—Maria ProphetissaDaniel Pearse was born on the rainy dawn of March 15, 1966. He didn’t receive a middle name because his mother, Annalee Faro Pearse, was exhausted from coming up with a first and last – especially the last. As near as she could figure, Daniel’s father might have been any of seven men. Annalee decided on Daniel because it sounded strong, and she knew he’d need to be strong. At Daniel’s birth, Annalee was a sixteen-year-old ward of the Greenfield Home for Girls, an Iowa custodial institution administered by the Sisters of the Blessed Virgin. She had been placed there by court order after attempting to steal an ounce bar of silver from a jewelry-shop display case. She told the arresting officer she was an orphan of the moon, and told the judge that she didn’t recognize the court’s authority to make decisions about her life. She refused to cooperate beyond giving her name as Annalee Faro Pearse. The judge sentenced her to Greenfield till she was eighteen. Her second month at Greenfield, Annalee confided her suspected pregnancy to one of her roommates.
