
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, May 15, 1993                   TAG: 9305150225
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LON WAGNER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

WIFE NO. 1 IS RECONCILED WITH GALLIMORE

Preacher Elwood Gallimore and Janice, his wife of 26 years, said Friday they had patched up their differences after a one-week separation.

"I love Elwood and didn't want to see him hurt," Janice Gallimore said when asked why she had gone back to her polygamy-preaching husband. "I think he's under enough stress and tension as it is."

Janice Gallimore walked out on her husband last weekend when he told Sabrina Simpkins, Elwood Gallimore's second wife, she could borrow Janice Gallimore's car.

Elwood Gallimore said the incident was blown out of proportion. "They're saying, `Janice's car'; well, all of them is both our cars," he said of the Gallimores' four family vehicles.

Janice Gallimore said her husband, the minister at Evangelistic Tabernacle in Bassett Forks, visited with her Thursday night and "we worked everything out."

She denied that her husband had coerced her into getting back together. "I've never been forced into anything," she said.

Referring to her husband's November marriage "in the eyes of God" to Simpkins, "If I wanted to have left when it first happened, I would have left if I wanted to," she said.

Since Elwood Gallimore, 44, announced to his church in December that he had taken the 16-year-old Simpkins as his second wife, Janice Gallimore has not said much. But when she answered reporters' questions, she said she was satisfied with her marriage.

Elwood Gallimore has admitted before, as he did on the phone Friday, that bringing Simpkins into the family was not easy on his legal wife.

"She just said that what I preach is the truth," Gallimore said of his wife, Janice. "She said, `It's just hard to live like that.' "

Donna Jean Goins, Janice Gallimore's sister, said she hadn't thought her sister would follow through with the separation.

"I'm not surprised," Goins said. "I knew Elwood would do what he could to get her back, and he's done it."

Gallimore will go on trial June 11 on charges of seduction and two counts of taking indecent liberties with a minor. Gallimore said nothing in the reconciliation with his legal wife precluded him from continuing his relationship with Simpkins after his legal troubles are over.

by CNB