles it.

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  7. Well there you are! I knew you were still paying attention! Why don't we talk about all of the dead cats in Oregon City?

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  8. Suzanne, do all the trolls that come to this blog just to show their hate for the foc bother you. I think they hurt the credibility of this blog.

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  9. The major issue in Walter cutting ties with Idaho in the 1940's was the Idaho churches' acceptance of a preacher continuing to preach after committing adultry. Hair and birth control were secondary issues but did not cause the split. Today. The Idaho group of churches have split over the calling of some new preachers. Familes have withdrawn from each other over it. History repeating it self.

    The churches over there never grew as big as in Oregon City.

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  11. Is there really an issue regarding the FOC and dead cats? If so, would someone be willing to elaborate further on that topic?

    I ask because one of the FOC boys I went to school with used to talk about killing and dismembering cats, and he talked about it A LOT.

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  12. Yes it is true. I new several boys my age at school growing up that thought it was a game to catch the neighborhood cats and throw them from the top of the elevator and any other high stop they could get to. I guess they wanted to see if they lived. Very sick game I thought.

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    1. some very sick things happened to cats when I was a teen - at the hands of FOC boys. Throwing them from the OC Elevator was a favorite. They also thought it was a funny joke to skewer cats through their friends' car antennas.

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  13. Is it true that the boys also went downtown to find homosexual people and beat them up? They bragged that they did, but I always wondered if it was true. If it was you'd think that they would have been arrested at some point.

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  14. The cat abuse is sick. That is how serial killers get started.

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    1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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    2. For some, I actually think its the start of desensitization. Human instinct is to protect your child and do what ever you can to make sure they survive. For such a large group, to continually override instincts so deeply entrenched, you would need to be very desensitized to watch your child go through agony and die. I know this isn't the case with all followers but the VERY high incidence of the boys doing this has always made me think there is a connection. And yes, there is the serial killer thing as well. You can't help but think about that just because of it being something that gets talked about a lot in the media. I just know that pretty much everyone I know that went to school in OC knows about this. I know the police know too.

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  15. The trolls are in top form tonight.

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  16. Trolls are what you perceive them to be.

    If you mean people bashing FOC boys for torturing and killing cats, then you can believe it or not. I know for myself (and women who were former classmates of mine will concur) that at least one of the young men we attended school with boasted of killing and dismembering cats, and he spoke of it on a regular basis - daily at times - and while we were still in grade school, he shared his stories with the whole class pretty much.

    And yes, I've thought of him often through the years, whenever a news story brings up the fact that serial killers almost always start with such obsessions and activities. I don't know if he was really doing these things or if he was mimicking older boys' behavior, but it was certainly habitual behavior for him, whatever it entailed.

    To my thinking, the real trolls are those who both commit such atrocities on defenseless animals, and those who condone or pardon such acts. Looking the other way, covering up the evidence or defending those who do such things is tantamount to complicity.

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  18. The Follower's of Christ is a cult. Plain and simple.

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