Childhood
Lundgren was born in Missouri and grew up as a member of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS Church). According to his allegations (supported by some of his former neighbors) he was severely abused as a child, particularly by his father. His mother reportedly did not defend him. Lundgren was, by most accounts, a loner when he was in middle and high school. He became an expert hunter when he began to spend time with his father as a teenager. The pair would go on hunting trips, and Lundgren became a gun expert, learning shooting and maintenance techniques.
Lundgren enrolled at Central Missouri State University, and he spent time at a house that was specially built for RLDS youth. While at the house, he became friends with Keith Johnson and Alice Keeler.
Keeler, who had been abused by her father as well, quickly bonded with Lundgren, and the two became lovers. The couple married in 1970, and Lundgren enlisted in the U.S. Navy.
Read more about this topic: Jeffrey Lundgren
Famous quotes containing the word childhood:
“Having a child is the great divide between one’s own childhood and adulthood. All at once someone is totally dependent upon you. You are no longer the child of your mother but the mother of your child. Instead of being taken care of, you are responsible for taking care of someone else.”
—Elaine Heffner (20th century)
“Oh! mystery of man, from what a depth
Proceed thy honours. I am lost, but see
In simple childhood something of the base
On which thy greatness stands; but this I feel,
That from thyself it comes, that thou must give,
Else never canst receive. The days gone by
Return upon me almost from the dawn
Of life: the hiding-places of man’s power
Open; I would approach them, but they close.”
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850)
“When we suffer anguish we return to early childhood because that is the period in which we first learnt to suffer the experience of total loss. It was more than that. It was the period in which we suffered more total losses than in all the rest of our life put together.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)