The Return of the Patriarch !

By EUGENE LINDEN

The log cabin with smoke curling from its chimney, the small schoolhouse, granary and workshop might serve as a setting for the Walton family. The 2 1/ 2-acre Singer compound in tiny Marion, Utah (pop. 200), speaks of simplicity and family ties. The family is indeed close-knit: Vickie Singer's son-in-law Addam Swapp is married to both her daughters.

Last week several hundred feet beyond their fence, the hostile world waited. More than 150 police and FBI agents surrounded the compound shortly after Swapp allegedly dynamited the nearby Mormon church on Jan. 16. The heavily armed clan of messianic polygamists was holed up with ample food and water, goading the authorities to deliver them to martyrdom and thereby bring about the resurrection of their dead patriarch, Vickie's husband John Singer.

The unfolding drama framed the extremes of modern Mormon life. Utah lures skiers to the slopes of its Wasatch Mountains, but the state is also home to Fundamentalists who find the 20th century anathema. About 20 miles northeast of the ski resort of Alta, the Singer clan nursed its cheerless fantasies. Founded by John Singer, an American-born TV repairman who spent his formative years in Nazi Germany, the family first ran afoul of the law when Singer pulled his children from school to shield them from the influence of drugs and racial integration. His continued defiance led in 1979 to a siege that ended when police rushed Singer while he was on a trip to his mailbox. He was shot in the back after pulling a pistol.

Most of the 40,000 polygamists scattered throughout Utah are peaceful. They follow the admonition of Mormon Leader Brigham Young: "The only men who become Gods, even the sons of God, are those who enter into polygamy." For the devout, polygamy means a chaste life where sex is initiated mainly at the invitation of the wife. In the 19th century, polygamy served to cement ties among Mormon families.

But the church outlawed polygamy in 1890, and its renegade status now attracts the unstable as well as true believers. Fueled by the perceived injustice of Singer's death, his increasingly fanatic kin nurtured quasi- religious fantasies. As the ninth anniversary of Singer's death approached, either Vickie Singer, 44, or Addam Swapp, 27, had a vision that John's resurrection would lead to the Second Coming of Christ.

The trouble began soon after the Singer clan watched a videotape of John's funeral. Marion's church was badly damaged by an estimated 75 lbs. of dynamite. Nearby, investigators found a feathered spear stuck into the ground with a note that read, "Jan. 18, 1979. John Singer was killed on that date." As seven adults and nine children retreated into the Singer compound, Swapp supposedly told his brother-in-law that he was responsible for the bombing. By telephone, Vickie Singer reportedly declared, "We are going to battle. Yes, there will be death, killing."

State and federal officials said they were determined to resolve the standoff without bloodshed. The police fired no shots, out of concern for the children in the compound and perhaps out of sensitivity to the events of nine years ago. Inside the fortified cabin, the spirit of the stubborn patriarch was very much alive.

With reporting by Dawn Tracy/Marion