Rachel E. Scheeley, writing for Richmond’s Palladium-Item, has an article on the 30th anniversary of the massacre at Jonestown. This is of special significance for Richmond and those in the area Jim Jones grew up in the region and graduated from Richmond High School. (Go Red Devils!)
On November 18, 1978, 900 people drank the Kool-aid (literally) containing cyanide at Jonestown, Guyana, and died. Jones was a religious leader who founded the People’s Temple which eventually relocated to Guyana. The trigger for the mass suicide was the Congressional investigation by California Representative Leo Ryan who was killed by cultists at an airstrip near Jonestown.
Back at Jonestown, Jim Jones encouraged his followers to take their own lives by accepting a cyanide-laced grape drink. Syringes were used to squirt the killing agent into the mouths of babies and children. Many people participated voluntarily, while others were intimidated or, like their leader Jim Jones, shot.
It has become known as the largest mass suicide in modern history, and although it took place thousands of miles way, the tragedy continues to reverberate in Wayne and Randolph counties.
Jim Jones was born in Crete, raised in Lynn and graduated from Richmond High School. His wife, Marceline Baldwin Jones, grew up in Richmond and still has family in the area.
Seems like whenever the background of a nutjob is being investigated, you’ll come across some variant of “nice boy, didn’t talk much.” Describing the life of young Jimmy Jones, the Palladium-Item says: “Some who knew the young Jimmy saw him as quiet and fairly well-behaved, interested in religion.”
It will come as some reassurance to those in the flock of frequent commenter Rev. AJB, also a religious leader and Richmond High School graduate, that I knew him as a young man and did not find him to be particularly quiet and certainly not well-behaved. So, probably it’s safe if he were to offer you Kool-Aid. But, I’d probably stick to the beer, if given a choice. (Though, I seem to recall a Pig’s Eye Pilsner of his, I had via his brother that was pretty awful.)
I had actually meant this to be a straight blog post about Jonestown and not a gratuitous hit piece on Rev. AJB; but I guess you go where the writing takes you.
Doug, as the best man at my wedding, invoked Jim Jones when he asked everyone to raise their glasses in a toast to us.
During my school days at Richmond High, I occasionally wondered who ended up with Jim Jones’ locker.
There was a brief moment of terror on my part after I’d mentioned Jim Jones and before the crowd laughed.
Guilty as charged;-) It’s all true! Execpt the Pig’s Eye Pilsner; my dad bought that while visiting us in Mn (did you know that was the original name for St. Paul?)
Actually it was Flavor Aid that they used; guess they couldn’t afford the real stuff! And at my church we only use lemonaid as it doesn’t stain the carpet like grape does;-)
In all seriousness I remember well the events of Jonestown. The first thing I remember was watching the evening news and seeing a sea of polyester-clad bodies lying like corkwood in the rainforest. Then the news turned closer to home. Marceline (Baldwin) Jone’s dad was a long-serving and well-respected Methodist minister in our town. The media descended on our town to dig up dirt on Jim Jones. My dad has told me that Marceline and their kids’ funeral arrangements were held at Doan and Mills Funeral Home. The media wanted in on the funeral services and Ernie Mills told them to go to hell. Mrs. Jones and her kids are buried not too far away from my parent’s future resting site in Earlham Cemetery. The grave was unmarked for years; although I believe there is now a marker there.
I watched “Witness to Jonestown” on MSNBC tonight; it was powerful and a good history of the events that transpired. I really feel the most for Stephen Jones-Jim and Marceline’s only biological child-who was away from Jonestown and has to live with the legacy and the name. And Richmond was not mentioned once!!!
I’ll admit that Jim Jones has had a major effect on how I view my role as pastor. I’ve seen the power of “religion” at its worst. I have made a vow to myself and God to never, EVER let myself turn into a demon like him. In fact I am the first person to tell members who try to place me on a pedistal that I don’t want to be in that position-that is not the reason why I am a pastor.
Two of Marceline’s nephews were in the class behind me (class of ’88). I won’t name them here-but they were both good friends of mone. I didn’t know of their family history until I was in college. And one of the boys is married to a girl who grew up in the congregation I am now serving…okay everybody now “It’s a small world after all…”
Doug, just to pop a little hole in your “nice, quiet boy” theory, Charles Manson would never have been described as either.
I remember Jonestown on the news. What they failed to report was that 1/3 of the deaths were children. Sorry, but kids are murdered. They don’t kill themselves. Also there were many who were NOT ready to leave this world. They were injected, shot or forced to drink the poison. What amazed me was that Jones was not willing to die by the same method he had his people ‘check out’…so I’m thinking his rationale for taking a bullet was that he saw, witnessed how painful the cyanide poisoning death really was… tragic.
Well Jim, you’ve officially “stepped over” as you said.
What a shock it must have been for Jim Jones, the 9-11 terrorists and other murderers to find out where they actually ended up. Not just “into another life”, not “into paradise with virgins waiting on you”, not anything like either of those two senerios.
One of the five men who did survive Jonestown mentions (in the documentary) looking around for his wife and infant/toddler son. He found them in line right after the pediatrician had injected his son’s mouth with the poison and his wife had just drunk it. He said the son died quickly; and he held his dying wife and apologized to her again and again for getting her into this.
He then managed to escape into the jungle and survive until the recovery crews came. I think part of his rationale was to make sure the world knew what had really happened in those last hours.
I still have the images of all the little kids on the ground seared in my mind from when I watched the news as a nine-year-old-tragic.
It’s tragic for the kids, yes.
But it seems a lot of these adults were not putting two and two together. One documentary a couple of years ago showed a man talking about a conversation a couple of other men were having about Jones. They were debating with each other whether, as a courtesy, they should regularly take enemas before Jones would “visit” them. This type of behavior was pretty common knowledge. So if your “religious leader” who is buggering half the congregation suddenly asks you to go to Guyana, consider yourself warned. Strange things are probably afoot. There may be danger ahead.
However, if you think that’s the path to heaven, well… you pay your money and you take your chances.
JustSally–
Remember how Hitler chose to go. The war was right outside. He could have charged the Russians with a rifle and been done with it.
Instead, he was in a bunker (to be safe?), tested the cyanide on his dog, then took cyanide while simultaneously being shot.
Cowards, punks, and charismatic types seem to go that way. Saddam chose to hang rather than be shot as a free man, fighting. Manson spends his days growing old in prison. There’s no shortage of people willing to see others die in a way that is unacceptable for them personally.
Cowards. It takes one to know one.