Commune Perseveres in Its Desert Oasis : Religion: The eight remaining members of the Children of Light, founded in 1950, live a simple life. Despite dwindling numbers, they profess contentment in making their patch of Arizona bloom.

Accidental tourists beware: Should you stumble into this compound of senior citizens enjoying their final years in the desert sunshine, don’t go looking for old duffers telling tall tales on fairways or yentas gossiping around bridge tables.

You’re in for something a good deal more esoteric.

Instead you will find the Children of Light, one of North America’s oldest religious communes, whose eight aged members are dedicated to righteousness, vegetarianism, celibacy and the proposition that the outside world is going to hell. Taking refuge on this 80-acre plot of Arizona desert, they have sworn off the evils of the secular world and turned their little piece of desert into an oasis.

Numerous other communes and experiments in utopian living have had their brief moment in the sun and then disappeared, but the Children of Light have endured since 1950.

“I don’t think the Children have deviated at all in their beliefs and practices from the very beginning,” Daniel Wright, a patriarch of the American communal movement and founder of the Padanaram commune in Indiana, said with admiration. “They never change.”

Dec. 27 will mark 43 years since a rural postmaster and breakaway Pentecostal named Grace Agnes Carlson startled the farming community of Keremeos in British Columbia by announcing that she had experienced a vision from God. She commanded her followers, the Children of Light, to hie forthwith to a farmhouse and begin a life free of personal possessions and worldly ties.

Calling herself Elect Gold, she proclaimed that God had told her that the end of the world was near and repentance was in order. The Children of Light refer to Elect Gold’s apocalyptic declaration simply as the Separation.

“It was the day we separated . . . from the ways of man and started following the ways of God,” said Elect Beryl, who, like other members, uses the appellation Elect to designate a belief in having been chosen by God to set a virtuous example for a wicked world.

To mark the anniversary of Elect Gold’s vision, the six ambulatory members of the Children of Light will retire to a special second-story room in a special building to sit around an oaken table. They will read Scripture and discuss the meaning of their four decades of communal existence.

The room is used but once a year and is called the Upper Room, from Luke 22:12: “And he shall shew you a large upper room furnished: there make ready.”

The Children--who range in age from 60-something to 104--consider their annual assemblage in the Upper Room an even more sacred occasion than Christmas.

Elect Gold, who is in her 90s, is bedfast and unable to participate in the work or play of the commune. But in 1950 the newspapers described her as tall, strong and austere, with a penchant for fiery oratory and confrontation.

She had promised that more messages from God would be forthcoming. “Message From God Awaited by Weird Sect,” read a headline in the Vancouver Sun.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police demanded that all children in the group be released. A mother charged that her son had been hypnotized into joining. A dropout member sued to get back the worldly goods he had bequeathed to the Children of Light.

For nearly two months the newfound communalists stayed barricaded in their farmhouse. Finally, the Sun reported, “The Children of Light have vanished. . . . Nineteen members of the cult left so suddenly that townsfolk were not aware of their absence for more than a day.”

Keremeos residents still recall shock at hearing that the Children agreed to forsake their spouses and children and shed their property.

“People thought they were foolish and radical because they sold off their property at rather a low rate,” said Charles Finch, president of the Keremeos Historical Society.

“People thought they were misguided,” said his wife, Hildred.

Scorned by their nonbelieving neighbors, the Children fled, wandering the United States and Canada for 12 years as religious outcasts, homeless but devout.

They settled in Arizona in 1963 and for three decades have taken literally the Biblical admonition to make the desert bloom. Their numbers have dwindled, but the Children profess contentment in the isolation of their desert oasis.

“I wouldn’t live anywhere else,” Elect Beryl said.

Elect Star, the commune’s major-domo and youngest member, thinks of the long-ago controversy as much ado about almost nothing.

“It was a small town so it caused quite a stir,” she said with a chuckle. “But now our relatives and friends don’t believe we’re as far off the track as when we started out.”

They no longer preach or proselytize but remain convinced that the masses will soon beat a path to their door to escape the violence and vulgarity of modern life.

“There will definitely be an in-gathering of people as things get worse,” Elect Star said. “We are an ark of safety, just as God commanded.”

In the beginning, the Children sought to spread their message far and wide, staying with friendly communes and free-thinking churches, sometimes just pitching tents on open ground.

Among those who offered refuge to the Children during their years in the wilderness was Daniel Wright, who was a pastor in Indianapolis in the 1950s and later founded the Padanaram Village commune in Williams, Ind.

“They were rejected by the church world because they weren’t Baptists, Catholics or Presbyterians,” Wright said. “They dressed differently and they had a different diet and doctrine and a lot of people were threatened by that.”

In 1963, Elect Gold received an additional message from God to settle her wandering tribe in Agua Caliente, a sandy, rocky, wholly inhospitable site 90 miles east of Yuma. After living in tents and an abandoned hotel, the Children bought 80 acres with the help of an elderly benefactor in 1965.

They planted date palms, orange trees, watermelons, a lawn and a squash garden. They dug three wells and built a swimming pool, a hot tub, a beekeeping house, and several spacious buildings for living and praying and making music.

“In the beginning, no one would help them or talk to them, but after a while the suspicion declined,” said Gilbert Neeley, a contractor and excavator who lives about a mile away.

With time, their neighbors have come to accept, if not understand, their gentle and idiosyncratic ways.

“They’re beautiful people,” said Craig Springer, who runs a nearby fish farm.

“You can’t find anybody who will say a bad word about the Children,” said Sue Mixon, a clerk at the Butterfield General Store.

The Children decline to discuss their ages, birth names or what their “Old Order” lives were like. Only three members--Star, Gold and Beryl--remain from the original flock that fled Keremeos.

The others joined in the 1950s and ‘60s as the group moved from town to town in a brightly colored bus. “We (traveled to) every state except New Hampshire,” said Elect Philip, who joined in Arizona and, like the others, donated the sum of his worldly possessions.

Today there are three men and five women in the group. Two of the women, Elect Gold and Elect Emerald, 104, are not able to leave their beds. Men and women alike wear linen uniforms: red for the blood of Christ, white for purity, blue for heavenly virtue and gold for eternal life.

With advancing age, the Children are more dependent on hired help and store-bought goods. To provide necessities, they often barter, such as swapping dates and oranges for pecans from a Georgia commune.

Social Security checks are pooled. The commune has two cars and a new Ford truck registered in its formal name, Elect Cooperative Group. Specific questions about money are politely turned aside.

“God provides for us” is a common refrain.

Bible verses are copied and hung on walls throughout the compound, but the Children see no need for solemnity. They enjoy videos on their VCR; a travelogue about the Grand Canyon is a particular favorite.

Elect Joel, who joined in Indiana, has built a golf course with one hole and 18 tees spread out over the brushy desert. He’s enthusiastic at the piano and xylophone. Elect Lydia bangs on the drums.

Elect Beryl is the commune cook. Her specialties include split-pea soup, whole-grain bread and a special yam dish she plans for Christmas.

At its height, the Children of Light had 18 members, including a woman and her six children who have since departed. Their belief in everlasting life notwithstanding, death continues to take a toll on membership, and the celibacy rule has made self-perpetuation unlikely.

Members say they believe that Elect Gold and Elect Emerald, despite medical evidence to the contrary, will someday arise and become active members of the commune again.

Neighbors marvel at what the Children have accomplished in the harsh desert but now wonder what will happen to them and their property as the years and their infirmities continue to accumulate.

“It’s hard to tell what the bottom line will be with the Children,” said Ruben Conde, who runs a market and gas station and whose father once owned the Children’s property.

“But I guess we’re going to find out soon.”