He was summoned to the temple radio room. Most people were away at the time. This past year, she returned to long-overgrown Jonestown. But the reality is that it was far from a mass suicide. "There was always that guilt fed to you by my father that kept you in check, kept you thinking, 'Maybe I'm wrong'--the guilt for being selfish and questioning this.". In California, he was steeped in temple life. We'd also just seen the warm, cheerful embraces between some of those leaving and some who were staying. "I'm blessed to have hit enough of a bottom and to have been surrounded by amazing, wonderful, honest, compassionate and challenging people to see me through that," Stephan said. (1991 - The woman sang as they coupled, and when Stephan Jones' mother told the boy she knew about it, she also told him--it is this he remembers as the crescendo of the betrayal--that his father had even described the song. Those who broke rules were disciplined. His mother is fine, they say. He promised that he wouldnt. This answer is: Study guides. In the aftermath, he built a new life. But in 1973, Johns oldest brother and a sister, along with six other California college students, quit the church and became its enemies. someone hollered as we scrambled over the gravel to the far side of the plane. "And it could happen to anybody.". A loud series of pops echoed across the field. The expression was born of the perception that Jim Jones disciples were gullible people who gladly drank the poison because their leader told them it would do them good. When he was ordered to Georgetown to help with supply shipments, Smith said he concocted an escape plan: Ollie and other temple singers and dancers, he believed, would soon be sent to Georgetown to perform, and the family would flee to the U.S. Embassy. "I usually try to tell people when we're in a good time to talk about it, because my God, it takes two hours just to scratch the surface," Stephan Jones says. They don't normally believe it at first. When one of Stephan Jones' adopted brothers once declared in a rage that they had to kill their father, Stephan remembers talking him out of it: "I said, 'God, you'd have chaos on your hands if you just went out and did this. When the rains approached, he would stand and watch the water come, pushing solid and steady toward him like some enormous stage set being wheeled across the hills. Thats what triggered it.. At 16, she was put on the Planning Commission where the meetings were a strange mix of church business, sex talk and adulation for Jones. Little Jimmy became part of their Rainbow Family of white, black, Korean-American and Native American children. 1959. Stephan Jones currently lives in Petaluma, CA; in the past Stephan has also lived in San Rafael CA and Novato CA. Though he waved and smiled at Peoples Temple services, seemingly enraptured like the rest, Stephan Gandhi Jones says he always had his doubts. Neither were the White Nights where everyone stayed up, armed with machetes to fight enemies who never arrived. They would survive and both return home to California. The 59-year-old, Jim Jones son Stephan Jones has gone through a lot after the mass massacre in Jonestown led by his father, Late Jim Jones on Nov. 18, 1978. The therapy that has been helpful to me hasnt been by talking with strangers about it. _taboola.push({ And I think he genuinely cared about those things, but my understanding of my father just from my own experience and stories is that unconsciously he was always primarily managing other peoples perception of him. They have three children. He has read most of "Raven," which he believes to be the best of the books about his father, but he has never been able to bring himself to read the chapter about the suicides and murders. . People were forced. One day, when she was in high school, she came home and told her parents that her religion class had discussed Peoples Temple; only then did her father share the story of how his family was nearly wiped out. The people are elderly and he knows he must stop it, but he cannot make contact with them; they look at him as though from great distances. Some of those leaving the temple eyed the vehicles with suspicion. Write by: . 'When I left at 21, I left a part of myself there,' she said. 'We built a community out of nothing in four years,' recalled Touchette, now a 65-year-old grandfather who has worked for a Miami hydraulics company for nearly 30 years. 'I was going back to retrieve that young person and also to say goodbye.'. His unplanned departure left them alone. She returned to Jonestown for the first time in 40 years in March, Jordan Vilchez poses for a portrait in Richmond, California last week. 'I was his son.' Even though he attended public schools, Stephan Jones had never really learned to live in the outside world. That way no one else would want to live. And I say, 'My name is Jones.' But the boy was still a child of the Temple. Well, once we got to California and we were going to public school, there it was very evident to me that my life was very different from the lives of most of the other kids. Some of the defectors told me later that the men in the trailer were members of Peoples Temple. He has learned, he says, to understand his own resources and the depths of his emotions. When Jim Sr., a local Democratic Party darling, met with future first lady Rosalynn Carter, Jim Jr. proudly went along. "It's not--such a bad experience," he says. Four decades later, Americans often use this phrase in political and business contexts without knowing its origin. A few of us jumped from the truck and ran over there. Then it was boxing matches for adults. Layton, who was insisting on taking the first plane, slipped to the other side of the plane before he could be frisked. It was just more controlled. Court Records. Jim Jones had said as a tropical storm rained on the Peoples Temple pavilion. Stephanie was one of six victims in the car accident coming back from Cincinatti.Birth name: . This dismissive thinking was convenient because its hard to comprehend how so many people marched together to a certain and unnecessary death. When he brushed away the mist below him he saw that it was a lifeless human limb. To cope, he says he abused drugs and exercised obsessively. While working as a hospital orderly, Jones met Marceline Baldwin, a nursing student, and they married in 1949. "I think I knew it was just a bunch of junk and that it was really about nothing," Stephan Jones said. Vilchez worked as office manager at a private crime lab for 20 years and now, at 61, sells her artwork. He has taken a lead role in a 40th Jonestown anniversary memorial to be held Sunday at Oaklands Evergreen Cemetery, where remains of unclaimed and unidentified victims are buried. container: 'taboola-below-article-thumbnails-3rd', So in my view, even the good works and things he championed were in some way not as pure as folks want to think. He was the son of Jim Jones, who established Jonestown. Devotion to its ideals bolstered her self-worth. The church provided free drug rehabilitation, medical care, food. And it was necessary in my own healing for me to find acceptance for him, understanding of him. Copy. When Smith reunited with his mother and wife in Jonestown, Ollie was 8 1/2 months pregnant. He dreams he is arguing with his father, arguing passionately, and although he knows his arguments are better, his father always wins. Then, after a 1977 New West magazine expose of temple disciplinary beatings and other abuses, she was sent to Jonestown. But he also tapped into something very real and showed something very real and was very loving, especially during the early period.. The slaughter at Jonestown was the worst civilian tragedy in U.S. history before September 11, 2001. 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There was something there. What they said. John Victor Stoen. What we were calling the cause really was Jim, she said. When Smith reunited with his mother and wife in Jonestown, Ollie was 8 months pregnant. Four granite slabs are etched with names of the 918 people who died in Guyana- including James Warren Jones, which deeply offends some whose relatives perished. NBC reported that Stephan Jones was the vice president for an office installation company in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2008. When a friend invited her family to Peoples Temples wine country church, they were impressed by the integrated community. The church provided free drug rehabilitation, medical care, food. Trump would hammer Biden OR Harris if he was up for election against either of them in 2024, new poll shows, At least 53 civilians who were truffle hunting in Syria are killed in terror attack blamed on ISIS, 'Find me rich, hot and kind': Hunter Biden BEGGED his cousin Caroline to hook him up with Brooklyn Beckham's wife Nicola Peltz - 25 years his junior - to help him 'break free' from his brother's widow and one-time lover Hallie, texts reveal, Onwards and upwards? They divorced when Jordan was six. 2023 Canoe.com, a division of Postmedia Network Inc. All rights reserved. He says the congregation was full of elderly people, many of them hard-working black men and women who had given this minister everything they possessed. The first attacks on the town, I thought they were real. Id rather just talk about what didnt work and hope that people can see that in their own lives. For 19 of his 24 years, they were all he knew. It was easy to see and feel what was attractive about my father. He pushes through the crowd, but he cannot get to his father. The only surviving child of Jim Jones, Stephan was born on June 1, 1959, in Indiana, USA. He is charming. That he was just this crazy zealot this entire time". He went through years of nightmares, mourning and shame. Though he waved and smiled at Peoples Temple services, seemingly enraptured like the rest, Stephan Gandhi Jones says he always had his doubts. This November 1978 file photo shows the Peoples Temple compound, led by Jim Jones, after bodies were removed, in Jonestown, Guyana. Among those speaking out ahead of the 40-year anniversary of the mass deaths is Mike Touchette, who was a 21-year-old Indiana native at the time. The only sounds they heard came from the jungle animals going about their business. Then they could identify and allow themselves to step into the story and understand how such a thing could happen. Outside of his career, he has discussed how he is spiritual in his personal life in interviews, like a 2007 one with Canada's The Globe and Mail though his beliefs are different than the fringe Christian ones his father once preached about. Manipulative tendencies. She gave her house to the Peoples Temple and they moved to San Francisco. He played at school. "I think I have a lot of the same tendencies he had. 'What we were calling the cause really was Jim,' she said. Well, he was using these words, I dont know if hed actually do that, hes a good and gentle man in so many ways, but he wanted to take dad out, and I was the one to convince him that dad would do that himself and we were going to have chaos on our hands. Everyone was waiting for him to take himself out. He is married to his wife Kristi Jones since 1991. Partner : Ava Phenice Jones, aka Ava Phenice Brown, Ava Phenice Cobb. Peoples Temple lost the game, but only by 10 points, which seemed worth celebrating. And I dont know that he could actually have done that. Stephan helped erect a basketball court and form a team. I would either have had to fight, or I would have taken it. The shots still were popping at an amazing clip. Jordan Vilchezs parents were Berkeley progressives in the 1960s her father African-American, her mother Scotch-Irish. Former Peoples Temple member Jim Jones Jr. carries a bucket of bleached rocks to place around the edges of the Jonestown victim memorial in the Evergreen Cemetery in Oakland, California, Jim Jones Jr. was adopted by the Joneses in Indiana in 1960. Stephan seeks forgiveness for themselves and for his father. An In-Depth Look at Naomi Girmas Salary in Professional Soccer. He is married to his wifeKristi Jones since 1991. They have three children. Stephan Gandhi Jones is the son of the notorious religious cult leader Jim Jones. "There's just nothing like it," he says. Sorry we are not currently accepting comments on this article. Rev. 'In an hour, that promise was broken.'. Did you ever consider the ultimate rebellious act: to defect from the temple? NBC reporter Don Harris said coolly: 'I think we're in for some trouble.'. Where the machine shop once stood, there was only rusty equipment. America was a genuinely unfriendly place for a boy from an interracial family and community, and Jim Jones knew how to fan that into a fear of everything that lay beyond the temple walls. Jim Jr., followed that July and was 16 years old at the time. But he said his discontent festered. Now, Stephan is a father of three daughters, ages 16, 25 and 29, and works in the office furniture installation business, Eugene Smith recalls how his mother, a churchgoing African-American, bought into Jim Jones' dream when he opened a new church in Fresno. In his spare time he swims, or rides his bicycle, or lifts weights, or plays basketball. Stephan Gandhi Joneswas the biological son of Jim and Marceline Jones. For years it was largely forgotten along with a number of other insanities in the United States in the 1970s. Stephan Jones was born on June 1, 1959 in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. So much was attractive and unique that we turned a blind eye on what was wrong, he said, including his fathers sexual excesses, drug abuse and rants. Stephan was around 17 years old when he moved to Jonestown in February 1977 to help build the compound. And thats why its so critical that people be wary of any leader who is held as superior to the people theyre leading. 2023 BDG Media, Inc. All rights reserved. John was attending a San Francisco high school when he was allowed to join his best friends in Jonestown. Within minutes, the aide and her three children lay dead in a bloody bathroom, their throats slit. The soldiers realized very quickly that the enemy wasnt waiting for them. And I had good reason to be enraged with him I was enraged long before he died, and openly so. My companion, Examiner photographer Greg Robinson, would be murdered in an ambush. It seemed the temple was generous: It willingly provided passports to those who wished to leave, and advanced $5,000 to help defray transportation costs. At the temple-exit guard post, the truck was halted. 'The reality was we were folks who could be counted on to stand up,' he said. It was Stephan Jones who managed security--who carried a gun, watched over temple members and planned group escape routes--when Jim Jones began summoning his community into a frenzied series of meetings to prepare for imminent attacks from outside. Jones berated three other new arrivals for misbehavior on the trip; they were beaten and forced to work 24 hours straight. Best Answer. Three Half-Siblings Glen has three half-siblings named Jim Jon Prokes, Jim W. Jones Jr., and Suzanne O. Jones. But it was too late. So would the congressman and three others. Jim Jr. would lose 15 immediate relatives in Jonestown, including his pregnant wife, Yvette Muldrow. He was 18 and running a temple construction crew when the church sanctioned his marriage to a talented 16-year-old singer, Ollie Wideman. Were you aware that you had a very different childhood than most? They have altogether three daughters. Recent interviews with Stephan include: "Son of Anarchist: My Father, Jim Jones, and What the . Rebelling, they refused Jones order to come back. Yes. . The note said: 'Please help us get out of Jonestown.' Garry (2007) and The Real Story (2002). Then, after a 1977 New West magazine expose of temple disciplinary beatings and other abuses, she was sent to Jonestown. All of us were falling and slipping through the mud around a six-wheel-drive dump truck that would take us (the congressional delegation, the press, the defectors and a group of concerned relatives of temple members) to the Port Kaituma airstrip. Farm Heroes Saga, the #4 Game on iTunes. You used the word forgiveness, but I find love and compassion for him. | The only surviving child of Jim Jones,Stephan was born on June 1, 1959, in Indiana, USA. After they left, I crept out of the bush and saw five bodies around the plane. container: 'taboola-right-rail-thumbnails', He made a promise once we get to Jonestown there is no corporal punishment, Smith said. How do you explain the renewed interest in the Peoples Temple? It was Harris who had been contacted by the first two groups of temple members expressing a desire to leave. Yet he submitted to a new search, then returned to his seat. In this March 5, 2018 photo released by Kevin Kunishi, Jordan Vilchez sits at memorial for mass murder and suicide victims at the Jonestown settlement in Guyana. 'It looks like trouble,' I said to Greg Robinson, but he kept on shooting pictures. "I mellowed out. Where they were lying. He's 61 now. And now some wanted to depart. Partner of Terry Carter Jones, aka Mary Theresa Carter, Mary Theresa Jones, Terry Carter Jones (died November 18 . "I don't know. Those who broke rules were disciplined. ', 'I argued with my Dad,' he said. She gives us the order that we were supposed to kill ourselves, Vilchez recalled. Jonestown: It was the bodies that photographers favored most. Alternative Considerations of Jonestown & Peoples Temple. He imagines the guards with guns, and the sky clouding over, and the air suddenly wild with fear, and the sight of the children. He cries out, "My God, you're not dead!" Though he waved and smiled at Peoples Temple services, seemingly enraptured like the rest, Stephan Gandhi Jones says he always had his doubts. A lot more conversation about the outside threat that was anyone that wasnt in the temple. ". Jim Jones. 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