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GOUVERNEUR - Sixteen-year-old Ginger S. Griggs of Edwards went
to church as usual Sunday morning but decided against returning
home afterward, sending a friend and an escort from the St. Lawrence
County Sheriff's Department to gather some of her belongings that
afternoon.
Her mother, Gail S. Griggs, is afraid she'll never see or talk
to her daughter again.
Separating mother and daughter is a state law allowing youths
to choose to live on their own at age 16; the Gouverneur congregation
of Jehovah's Witnesses; and the girl's fiance, Mark Y. Thomas
of Edwards, a 22-year-old fellow church member.
Gail Griggs and her mother-in-law, Marjorie Bevins - who both
recently "disassociated" themselves from the Jehovah's
Witnesses - charge that the religious group is a cult exercising
mind control over Ginger Griggs and its four million members worldwide.
'Mind Control'
"My kid is having her mind controlled, and because she's
16 I can't do a thing about it," Gail Griggs said. "She
isn't acting on her own reasoning. She's doing what they tell
her because she loves Mark."
An elder with the Gouverneur congregation, Bernard E. Sloan of
Edwards, said Mrs. Griggs' charges of church control over her
daughter are not true. "It's a sad situation."
Mr. Sloan said. "The girl is making her own choices and
there has been no direction from the body of elders.
It's not a religious decision. It's from the legal authorities
that she's getting her direction from."
"There have been accusations of brain-washing, but all the
Jehovah's Witnesses do is rigid study of the Scriptures,"
Mr. Sloan said. "There is no such thing as mind control."
The family's relationship with the Gouverneur congregation, whose
place of worship, Kingdom Hall, is on Route 58 in Hailesboro,
began about three years ago, shortly after Gail and Garry S. Griggs
separated and she moved to Edwards and she moved to Edwards with
her three daughters from New Jersey.
Psychologically Weak
Her moth-in-law, Mrs. Bevins, and some other members of her extended
family were involved with the group, and Gail Griggs and she was
at the time physically and psychologically weak from a drug addiction,
ill health and her separation.
After a lengthy period of study, she joined Ginger and another
daughter as initiated members last May, but she was skeptical
and bothered from the beginning by what she considered to be inconsistencies
in the group's teachings.
Smoking by members, for instance, is forbidden, she said. Yet
she was a closet smoker when elders baptized her "as told
to do so by Jehovah, but Jehovah knows all things. That's God."
The rift between mother and daughter opened on March 6, Mrs. Griggs
said, in the middle of cleanup from the north country's ice storm,
when Mrs. Griggs formally quit the church in response to her doubts
and pressure from congregation members to give consent to her
daughter's marriage, a legal requirement in New York state for
those under 18.
Engaged Three Months
Ginger Griggs and Mr. Thomas had been engaged for three months,
and members said the book of the Watch Tower, Bible and Tract
Society - as the Brooklyn based Jehovah's Witnesses organization
is formally known - suggested a three-to-six month engagement,
Mrs. Griggs said.
On March 6, shortly after she had a letter delivered to an elder
announcing her own "disassociation" from the church,
Mrs. Bevins and her three Griggs granddaughters prepared to travel
to Bayville, N.J., to visit Garry Griggs and other relatives.
Hearing of the trip, Mr. Thomas arrived with his cousin, blocked
the car in the driveway, and demanded to talk to his fiance, according
to Mrs. Griggs.
"If you come back from New Jersey and you're not a Jehovah's
Witness, I want my ring back.' that's what he said to her,"
Mrs. Griggs said.
The confrontation in the driveway was also carried out along Route
58 toward Gouverneur, according to Mrs. Bevins, who said Mr. Thomas
and his cousin drove alongside and in front of her vehicle, succeeding
in stopping the car near the hamlet of Fowler.
Mr. Thomas was ultimately allowed to accompany the group to New
Jersey, Mrs. Bevins said, adding that was the only way she could
convince him the five-day trip was not designed to permanently
separate the two.
Asked the Father
In New Jersey, Mrs. Bevins said, Ginger Griggs and Mr. Thomas
won a private audience with Garry Griggs and asked him to authorize
his daughter's marriage. After considering it overnight, however,
he refused, she said.
Since Sunday, Mrs. Griggs and family members have been appealing
for help from groups run by former Jehovah's Witnesses, experts
on cults, and St. Lawrence County legal and social-service agencies.
Church teachings call for total social ostracism of "dissociated"
or "disfellowshipped" members, Gail Griggs said, adding
the rule is even enforced within families.
"I am dead in their eyes because I've turned my back on God,"
she said.
Mrs. Bevins said she had a conversation with her granddaughter
from the doorstep outside the Fowler home of Jehovah's Witness
Lorraine W. Taylor, where Ginger Griggs said she left home because
her "spirituality was being weakened," according to
Mrs. Bevins.
Reached Monday night, Mr. Taylor said he was "trying to stay
clear of everything so I'm not accused of anything," but
he declined to respond to the Griggs family's charges
Ginger Griggs and Ms. Taylor could not be reached for comment.