Memories of the Branch Davidians: The Autobiography of David Koresh's Mother (review)

Bonnie Haldeman is probably the person who lost the most in 1993's siege on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco. Her son, twelve living grandchildren (plus two as yet unborn) and friends were all killed. Haldeman, the mother of David Koresh, lived in the community from 1985 to 1991 and still considers herself a Branch Davidian.

Catherine Wessinger, a religious studies professor at Loyola in New Orleans, met Haldeman in 2001. She and other scholars who were in Waco for a symposium dined at Cracker Barrel one night with some surviving Branch Davidians. Wessinger was immediately drawn to Haldeman. Two years later, she returned to Waco to attend a tenth anniversary memorial service for those who died in the Branch Davidian compound.

She writes, "While I was at the April 19th service I resolved that, if the surviving Branch Davidians in Waco permitted it, I would devote my 2004 – 2005 sabbatical to recording their life histories and accounts of their experiences with the Branch Davidians, the tragedy in 1993, and events afterward. I drove to Waco in August 2003 to ask Bonnie Haldeman, Sheila Martin and Clive Doyle if they would permit me to interview them and then work the transcripts into autobiographies for each of them. They agreed" (x–xi).

The first fruit of this labor is a 104-page edited transcript supplemented by fifty-five pages of endnotes and some examples of David Koresh's awful poetry. As the reader's hands cramp while she tries to hold her place both in the main text and the notes, she may wonder why Wessinger did not produce a biography instead. Then those fifty-five pages of essential context could have neatly integrated with Haldeman's voice.

I'm guessing Wessinger wanted Haldeman to tell the story but thought it unlikely that Haldeman would write an autobiography on her own. Wessinger probably thought that Haldeman would keep more authority if the words were all Haldeman's, rather than a combination of their two voices. But some of the strengths of the as-told-to form can also be weaknesses. There's an immediacy and directness to this way of telling the story, but the flipside is a lack of deeper reflection and a sense that the mundane and the profoundly disturbing has almost equal weight.

The autobiography is divided into nineteen chapters that tell the whole sad arc of the story: the birth of David Koresh (nee Vernon Howell) when Haldeman was almost fifteen, her abusive marriage at age eighteen, a second abusive marriage a few years later, David's religious conversion when he was nineteen, life in the different Branch Davidian communes, the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms ' eventual siege and massacre of Branch Davidians in 1993.

So much of this information is expository: who was at which camp, what they ate, who did the cooking, what the buses, vans, and tents people lived in were like, and other details of daily life lived on mostly undeveloped land. The descriptions of camp life are the most interesting parts of the book. But Haldeman's unique situation in the group is barely examined: What is it like for a parent to join her own child's cult? And because of the as-told-to format, a reader has to wonder whether Haldeman lacks any deep thoughts on the issue, prefers not to share them, or whether Wessinger simply failed to ask probing questions.

The last two chapters, "Remembering the Children" and "Remembering David" go slightly deeper. Alongside fond memories of taking her grandson to K-Mart for popcorn are hints at her relationship with Koresh. "I don't know why David had so many children. This is a subject I don't get into much. I attended the Bible studies, but I don't remember the reason, but there was a reason for all of that. It's not something...