Polygamist Sect Children: Kids left mark on caretakers

Polite youngsters were playful, did chores and disliked cartoons
By RICHARD STEWART
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

L IVERPOOL — The children from a West Texas polygamist compound who spent two months at a group home in Brazoria County never engaged in pretend play and didn't like to be called kids.

To them, kids are small goats, so they jokingly changed the shelter's name from "Kidz Harbor" to "Billy Goat Harbor."

At the same time, the youngsters were polite, bright and loving, said Kidz Harbor administrator Angie Colbert, who was called "Mother Angie" by the children from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Far from seeming traumatized by being taken from their homes at the Yearning for Zion Ranch by state officials and held in the group home, they seemed "to handle it like it was a vacation," Colbert said in an interview Monday. the rest