Trying to figure out what she might have been...

[chissprincess]

So, this is probably going to be the world's biggest longshot question since it's not like I can go back to the person in question and ask her more about it or get confirmation from her or anything. But lately as I've been reading more about some of the different groups and their beliefs and practices on here, I've gotten super curious and I thought it might be interesting to at least try to find possible answers.

The short version is that I once knew a woman who said she had belonged to a Christian church that only existed in the Midwest. I now suspect was once fundie/fundie-light (but may not have been) and I'm trying to figure out what church/group/denomination she might have belonged to, just for my own curiosity.

The longer version: When I was a teenager my parents decided to homeschool me for secular and academic reasons. We got involved with a local homeschool group that had some religious members but wasn't religious itself. One of the mothers in the group was originally from the Midwest (I want to say Nebraska) and had moved to our area with her husband many years before. Her oldest kids were around my age. The kids and her husband were Catholic, but she wasn't. She never told us exactly what her old church or group was, only that it was Christian and only existed where she came from. One time she mentioned something about baptism in a river but either she didn't say much more or I wasn't paying attention because that's all I remember of it. I'm not exactly she when she was born, but I'm guessing this group must have existed in the 70s or even the 60s if she was involved with it as a child or teenager.

For the longest time I figured she was just from some random church that wasn't particularly interesting and that she just didn't feel like telling us her denomination's name, but looking back now a lot of things she did kind of remind me of some of the folks we talk about here. She was INCREDIBLY controlling of everyone in her family, especially the kids, and was super into things like perfect etiquette and instant, cheerful obedience. I remember that she had them wear these bathing suits that were like full-body suits (not quite Wholesomewear -- more like a wet suit except that it ended at the elbows and knees). I suppose it might have been about limiting their sun exposure but I don't remember her ever being obsessed with sun exposure in any OTHER way. We all played outside a lot and I don't remember her ever, say, insisting on them putting on a ton of sunscreen before we went out. She and her husband believed in corporal punishment and used it for even minor infractions, and on her oldest kids (I can remember a case where the father threatened to spank the daughter for something when she must have been about 13 at the time, and another case where the mother stomped on the oldest son's foot to get him to stop wearing Mom's clogs when the son was about 14 or 15). And they had a family band that she was in charge of and all of the kids and her husband had to participate in it. They were actually talented, but still.

I always just kind of assumed she was a bit of an abusive whackadoodle with a control-freak streak a mile wide, and of course it's 100% possible that's all she ever was and that religion had nothing to do with it. But now I'm wondering if she might have been raised fundie-light (or maybe even outright fundie), or became fundie/fundie-light on her own at some point, and in adulthood left the religion without necessarily leaving all of the lifestyle behind. So basically the question is, what kind of Christian religious groups once existed and/or still exist only in the Midwest that she might have belonged to?