Colorado City family remembers dad who 'chose love' when others didn't always get to

COLORADO CITY, Ariz. — Nearly $20,000 has been raised to help a Colorado City family who lost their dad unexpectedly last week.

Gregory Barlow, 52, died of an unknown cause on March 29. Family members closest to him are reflecting on a life filled with kindness, perseverance, faith, struggle, autonomy — and an unlikely love story that wasn't supposed to happen.

In Gregory Barlow's obituary, family members spoke about his love story with his wife, Alice Barlow, that started nearly 45 years ago and bloomed during a time when "the people around them didn't always get to choose love."

The couple's eldest son, Cody Barlow, said his parents grew up in the Fundamentalist LDS Church. He explained that due to the fundamentalist beliefs of the group at the time, choosing who to date, let alone marry, was forbidden. He also said that despite the odds stacked against his parents, they "always chose each other."

"(My dad) talked about seeing mom in the first grade and he thought she was just the 'cutest little thing,'" Cody Barlow said. "Around (the age of) 16, he asked her to be his girlfriend. He went against the grain, and because of that, he and my mom got asked to leave the FLDS because it was forbidden to date. It was supposed to be a placement marriage, but they chose each other."

Barlow explained that his parents were asked to leave the border towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona, so they moved north to Salt Lake City. They spent the first year of their marriage away from family. The young couple returned to Colorado City just before welcoming their eldest child.

"They needed family support," Cody Barlow explained. "All they ever knew was the FLDS faith. They were able to move back, but they were kind of the black sheep and weren't fully accepted."

The couple had eight children. They stayed committed only to each other, even though polygamous marriage was taught in the community. About 15 years ago, a simple forbidden internet search led Gregory Barlow to question that faith.

"Around 2010, (my dad) found out some of the information about Warren Jeffs," Cody Barlow said. "We were forbidden to have the internet, and he needed some answers. And so he got on the internet, and he found some of the articles around Warren Jeffs."

Jeffs is the FLDS leader and is currently serving a life sentence in prison in Texas for sexually assaulting underage girls, having been convicted in 2011. Barlow said when his dad learned about Jeffs, he had to go through the whole process again of losing his faith community.

"When the community found out that he was questioning anything with Warren Jeffs, they just completely kicked him out," Barlow recalled. "Around that time, Dad was talking to me and he told me that he prayed to God and said, 'If I'm making the wrong decision and we go to hell, I will take that weight.' So, when we left, I just knew there was no doubt in my mind that I was going wherever he was going."

Barlow said that watching his parents choose each other, even through all the trials, has been one of the greatest things he has seen.

"Mom and him chose each other," Cody Barlow said. "She could have easily just stayed (in the religion) and he could have lost his whole family like so many people out there. It was important for them to do it together and they chose each other. My dad openly said that as long as he had Mom by his side, he felt like he was going to be OK.

"I'm worried about Mom," he continued. "She's the definition of a broken heart. She's devastated. We lost our dad. She lost her best friend and her soulmate — the person that she has been with since she was 16 and had known long before that."

A celebration of life was held Saturday, and Barlow said it was carried out the way his dad would have liked it — with smiles, memories and music. Seeing the community come together to celebrate a man who never felt he belonged was a testament to who he was.

A GoFundMe* account was set up to help the family cover costs associated with the loss. Barlow said they will do all they can to make sure their mom gets all the support she needs.

"Thankfully, she was an amazing mom and she had eight kids, and we all love her to death. We're all here for her, and we're all trying to pick her up," he said.

*KSL.com does not assure that the money deposited to the account will be applied for the benefit of the persons named as beneficiaries. If you are considering a deposit to the account, you should consult your own advisers and otherwise proceed at your own risk.

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