Educated: Chapter 1 Summary & Analysis

Tara Westover writes that her earliest memory is not a memory—rather it is something she imagined, and then “came to remember as if it had happened.” She recalls huddling in the kitchen with her family, all the lights turned off, hiding from “Feds” who have surrounded their house. In the memory, Tara’s mother has a baby in her arms—even though Tara is the youngest of all her siblings.

One evening, Tara and her family gather around her father as he reads aloud from the Book of Isaiah in the Bible. As Dad recites a passage which reads, “Butter and honey shall he eat […] that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good,” the words intrigue or trouble him, and he recites the line over and over again. He at last declares that the line is a “divine doctrine,” and resolves to “inquire of the Lord.” The next morning, Dad purges the family fridge of all dairy products—that evening, when he returns from work, his truck is “loaded with fifty gallons of honey.”

When Dad tells his mother—who lives at the bottom of the hill and whom Tara and her siblings aptly refer to as Grandma-down-the-hill—about the butter and honey revelation, she tells him he has no sense at all. Dad and Grandma-down-the-hill have a contentious relationship, and frequently argue about the junkyard Dad has established right at the border of his parents’ “manicured” lawn. Grandma-down-the-hill also believes that the Westover children should be in school, but Dad believes that sending the kids to school would be like “surrender[ing them] to the devil himself.”

The Westovers attend a small Mormon church in the shadow of Buck’s Peak every Sunday, and each week, Dad attempts to proselytize to many of their fellow church-goes—several of whom are distant family—after services have ended. Most everyone shakes off Dad’s lectures.

In the wake of Dad’s revelation about dairy, Tara starts going to Grandma-down-the-hill’s house each morning so that she can have milk and cereal for breakfast. One morning, Grandma offers Tara the chance to come with her and Grandpa-down-the-hill to Arizona, where they go for several months each year when the weather turns cold. Grandma tells Tara that she could attend school and have a normal life. Tara is worried about going against her father, but Grandma assures Tara that her father won’t be able to come get her, as he’ll be busy with a large construction project for months. Tara, reluctant but increasingly excited, agrees to go. That night, Tara is too excited to sleep. She packs a bag and puts her boots by the door and dreams of how her family will react when they discover that she’s missing.

Tara reflects on her “conjured” memory that is not a memory. It derives from a story her father told her and her siblings at the start of canning season, or summer, one year. Though Tara would later learn that the story was of national importance, at the time it felt like a secret amongst her family. One evening, Dad sat the whole family down to tell them about a family not far from them—“freedom fighters”—who were assaulted and attacked by the Feds because “they wouldn’t let the Government brainwash their kids in them public schools.” Dad told everyone that the Feds would soon come for Buck’s Peak, and made the kids pack their “head for the hills bags” and fill them with herbal medicines, ready to eat meals, and other survival tools.

A few days later, there was no sign of the Feds, but Dad came home with “more than a dozen military-surplus rifles.” As the days went on, more news of the nearby family’s struggle against the Feds came in, and Dad relayed the bloody details of the standoff to the children. He never told them the end of the story, however, and would only sadly say, “Next time, it could be us.” Tara focused hard on the gruesome details that had been told to her, manufacturing them into her own memories.

In the morning, it is time for Tara to head down to her Grandma-down-the-hill’s house—but she can’t bring herself to make the trek down the hill. Several hours after the appointed meeting-time, Tara watches her grandparents get in their car and drive away. Tara goes to the kitchen, eats a bowl of bran and water, and completes her morning chores which consist of feeding her family’s pigs, goats, and horses. As the sun comes out, Tara sits atop the abandoned railway car and looks up at the Princess on top of the mountain. Soon, Tara knows, the snows will come, and the “watchful” Princess will be buried.