Photo: YouTube
Her daughter hs a rare genetic condition.
By Rebekah Kuschmider — Written on Apr 05, 2020
In 2010, Sister Wives first introduced TLC audiences to Kody Brown, his wives Meri, Janelle, and Christine, and their twelve kids — soon to be thirteen when baby Truely was born.
In the ten years later since the show premiered, the family has added Robyn, the fourth wife, her three kids from a previous marriage, and two more babies, bringing the grand total up to five adults and 18 children. Audiences have watched as the family moved from Utah to Nevada to now Flagstaff, Arizona. We have seen the kids grow up, move out, and even get married and have babies of their own.
Madison Brown, also called Maddie, is the fourth child in the family and the second child for Janelle and Kody together. She was seventeen when her family had to abruptly leave their home in Utah to avoid anti-polygamy laws. The move to Las Vegas was hard on her but she ultimately found her way to happiness. Now she's married and a mother to two kids — but her daughter has a rare genetic condition that took the whole family by surprise.
Where is Maddie Brown now? And is she a polygamist?
Maddie Brown is the fourth child in the family.
Dad Kody Brown first married Meri. They had been a couple for three years when Janelle joined them as a second wife. A year later, they added Christine to the family. In the early years of the plural marriages, the family added children almost every year, sometimes more than that.
Oldest child Logan arrived to Janelle in 1994. In 1995, Meri gave birth to Mariah and Christine welcomed Aspyn. Then Janelle had her second child, daughter Madison who was also born in 1995.
Brown had a hard time after their move to Las Vegas.
Brown was 17 when her family made an abrupt decision to leave their home in Utah. After becoming public as polygamists, they feared they would face legal consequences for their lifestyle choices — polygamy is illegal in the state.
The family moved quickly to Las Vegas with very little warning and the kids were not given the chance to object. Brown was sullen and withdrawn after the move and only came around to liking her new home and hew new school once she got more involved in student government. She graduated from high school and headed to college in Utah, with the hope of eventually pursuing law school.
The mainstream Mormon church rejected her request to join.
Brown went to Utah State University, where she met a number of members of the mainstream Chruch of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints or Mormons. The main Mormon church gave up the practice of polygamy over a hundred years ago.
The adults in the Brown family are part of an offshoot group of fundamentalist Mormons who still embrace plural marriage. Madison Brown, who had never wanted to enter into polygamy herself, was drawn to the LDS church and wanted to be baptized there. The church agreed on one condition: that she separate herself from her family due to their practice of polygamy.
She declined to disown the family she loved and was not allowed to join the Mormon church. "Because I won't publicly disassociate with my family, it's too controversial for the Mormon church, so they told me I couldn't get baptized," she explained at the time.
In 2015, Brown got engaged to Caleb Brush.
During her first year in college, Brown was also pursuing a romantic relationship with Caleb Brush. Brush, who is ten years older than Brown was living in Montana when they started dating. They actually met through family connections — Brush's sister had been married to Kody's late brother. After her first year of college, Brown made plans to move to Montana to be closer to Brush and he asked her dad for his blessing to propose. They got engaged during a snowmobile trip in Montana in 2015.
“It was cold and we were huddled in jackets and I thought he was crazy to stop,” Brown recalled. “He said to come look over here. So I walked with him to the edge. He told me he could never express how much he loved me, but he wanted to spend his life trying, and went down in one knee and pulled out a box. I started kissing him and saying, ‘Yes, yes!’"
The couple got married in 2016. Brown's father Kody performed their ceremony.
Brown's father performed their wedding ceremony.
They quickly became parents and joined one of the family businesses.
Just a few months after they got married, the couple announced that they were expecting their first child together. Their son, Axel, was born in May 2017. Shortly after he was born, they decided to move to Las Vegas to be closer to her family.
During that time, Brown started helping Meri with her business selling LulaRoe clothing. However, that turned out not to be a great move. The relationship between Brown and her bio mom's sister-wife quickly soured and she posted several cryptic tweets about not wanting to work with Meri anymore.
In a series of now-deleted tweets called Meri a "monster" and said "There is nothing like dealing with an abusive human your whole life and finally having the freedom not to have anything to do with her."
Noether of them ever commented more about the rupture in their relationship but Brown did continue to sell LuLaRoe on her own.
The couple welcomed their second baby in 2019 and received a heartbreaking diagnosis.
In 2019 the Brown and Brush announced that they were expecting a daughter. Evangalynn Kodi Brush arrived on August 20. Just a few months later, the couple shared that she had a rare genetic disorder that caused some of her bones to develop atypically.
"Our beautiful baby daughter Evie has been diagnosed with FATCO syndrome, a rare medical syndrome where bones in extremities do not fully develop," Brown wrote on Instagram. "It wasn’t a complete surprise; we were aware of some abnormalities before birth. We knew something was wrong when we went in for a routine anatomy ultrasound at 26 weeks and what should have taken 45 minutes, ended up lasting a nerve-wracking two hours. It was then that the doctor told us that they couldn’t find all ten fingers and diagnosed the baby with oligodactyly (fewer than 10 fingers). Although this was better than expected, it was still heartbreaking news."
"But when Evie was born, Caleb and I found out our precious little girl was missing more than just one finger. She was missing three fingers, a toe and her fibula," she continued. "She also had a bowed tibia, a shortened forearm and some fusing in her fingers. It was at this point, the doctors diagnosed her with FATCO syndrome."
The couple assured fans that aside from the issues with her bones, the baby is perfectly healthy. As she gets older and doctors see how her bones grow, they can consider some options like surgery or possibly amputation. In the meantime, the baby is adorable and beloved by her parents, all her grandparents, and her big brother Axel.
Evengalynn was born with a genetic disorder that affected bone development.
Where is Maddie Brown now? Are she and her husband considering polygamy?
The family recently relocated to North Carolina so brush could pursue a job opportunity there. As for whether or not they will ever add any wives to their family, that's not even a consideration. Back when they first got engaged, Brush said, "We are not living plural marriage. We support Maddie’s family with their choice of living plural marriage and they support us with our choice in just marrying each other.”
Sister Wives is on TLC on Sunday nights.
Rebekah Kuschmider has been writing about celebrities, pop culture, entertainment, and politics since 2010. She is the creator of the blog FeminXer and she is a cohost of the weekly podcast The More Perfect Union