Pioneer Stock, Part 3: Sacred Secrets

March 11, 2022·1 hr 2 min·5 clips

Craig realized he'd become just like his uncle Larry during a drug binge, a moment that forced him to seek help.

The warning arrives first. Before the episode settles in, the host asks listeners to take care around suicide and drug abuse. Then Craig Mangum returns to the family story: his slow turn away from Mormonism, and toward the gay Mormon uncles he barely knew while they were alive. Brent came first. Now it is Larry, Orva's son, whose funeral video showed Craig how easily a life can be cleaned up after the fact. Craig knew the version on display was false. It was edited into something safer and church-friendly, with the hard parts left outside the room. That hits him personally. Watching it, Craig feels a strange closeness with Larry and decides his own truth will not be erased. Larry's mission writings make the story sadder and stranger. His guilt is enormous, even when the facts are small: a movie, a newspaper, a drive, a meal. The details can sound almost funny. He leaves his assigned area for Plattsburgh, New York, then returns to Montreal after Pizza Hut and Excalibur. But the guilt is not funny. For a missionary taught that disobedience means the Spirit of God has left, those little breaks can feel like darkness, exhaustion, and locked doors. Craig hears the shape of it. Larry reaches for pleasure, then shame takes over. The episode leaves that beside earlier family messages about unworthiness, contorted faces, and haggard muscles. It does not force a lesson. It lets a boundary, a movie ticket, and a sanitized funeral do the talking.

As heard by us

A family history shaped by secrecy, guilt, and the effort to keep the truth from being smoothed over.

Craig Mangum traces family secrecy, a funeral lie, and the heavy pressure of Mormon guilt with a quiet, measured hand. The episode is strongest when Larry's diary entries are left alone to do the work.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Press play if you want a family story where a church-friendly version keeps colliding with the truth.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Family Ghosts