Episode 18: Where There’s Smoke…
Q960 Jones: I mean to tell you, everybody woulda been asleep, cozily asleep. But people, If I’da listened to people on Wednesday night, there’da been 40 to 50, maybe 60 people, burned to a crisp. So when are you gonna to let me have my way and shut your mouth? (Calls out) Why don’t you start trusting me? Jones: (Full throat) Some of you would’ve never known I could do it. It took the church to burn down for you to believe that I’ve got power to bring you through the fire. You’ve sung– You’ve sung so long, some through great trials, some through the waters, some through the floods, and some through the fire. I did not say you wouldn’t go through fire, I did not say you wouldn’t go through Hell, but I said, if you go through Hell, (Cries out) I will bring you out of Hell.
Welcome back to Transmissions from Jonestown. This is episode 18. “Where there’s smoke…”
Denise: My earliest memory is sitting next to my father while he's playing the piano during a church service. I remember the big luncheons that they had. They used to have every Sunday, they would have like a big dinner/lunch for the Church crowd. And the women, a lot of the women would go down into the kitchen and start preparing the food because they had an enormous kitchen then, during the last portion of the service. And I remember kind of watching my mother taking pots and pans out of the stove. So those are some like earlier memories of the Church. I remember Jim himself being, he was very attentive, like with me. I always felt like he made me feel like I was the center of the world when I was in his presence back in those days. You know, I was just a little kid but he went out of his way to kind of like talk about how pretty my little dress was or my shoes or whatever. So he was, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that he was a different person, his persona was different then than it was when I left.
Denise was too young when her family first joined the Temple to remember meeting Jim Jones. Like so many early childhood memories, obscured by the lenses of time or augmented by repeated viewings of the family photo album, Denise’s early recollections of her time in the Temple are vivid snapshots of experiences and emotions.
Q956 Jones: People sometime want to compare us to imaginary heavens. Well, nobody can compare themselves to something that never existed. (Pause) You know, no one can compare anything favorably to a– to a dream.
It was the early `50’s, long before Jim Jones wore sunglasses to hide his eyes, the young preacher gathered with his small congregation, making a point to get to know each and every one of them. Denise remembers Sunday afternoons at the Temple in the early days. Her mother and several other ladies of the parish labored in a giant kitchen, preparing food for the Sunday meal. Denise is five years old, adorable and precocious, fussing for attention. Jones would scoop her up into his arms doting on her affectionately as her mother laid out the Sunday feast.
Often, as the ladies hurried to and fro preparing the food, they would kick off their shoes and high heels in order to make themselves more comfortable. One particular Sunday, Jim Jones, always the prankster, stole their shoes and strategically placed them throughout the church. When it was time for service to begin, Denise remembers his delighted giggles as he watched them frantically search for their shoes. His eyes were bright and clear, full of mischief and humor. Her mother eventually found her shoes slung over a hallway lamp.
Denise: When he was in Indianapolis, my parents were very involved in the Church. My father had been out of work for a little while and at some point we had actually lived in the church, just kind of like being a groundskeeper for a few months until my father was able to find a job and get back on his feet again. During our time with the Church, we had developed a close relationship with the organist Loretta Cordell. Loretta gave me music lessons when I was a child. This was before they left for California. I remember going over to her house and playing with her, but her children, they were babies at the time, so they were a lot of fun to play with, and everything. And so I kind of developed a relationship with her. Her mother and my mother were very, very good friends, and I wrote about the time that Stephanie died in the car wreck. Well, Mabel Stewart, which was Loretta Cordell's mother, was in that car with Stephanie and she was killed as well. After Jim had left for California, and been gone for like a while, my parents were having some issues, some serious issues, and my mother was going through some bad health bouts, and I had been corresponding with Loretta back and forth and she had said well why don't you, you know, I'd written to her and and I wasn't like really complaining so much, but I just said, you know, I really miss you and everything. So she had written to us and had invited me to come out for the summer, and in the letter at the end of it she says “I want you to come out,” she says, “but I warn you, she may not want to come back after she sees how beautiful it is here.”
Q1057 3 Jones: Say father loves you. Father said so. Father said that this experience can make you greater. Now remember, get it down in your heart. As Father said, this can be the turning point in your life, this can be a great experience for you. He loves you. You’re not going to go to concentration camps. In fact, there’s something very beautiful ahead of us. So get home in this peaceful community, ’cause Father knows the way. Father knows the way.
In May of 1965, Denise and her parents decided she should spend the summer in California with Loretta. Home life had become unbearable. Denise’s mother suffered from miserable bouts of depression, and as her parent’s relationship disintegrated, Denise found herself, at only 11 years old, full of despair. The letters from Loretta painted an idyllic picture of Temple life in California. Each day was filled with exciting activity as they worked together to change the world and lived communally. As Denise boarded the airplane to California on her first plane ride ever, she looked forward to a summer of adventure with her extended Temple family. A summer she remembers now as one of the happiest of her life.
Denise: Jim had taken his family and gone to Hawaii for a very brief time. Came back and they decided to do a mission in Brazil. When he came back, he was slightly different, his message was slightly different. We weren't actually involved in Vietnam at the time, but I think we were getting ready to be involved in Vietnam because I remember him quoting a little phrase of all the reasons to destroy over a little, a little town known as Hanoi. That was something that I remember him saying. As time progressed he became obsessed with the idea of a safe place to live in the event of nuclear war. And I mean, he was really, really obsessed with it. Every 16th of the month we gathered together and we were like terrified. Could this be the end. And for years, for myself I worried about that. They were still having meetings at the Church of the Golden Rule, which was like, kind of like a commune, that was in the area. We hadn't had our own church built yet. I remember one of my first duties as I, when I got to California, was that we would have to get up bright and early in the morning and go work out in Church of the Golden Rule’s garden, because we got food from the garden, because it was a humongous garden. And I remember being picked up in and sitting in the back of a pickup truck, and to go out there. With me be, like maybe 11-12 years old at the time, I was pretty young. On Friday nights it was young people night, and it wasn't about church. It was about getting together, and playing records, and dancing and just having like a party and this was like almost every Friday night. And it was just it was amazing, it was amazing it was so much fun. And you got really close to people. It was different than what it turned out to be in the end. When we would go on Sundays to the Church of the Golden Rule, they had an outdoor, in-ground pool, and after church service of course, we’d continue to have the same kind of, like a potluck like we had when we were in Indianapolis. They still had, they had continued that because of the in-ground pool, and it was huge, it was like an Olympic sized pool, you know we all got to go swimming and everything. So it was it was just a very different lifestyle in the beginning of my days in California.
David Wise: Jim Jones had discovered something very, very, very very powerful; and he actually first learned it probably, from Father Divine, although it's exemplified in churches around the world, around America for sure. And that lesson is: people will do anything for a potluck dinner. If you have everybody bring a dish, and you could encourage them to bring healthy dishes, you know, you could set a standard, but if everybody brings a dish, and everybody can eat free, oh people will do, they’ll follow you to the end of the world.
The Cordells lived in a little 3-bedroom ranch home in the countryside. Denise helped Loretta around the house and spent hours adventuring in the woods around Redwood Valley, wandering a small creek. As the summer came to an end, Denise couldn’t face the idea of returning home to Indianapolis. Denise had finally found a sense of stability and time to reflect on what she wanted out of life. The Temple surrounded her with friends and made her feel as though she was a part of something larger than herself. Returning home meant reopening wounds that had just begun to heal.
When the Cordells invited Denise to stay and help care for their five children, Denise was elated. Reluctantly, though with a sense of relief, her parents agreed to let her stay in California.
Over time, Denise found her place in the Cordell home taking on more and more of the housework and babysitting the children, all 5 of which were under the age of 9. The Temple took its share of the Cordell’s time, income, and resources, with little leftover for the needs of a growing family. As the children grew, the Cordell's small home became cramped, and Denise struggled to find a place of her own to sleep. The Temple demanded more time from Harold and Loretta Cordell as they expanded into San Francisco and Los Angeles. It wasn’t long before the Cordell’s marriage began to fall apart, leaving Denise to watch over and care for the children during blow out arguments.
Denise: The Cordells, were, you know, I lived with them for four years, three or four years, maybe a little bit longer, and during that time I was the oldest, and you know, they of course, they didn't have laws about babysitting like they do now. But at that time, and because I was the oldest, and she had five children; they were all under the age of like ten and of course they resented the heck out of me because I was a kid, you know what I mean? Like it is kind of like, and how do you, how do you control something like that? It was, it was very difficult. Then when I was becoming a teenager and was in like, middle school, she and Harold were having some marital issues. There was a lot of stuff going on that I really kind of don't know the details of, but I just know that they would get into fights, and then she would leave for a few days. And I would be the one that would have to get up with these kids, and get them, you know off to school, and then come home and like try, you know, because they were such a big family, you're doing laundry all the time, and they, you know, unfortunately the children were bedwetters, so almost every day you were, you had to do a load of sheets and it was, I have to tell you I worked. I worked very, very hard
Denise never resented the housework, caregiving, or the humble meals she ate while living with the Cordells. The principles of the golden rule, taught by Jim Jones, do unto others as you would have done unto you, were to be lived by. Meals may have lacked variety, in fact Denise to this day, cannot eat bologna sandwiches, but knowing she had a little less so someone with nothing could survive, was worth the monotony. Her parents regularly sent money to the Cordells to provide for her basic needs.
Denise: If I made a phone call home to my parents it was monitored. Loretta or somebody else would be listening in on my phone calls. There was no contact with anyone else in my family other than my mother and father, and again it was restricted to whenever it was convenient for Loretta and Harold or somebody from the Church to listen in on the phone conversation. And, invariably, I was encouraged to request more and more money be sent from my parents for my upkeep. And that was also frustrating for me because my parents would send money for my upkeep, but then the money wasn't being given to me, it was being given to Loretta and Harold for my upkeep. But then, you know, a lot of things, you know, like I just wasn't, I wasn't able to acquire some of the things that some of the other kids whose parents were there were able to get.
Q1057 4 Jones: Now we must not be caught lacking. We must not shirk in our duties. I’m asking you now, and I want to see every envelope, I want us to rally here. They brought me this offering. It is pittance. It won’t pay for the bus fares back and forth, everyone puts everything first, except their God, except this great Cause. You’ve got money for everything but this great Cause, and this will be the life of you and your children. If you don’t protect this, you’re going to lose your life. Now I mean that as a prophet. You mark my words. If we don’t protect this, we will lose our very life.
By the fall of 1967 the Cordell family moved into a larger home. Their five children Christopher, Jimmy Jo, Cindy, Candy and Mable were able to spread out and Denise finally had a room of her own. The house had at one time been used as a boarding home for the mentally disabled and one of the previous residents, a woman named Myrna, stayed on with the Cordells, helping to manage the household. Myrna was a difficult housemate for a variety of reasons, and a bit of a bully. She never failed to remind Denise that she was not a Cordell and was openly resentful of Denise’s place in the home. As Denise entered her teenage years and began developing as a woman, Myrna would make embarrassing comments about the shy teenager’s body. If Harold paid Denise a compliment, or showed her any attention, Myrna made it a point to cast suspicion towards Harold, adding further turmoil to his relationship with Loretta.
The new house was more remote, making it difficult to coordinate rides into town or church activities. Myrna encouraged Loretta to distrust Denise and scrutinized every fault she could find, making Denise feel as though she was under 24-hour surveillance. Cut off from her friends, and the little solitary creek she used as an escape, Denise felt isolated and depressed.
Up until now Denise had been the family’s full time babysitter and housekeeper, but as her relationship with the Cordell’s became more turbulent, she questioned her place in the household. She was made to feel like an intruder, another burden putting strain on Loretta and Harold’s already half sunken relationship. She felt the disdain caused by her presence and wondered what she could do to be appreciated again.
Increased pressure was put on Denise to solicit her parents for more money. The Cordells warned her that her parents in Indianapolis were not contributing enough to cover her expenses. Now that she was a teenager, the cost of clothing and educating Denise was too much for the Temple or the Cordells to shoulder alone. Denise reached out to her parents and asked them for more funds she knew they didn’t have. She felt guilty but also frustrated that her parents weren’t providing enough for her basic needs.
Denise’s calls home, as always, were monitored by the Cordells. The awkward calls and frequent requests for money eventually alienated Denise’s parents. The notes of their disaffection perceived by Denise were heartbreaking, adding to her growing feelings of hopelessness.
Denise: Every time I talked to my parents, even after they had married me, I still, I still was encouraged to call my parents and ask for money. Money that my parents, basically, did not, I mean, well I, what I did find out was one year, more than $10,000 was sent. Now that that was a lot of money back then. When I found that out from my parents later, I was appalled, because I was made to feel like that, that it was never enough.
By the end of 1968, Myrna was no longer a part of the household. Turns out, she was in love with Loretta and had jealously pursued a relationship with her, leaving chaos in her wake. Even though Myrna was gone, the Cordell’s marriage was on the rocks, their arguments sometimes lasted for days, leaving Denise to tend to the children and all of the housework. Like all Temple teenagers, Denise was expected to go to school, and attend long Temple services and activities. Denise noticed that Jim Jones' message was changing.
Denise: It probably started happening when I was about 14 or 15 years old, and I started noticing these changes. They were very subtle, in the beginning, I think. You know, he started, instead of preaching about Jesus, and the sacrifices that they made, and the greatest service to God, his service to your fellow man, that was one of the big things he used to say. It was more and more of expanding, and he began to have the church in San Francisco, and then he expanded into Los Angeles, and we were doing these bus trips over the weekends and it was less and less about the little church in Ukiah, or Redwood Valley rather, and more and more about the Los Angeles and San Francisco crowd. The whole atmosphere became different. And around that time is also when they started having these Wednesday night meetings that were just horrible, they were horrible. This was not like something that was open to the public. Sunday meetings were pretty much open more to the public, but Wednesday nights was basically reserved for members only. And that's when they just went into depth about things and and just, and then he started going into these rants, he would just start going hours and hours on end. And I remember we, I was still in school, and I remember sometimes the meetings would go until like 1:00 o'clock in the morning, and you'd have to get up the next day and go to school, and you wouldn't have had time to do your homework before you had to go to the church meeting. Because, you know, a lot of us from the time we turned old enough, like by the time you’re 15 or 16 years old, you kind of like had to go out and get a job. You had to like start bringing money in. Or you had to find duty, extra duties within the church to do, 'cause I know I was 15 years old when I got my, I got like a special work permit, and I worked at the Ukiah Walk-In Theater, and then during the summers I worked for the Federal Aviation Agency, and then there was a brief period of time during the year where I also worked at a little dress shop, from say like the time I got off of school until like around 6:00 or 7:00 o'clock. So it became so much work, but there was no joy in life for me as a person. It just was, I went from being, you know, overwhelmed with joy when I first got there, to gradually just being, I just felt like my whole life was nothing but like get up, go to school, get off of school, do whatever homework you can, you know, you gotta work a job.
Q1053 1 Woman: ...you said that you were considering having a service, I thought I understood you to say, once a month. Does that mean—
Jones: Yes, for guests. ...Now we make it clear, now...of course...you bring in someone, that...determine their beliefs and their purposes, their practices, and their— their ideals. And I can— sure you can understand [what] an ordeal it is for our committee when they meet people, who are very nice apparently, until you come up to the point of adopting a black child, or what would you do if black people were oppressed and put in concentration camps, and they say some stupid thing like they’d pray. We don’t feel that that person will do us any good, or we will do them any good. So we let them— we— we just ask them to return another time, and take their name, that we’ll let them know of a later meeting. (Pause) But we’re having so many people come, and so many people turned away from the door— We turned away 50 some people today, they said. But what’re you going to do with these people who start coming to church, just for the loaves and fishes, and we cannot offer them the same thing that we offer the rest, because they won’t have the same understanding, won’t be willing to give of themselves as much as the others who are involved in this family. I don’t like to turn people away, (Pause) but I certainly don’t like to bring somebody in like we had (Pause) the other day who’d turn people into the CIA...And the woman knew it when she brought her. She said, oh, I forgot it. You ought to know who you’re bringing to church.
[Light applause]
Jones: They come in here— The first thing some people say, this is the savior, the savior’s with us. Mother LeTourneau will watch it very carefully, and I know s’others, say God is with us. You (unintelligible word) have to know that God is here. But she doesn’t say, Jim Jones is God, but some of you, invariably, you’ll stand up and say, (Breathless) “Jim Jones is Almighty God.” Then you create a whole afternoon’s work for me. Because I sure don’t want to be that almighty God that everybody’s worshipped. (Pause) I’d be ashamed to be called that almighty sky God. Listen, I want to tell you the facts. I don’t want you to tell anybody, anyone else, that I’m a savior. I’m working night and day, sleeping no time, ask the people, getting— when I lay down on a davenport or bed or floor, it’s dawn. Emergencies of every variety— I was with Tim Stoen on three calls this morning, helping somebody’s life out of misery. I don’t want to be God to anybody else. Do you understand? I’ve got enough children. Don’t make me God to anybody else. [Light applause].
Denise: But when they stopped having the fun times for the Friday nights, I was overwhelmed with nothing but just labor, labor, labor at school, labor at church. School, labor, church, that's, that was my whole life. And it just, it went from being kind of a fun place to be, to being overwhelming. And each year that passed, I think I became more and more resentful, because I was just being used. And then they would like, they’d parade all the young people in front of the church and, so what are you going to do when you, you know, when you get out of high school, what are your goals? And I remember I didn't have any goals, because all I ever did was work. So I, I basically said I don't, I don't know, and it was said maybe you could do some sort of office work. I said yeah, I guess maybe I'll be a secretary and then that was the end of it. So the expectations of some of the other kids were like that they were going to be doctors, lawyers, and Indian chiefs, and I was going to be, you know, the best I was going to do is be like a clerical worker, maybe, which there's nothing wrong with that, don't get me wrong, it's just that that was, you know, and I began to look at it and say whoa, whoa wait a minute what's going on here?
Feeling out of place in her home life, Denise turned to the Temple only to find that Temple members' perceptions of her had been tainted. Gossip spread like wildfire amongst Church members. Relationships were considered to be church matters, discussed at length and voted on by committee. Word of what was happening within the Cordell’s home exasperated by Denise’s presence provoked the ire of the inner circle. Temple’s leaders were more sympathetic to the challenges facing the Cordells and their marriage, than Denise’s feelings or needs. When Denise mentioned that she needed clothes and supplies for school, she was met with condemnation and treated like a spoiled teenager.
Denise: I don't know who I complained.... I did develop a reputation as complaining, because I did complain, because I did, you know, I was a kid, and I saw inadequacies. And, so what happened, was then Jim had ordered Eva Pugh, who was like the accountant for the Church at that time, to take me and do some shopping for school clothes. So I did, like one year, I did get some new things for school. And basically I was, I was paraded in front of the Church and made to admit that I was very materialistic and look at all the new stuff that I had.
Denise wouldn’t find out until years later that her parents were sending the Temple enormous amounts of money on her behalf. Denise’s mother became concerned by the frequent calls home and the sadness she heard in Denise’s voice. In July of `69 Denise’s mother came to visit. This put the Temple on high alert. Jim Jones could not bear to lose even one of his followers to their families. Every defection was like a thorn in his side, a reminder of just how many secrets needed protection from the outside world. The truth about Denise’s dissatisfaction and her life of servitude needed a cover story or the Temple risked Denise’s mother taking her home. Jim Jones designed a scenario for Denise’s mother to ensure this intruder saw only what he wanted her to see and would assuredly return home empty handed.
Shortly after her arrival, Jim Jones took Denise’s mother aside and explained to her that Denise was in love with a young man in the Temple. He cautioned that to tear these lovers apart could provoke a backlash of rebellion and might exacerbate Denise’s angst. The story concocted by the relationship committee served its purpose and Denise stayed in the Temple when her mother returned to Indiana. Though it was only a cover story, the narrative was fully realized and Denise’s commitment to Jim cemented in place.
On October 6, 1969, Denise was married to Stephen Buckmaster. Like so many arranged Temple marriages, designed to keep people loyal to the cause, it was a marriage in name only.
Denise: I was only 15 when the marriage was arranged. It was so that my parents wouldn't be able to take me home. One of the things that I found was that the women in the Church, kind of interesting dynamics, the women in the Church, of course were not on the inside of the whole thing of it being arranged. So they thought that this was something that me and my ex-husband kind of came up with, so they basically banded together and had this feeling of like you want to live in an adult world, well then we’ll show you what the adult world is like. So I had to do the same things that the adult women, you know, like I had to bake for the bake sales, and I had to participate like in their thrift shop stuff and everything that they did, plus everything that the teenagers did too. I think I began to feel like it was just, it was overwhelmingly unfair. And I think what the other thing too is, you know, when you have to go into like a survival mode, you change your tune about things. And I think, you know, I just started looking at it and just saying well, you know, a lot of the other people aren't being treated like this, why should I? Why, why am I being sold this bill of goods? But because, because you arranged a marriage for me that I really kind of, you know, I really liked the guy, don't get me wrong, but I wasn't ready to marry. He was an extremely sweet person. He was a very kind, gentle person, and I feel really bad about everything that happened, and perhaps in a different life we would have been good mates for each other. I really did care about him and I believe that he really did care about me, but geez, I was only 15 years old when we got married, so, you know, how much did I know about the world? I was a kid, and to be thrown in that, he was, he was older. He was already, he was 21 when we got married, so like six years older than me. He had already gone through some college, he was finishing up at the state university and had applied for medical school, but wasn't getting in right away, and Jim wanted, I think Jim had something in his mind that he was going to be planning a move soon, and so he was encouraging him; Steven and Larry Schacht, to go and get their medical degrees through, they got them into a school in Mexico. So, you know, these guys were very, very bright, because not only did they go through medical school, but they had to translate everything. It was difficult and, and really and truly, I don't think that in the standard form of marriage, we did not have a marriage. We didn't live together, you know, we weren't together. It was but it, in name we were married, mostly in reality I never count, like I never count Steven as my first. It was one of those things where, you know, you get a phone call, and it was like it was arranged. It was just totally complete arranged. They had to get, at that time, Time Stoen was the assistant district attorney, and they went through him to get the paperwork pushed through because I wasn't even 16 years old.
Q635 Jones: We got people back there in love. And that’s trouble. All you that are in love, it’s trouble. shit. What is love? If love isn’t ba— I’m ready to die. I’m ready to die. Shit, I’m ready to die.
Splitting up families and regulating intimate relationships by sometimes supplanting Temple approved surrogates cemented loyalties and deeply entangled Temple families. Denise had no experience being a wife, or an adult, but the Temple expected nothing less than her full commitment.
Denise: So I was thrown into a whole other world, you know, I was just like, so inundated and just physically tired all the time. I remember, you know, not just if we averaged three or four hours sleep at night; that was a lot for me. But again, I was like so involved between work, church services, and school itself, and you were expected to have good grades, you know, you couldn't use that as an excuse, that you were tired. To be honest with you, I actually have points in during those time frames where it's almost like a blank space. It's like, it's almost like I just forgot some stuff. It's, it's, it's like I remember, it's, it's like I remember, like a photograph of it, but not the whole moving picture.
Temple members were praised for their ability to get so much done with little to no sleep. Being tired was merely a symptom of self-sacrifice, an important step in the Temple’s systems of spiritual development. Exhaustion was a tool of manipulation, used to control and confuse the congregation. Bombarded with endless tasks and places to be, Denise’s temporal orientation began to distort. Time no longer had any meaning, only that there was never enough of it. Often Denise fell asleep on her feet.
Q962 Jones: (Ministerial fervor) I haven’t slept for nine long days or nights. But I’m as lively– You want to take me on in a race? Because I can run and not be weary, I can walk and not be faint. (Voice drops) Oh, yes, I can
Denise: The last couple of years that I was there it started getting bizarre to me, and it wasn't anything that I had, that I had believed in. Did I witness humiliation? Yes, I did. On their Wednesday night meetings, you know, member only meetings, and they had what they called public catharsis, and they would dredge out stuff that was like just so intimate and detailed, even down to like people’s sex lives and stuff. And it was just the people that say that he, that the congregation was for the most part brainwashed, I believe that. Because, you know, think of all the different processes involved in brainwashing; you know, we were sleep deprived, I mean horribly. Being a young kid and having to go to school the next day, and if you fell asleep during a church service, God forbid, you would get called to the front and you were humiliated for falling asleep. From what I understand later on, it became beatings and everything else. So we were sleep deprived. We were required to work constantly. Most of your money had to go, as a young person most of your money went into the Church. It wasn't this thing of you got out and you earned a living for yourself, and I think that what was true with people that were families within the church, that they gave quite a bit, much more than just the 10% or whatever the normal going rate is for church. You know Church members, they gave a considerable amount of their paycheck to the Church. A lot of people signed over their properties, wedding rings, I mean just you name it, people gave it, because in every church service it was like he would send the plate around, and you would think to yourself, “I've already given everything I have, what more can I give?” And you’d see people taking their rings off and stuff like that and putting them in there, because what else do they have to give?
Q962 Jones: Peace. The slave system, the monetary system, the love of money which is the root of all evil. That’s the mark of the beast, the dollar, the almighty dollar. You’re gonna have to free yourself from that mark of the beast. What will you do?
Denise grew up around Jim Jones and his family. She knew that Jones' personality was duplicitous. Despite the questionable aspects of his persona, she believed that Jim Jones believed his own rhetoric and strived to help the people he was manipulating.
Denise: I did live with Jim and Marceline for a very, very brief period of time, maybe about a month, and their home life was very different than the home life that I had lived with, that and other people were living. They ate better, they just seemed to have a better home life. I think they justified his family having a little bit better things because of the fact that he was so spread out. He kind of made the exception to his life and his children's lives, but I will say in deference to him that his time was always being taken up by the Church. It seemed like all hours of the night, he was getting phone calls because he had put himself out there as being a healer, and so if somebody had like a stomach upset or anything they would call him in the middle of the night, you know, “heal me Father.” One time they had one of these Sunday dinners somebody had brought in, I guess chicken or something, and it had gotten a little tainted and the whole church kind of broke out with like the runs, [chuckles] and I remember, I, because, I woke up in the middle of the night with it as well, but I remember hearing him on this phone trying to soothe other people.
BREAKING NEWS MUSIC “Action News 5!”
Q680 Jim Clancy: This is where it all began, the Peoples Temple, in Redwood Valley, a few miles north of Ukiah. This is where the Reverend Jim Jones started his church in California. The people living in the area around here still remember that church.
Clancy: Did he ever perform miracles, so to speak, that you observed? Like uh, you know, similar to the loaves and fishes that uh, Christ performed?
Former female member 2: Yes, uh, once my husband and I were standing in back of the Temple in Redwood Valley, and we saw two uh, buckets of Kentucky Fried Chicken being brought through the office, the backdoor office, and, a few minutes later Jim said that we had run out of food and that he was miraculously going to–
Husband: –materialize the– some chicken. And all of a sudden they brought in two uh, uh, plates of chicken. A bunch of chicken legs, and everybody was just raising their hands and crying and–
Former female member 2: Everybody wanted the miracle chicken. (Small laugh)
Husband: Yeah.
Male reporter: Tonight, the Reverend Mike Prokes, the spokesperson for Jones and the Temple, had nothing to say about the “fried chicken miracle” or any of the other specific charges leveled against the group by former members. He says it’s a smear campaign and there are political overtones. Peoples Temple has launched its own investigation into the deluge of charges made in the last week.
Jones would recreate the loaves and fishes story for his congregants by manifesting fried chicken out of thin air to feed his hungry flock. Tray after tray of food was brought in as Temple members jumped to their feet, applauding the divine powers of such a caring Father. Later, a former member recounted having seen discarded buckets from Kentucky Fried Chicken hidden in the back. When he commented on it, Jones had his food poisoned to punish his dissension. Fortunately, the poison was mild and only caused some vomiting and diarrhea. Jones intention was to punish, not to murder. Not yet.
Thomas Beikman: One time they had meals there in Redwood Valley. They run out of chicken. Jones said he materialized it in the oven. Yeah, he materialized it: KFC. He had one of his do-gooders... My dad loved lemon meringue pie, and they brought him, “here Chuck, this is the last piece, hey you better eat it.” Well they had something on it, made him sicker than hell, he `bout died. But they’ve done that to other people too.
Denise: In church he would show people, “look at these shoes I have,” and they would have holes in the soles of them. Well, then you find out that here he has maybe about 10 pairs of this exact same shoe and not all of them have holes in them, only one pair, [laughs]. So yeah there was, there was like a double side to him. I think he was always saying no sex, no sex, no sex to his married couples within the Church, and yet he was out having multiple partners from what I understand. I think that the majority who were not part of the inner circle really didn't know the extent of the deprivation that was going on. I think that they thought they were working for a cause, and that they were giving their heart and soul into it, and it wasn't until they started having public beatings, and I think it started with like the catharsis things, I think people started getting a clue as to what was going to happen after that. And then when they had that one session where they had people being lined up and getting whacked on the bottom quite a few times with a leather belt, and I remember thinking, no way I'm going to say I have anything I feel bad about [laughs]. I think I was about 16 or 17 years old at the time and I remember thinking, are you crazy? I don't want to be hit but there were actually some of my, some of the people that i knew that were going to college back then we had actually gotten in the line lumping, are you nuts?
Peoples Temple member Edith Roller, kept detailed records of daily life in the Church in her journal. In May of 1976 she recorded:
Louetta Brown received severe punishment, about 150 whacks and is now performing in an exemplary manner.
William Klingman out of control at school, going to be suspended. Congregation voted for 50 whacks. Jim gave him all night work, with one hour’s sleep.
Dov [Lundquist] got 100 whacks on first day of new school; refused to go on field trip.
Billy Jones. 20 whacks. Work all night.
Thurman Guy. 20 whacks. Out of hand on bus from LA.
Wednesday night meetings were where Temple relationships went to die. They were not open to the public and eventually you needed a Temple ID card to get in. Catharsis sessions, widely used in many new religious movements, were usually on the agenda.
A personal catharsis is an emotional release, relieving unconscious conflicts or repressed emotions. A cleansing of the soul. Catharizing, particularly in a group setting, opens you up to ideas and influence when you are at your most vulnerable. The process is intended to allow a person to face their inner turmoil and heal their pain, but the Temple weaponized this concept during their Wednesday night meetings. A person would be called to the floor, interrogated about the most personal and embarrassing aspects of their personal lives, then systematically dissected by their friends and family until their sense of self was fully dismantled. Children attacked their parents, husbands accused wives, and families fell apart. The punishments, even for minor infractions, were often cruel and intended to humiliate. Catharsis, a concept modern psychoanalysts now warn can be dangerous in a group setting, was just another outlet for Jones’ manipulative games.
Q949 Female 4: He says that Herman watches TV for three hours out– of the ball game without stopping.
Jones: Do you watch the ballgame?
Herman: On my lunch hour.
Jones: Where are you– where are you in consciousness? You’re interested in ball games here? (Pause)
Male 1: Brother, do you understand—
Jones: I– I– I– I– you– I like to be like a (unintelligible word), a loving father, and the easier I am, the more of this I put up with.
Female 4: Uh– Herman uh–
Jones: Shhh! I want– I don’t want to have that exposed and pulled out inch by inch. Is this true, Herman, or is it not true?
Herman: (Pause) Yes, it’s true.
Jones: Why did you lie to me?
Herman: But I do do my work, he was wrong about that.
Male 1: He asked whether– why did you lie to him?
Jones: ‘Cause the lunch hour is not the only time you’ve ever done it. You knew you were lying to me, and I know it immediately. You lie very nicely. You lie just very straightforwardly, um-um-um, you shook your head like you had been attacked unrighteously and unfairly.
Female 4: Herman has even gone to the San Francisco Bay Area to ball games there to the Giant– Giant games, I believe it is, uh, on the weekend and paid money to go.
Herman: (too soft)
Female 4: You have too, and you came back and slept in my car and– and went to work from my car. You did too. Don’t lie again.
Jones: (short laugh)
Council Female: Herman, have you paid money to go see the Giants play?
Herman: Yes, but I never went on no–
Council Female: Why don’t– It doesn’t matter whether you went on the weekend or any other time. Did you go? That is the important thing. You’re skirting around the issue again. (Pause)
Female 4: And also you’re chewing gum.
Female 5: Excuse me, could we have everyone please listening when Father’s talking and not reading a newspaper.
Jones: Who’s reading a newspaper?
Female 5: Bernie.
Jones: Who’s reading a newspaper?
Female 5: Ber– Uncle Bernie was sitting there looking at the Sun Reporter.
Jones: (Sighs) Now you see, you don’t like discipline. We don’t like rules, don’t like council. And people say the council’s too ag– aggravating, because I’m the Father, and I tend to love my children too much to indulgence. You’ve gotta have a tough council. Council has to take an unloving role. That’s what it seems to be, really is a loving role. [Several voices away from microphone]. Somebody gonna have to go. Somebody gonna have to take a walk.
Male 1: I think so.
Jones: This place is getting in danger, because everyone thinks that you can get by.
Denise: You began to feel like everything you did was under a microscope because people were diming. It was, it was like Hitler's Germany: everybody was diming everybody out, I mean if you say, say you stop and got a piece of penny candy or something they’s dime me out for it. It was weird, it's just like in order to prove your loyalty, you had to be able to do that, and I just couldn't, I couldn't condone it anymore. It just seems like beyond belief to me. I was like are you crazy? These are people that, like I would have given my life for before, and now they're going to turn their back on me. And they would rake people over the coals over the stupidest stuff. Like myself, when I’d gone away to live with my husband at that time, in the college dorms that they had there. They used to have a similar Wednesday night meeting for the young people in the college dorms. And I remember one time, I was accused of not waving to one of the other members when I crossed campus, and they raked me over the coals for about an hour over that, and I don't even, I didn't even remember the whole incident. Finally I just, I just kind of like just got really quiet and I just didn't say anything. I just let them go ahead and berate me. What I have heard from some people that were more on the inside than what I was later, like in more recent years, was that that whole thing was orchestrated by Carolyn Moore, that she had kind of orchestrated a lot of the stuff that went on like, let's see what happens when they do this, and when they do that, and so there was a lot of stuff that was I really think it was made up, and something that generalized you wouldn't remember if you had waived at somebody or you didn't wave to somebody, or I mean, you know, you're on your way to your next class, what the heck do you pay attention to that sort of thing for? [Laughs] So, you know, these kinds of behavior changes made me start to look very differently at everything that was going on. it just goes too much, it was almost like the people that were at San Jose, going to the community college, were like an experimental group with their catharsis meetings. Instead of going to Ukiah for your Wednesday night meeting, you had a meeting there. And then when we went back, it started, I noticed that it started getting, the Wednesday night meeting started getting more and more bizarre there too. Like I do remember, they did have one evening which was kind of like the straw that broke the camel's back for me, was they had an evening where they decided they were going to have public spankings. I just remember being in shock that people would actually line up to be beaten. I mean, I remember thinking to myself are you nuts? You want to have them, like, beat you? What, why would you, you know with a strap? Why would you want that? I don't know whose idea was. It was in a public forum on a Wednesday night. I don't remember what brought the whole thing on but it was, people were made to, like if you have something that you feel that you need to be purged up, I guess come forward and, you know, and they would just lay the strap to them.
Q949 Jones: You’re going to break down all discipline, unless I use every bit of my energy to watch for liars or to deal with every liar that I’m dealing with, and you can be a liar indirectly or directly. Some of you stage things in– to defend yourself in council meetings here or in Monday night meetings. You stage set-ups to make yourself look good. I have never done anything with any of you, whatever it was, at any time, that it was not to bring you to some growth. (Speaks slowly) I never take advantage of any human being, never have made any human being do anything. So don’t pose any kind of situations like that, because it makes me feel vo– grossly uncomfortable. Maybe at the time I can’t tell you what I’m doing, but it’s a testimony to your strength that I work with you.
Denise considered leaving the Temple. But like so many who tried, leaving behind all she knew was not easy.
Denise: I did try to leave once, before I actually finally left. About a year and a half maybe, before I actually finally left, I did try to leave. I left for about three weeks. I went to stay with a cousin in Las Vegas, and then went home to Indianapolis for about a week after that, and then ended up. He made contact with me and, you know, they were saying how much I was missed and this and that the other thing, so I went back. And when I came back, that's when I was moved to the San Francisco area, because I had been living in the student dorms, and it was very stressful living in the student dorms. They were on, like this mission to become more and more militant, you know, that, at that time the Black Panthers were becoming popular, and there was a lot of behavior that was more avant garde than I would have been.
Denise was unsettled not just by how the Temple’s politics was evolving, but there were signs that Jim Jones, a man she had known and loved since she was 3 years old, was drastically changing. His once clear eyes now bloodshot and rarely seen, held a secret he struggled to hide.
Denise: Well, I will tell you, he started his habit of wearing sunglasses all the time, and his eyes were not right, so I don't know when he started using any kind of drugs. I mean, I, and the other thing too, is I think, there was an assumption in the beginning that maybe it was just total fatigue and that's why his energy level was lower. His behavior, and his pattern of speaking, and everything started to change, ever so slightly. I mean it was, like kind of like a gradual thing, and you noticed it more when we started doing those bus trips. So I kind of like assumed that, that was just because of you know being on the road, and this and that, and the other thing, he must have really gotten himself involved in some heavy duty barbiturates.
Q638 Jones: Anything won’t make me sleepy, you got any blood pressure medicine that won’t make me sleepy? (Pause) ‘Cause I— I— I can’t afford to be sleepy tonight, till this thing’s over. I haven’t had any sleep for so fuckin’ many days, they never let me pick these White Nights. That’s what annoys me. Every time they pick a goddamn White Night, our enemies, I’ve never had any sleep. What the hell’s the matter with you?
Jones: — it’s a stimulate, and I—
Jones: — any time that— it’s all right— there’re no— ain’t not no secrets here. Everybody knows I’ve got (Pause) certain problems, I’ve had ‘em for a long time, don’t count on me dying tonight. (Sighs) Unless we all do.
Denise moved into the San Francisco Church at 1859 Geary Boulevard and lived communally. The Wednesday night meetings with their humiliations and violence were slowly eroding her desire to remain a member. The harmonious bond she once shared with fellow members was fading. She no longer trusted them nor understood their motives.
In August 1973, the San Francisco Church on Geary Boulevard burned down. The fire destroyed all of Denise’s possessions and the last shred of stability she counted on to survive.
Denise: And I remember the night that it happened, I was working for the Continental Insurance Company. We were driving back from a Wednesday night meeting in Ukiah. As we pulled up in the bus, we saw the church on fire, and basically we slept on the bus that night, and I went into work in like clothes that were just, I was totally disheveled, and I went and I told my boss there was a fire and I lost everything, which I wasn't lying. I just didn't say that it was at this Peoples Temple Church, because you really didn't want anybody to know. It was more like a secret, you didn't tell people.
Q960 Jones: I’ve seen many an evening in that vestibule. When people would be slumbering, when six months ago I asked the maintenance people to get a fire and burglary alarm system, and they never did get it done. I remember looking so well down on that vestibule, and I said people’d sleep right here through a fire. And they came through the kitchen, unfortunately, a hole that I’d ordered closed up a year ago nearly. That’s where he came. The fact of all the– not– not willful harsh disobedience, but just careless lack of following instructions.
Reporter: The fire bug first truck a gay church at 22nd and Guerrero on July 27th. The next target was a sister house of the Holy Order of Man's on Steiner near Fulton on August 15th. And early this morning the Peoples Temple of The Disciples of Christ on Geary near Steiner was firebombed. According to the arson squad, two separate gasoline fires were set inside the church: one in a rear bathroom, another under a stairway which raced upward into the main auditorium. Three alarms were quickly turned in, but firemen were unable to save the building, which was completely gutted, with the loss estimated at $100,000.
Fireman: Well, we have evidence that it was definitely an incendiary fire; arson fire. We found a one gallon can of gasoline in a rear bathroom on the first floor.
Reporter: Well now, what would have happened if there had been anybody in that church at the time this fire was started?
Fireman: Well, I believe they would have been trapped on the upper floors. The building completely filled with heavy smoke and the fire roared up the rear stairway to the second and third floors, doing considerable damage. Anyone up there would have been trapped.
Reporter: A custodian in the church escaped without injury, but 40 students from the church headquarters in Redwood Valley, north of Ukiah, had been scheduled to spend the night in the Geary Street church. Spokesman Mike Prokes said Pastor Jim Jones changed that plan at the last moment.
Mike Prokes: “I think I would be dead right now if it wasn't for Pastor Jones. We had a meeting in Redwood Valley last night, and he had an eerie feeling, and held up the meeting for about 3 hours, which meant that the buses arrived here after, or just as the fire began. And the timing was such that one of our secretaries was able to get out. The only person in the building which was a custodian, and had it not been for his [Jones’] intuition or his paranormal faculty there would have been 40 others in that building who may well be dead right now.
Reporter: So, the San Francisco Fire Department has a full fledged mystery on its hands. Somebody is deliberately firebombing church properties owned by offbeat religious groups and no one knows why, at least no one who's talking.
Q960 Jones: And he slipped through there, and no one ever knew it, no one ever heard him slip through there and poured gasoline in 10 different spots. And I mean that house was filled with flames when our sister was saved. Smoke and flames that choked the firemen the moment he entered it. He went to the hospital, but I brought her through.
The church was so badly damaged, everyone living there communally had to relocate. Jim Jones claimed the costs of the damage exceeded $100,000. The fire gutted the building. The Temple elected have their own members, many of whom worked in construction, repair the damages. Thomas Biekman was only a boy, but he remembers rebuilding the church.
Thomas Beikman: The church was caught fire twice, so. And that was a chore digging all that junk out of there and fixing it. But we all worked like dogs, you know, free labor. I don't know if it was the Muslims or if it was just an accident, but I have no idea. But I just thought, wow that’s a...You know, most people call in a construction company, let them fix it, you know? Here we all in there pulling the slats and the old plaster out of the slats, you know, you talk about dirty work, it was awful.
Denise: You know, it was ruled as an arson type thing, and of course Jim said, well this is because they're out to get us, but truthfully, myself, I always was curious and wondered if maybe that just wasn't like self made arson. It started in the piano. The church itself was like an old theater, and they had these balcony areas above where the stage was. The organ was on one side, the piano was on the other side, and then they had these, they were like rooms, up above, on the side, and in the back towards the back of the stage. My room was actually in one of those areas. The piano was right underneath where my room was, so literally everything I had got destroyed during that fire because supposedly the fire started in the piano.
Q960 Jones: I personally took the liberty to announce by faith, if I have to give my own adopted children’s educational fund, then believe that I will recreate it. I have personally announced that I will give $5,000 reward. I already know where it’s at, I want to get somebody come out. My gift can’t convict anybody in court. The Reward to those who would give information leading to the arrest and the conviction of those behind this nefarious thing. I said I’ll even plead for leniency for the one that carried out, providing I get the information from the ones behind it. ‘Cause I know who’s behind it. I just want to get a conviction. [cheers]
A story was circulated that Temple member Elmer Mertle was taking photographs for the Temple publications department and was hassled when he photographed the Nation of Islam Mosque next door. A rumor was spreading that the Nation of Islam set the fire to send a message.
Q960 Jones: There’re people in America that will burn you to death. And this was a black man that came in there, and did the honky’s business, he didn’t know I was who I am. He intended to burn 40 people alive in their sleep, because if I had not delayed that meeting and let those buses– I never hold a meeting till between two and three o’clock. Maybe one. And I held it, I just kept holding it, and I kept preaching about what was gonna come our way, and uh, everybody woulda been sound asleep, while he slipped through that kitchen, put all that gas around, and in three minutes, the fire inspector said, nobody coulda got out. Three minutes, he said, it’d been finished. ‘Cause they put it at the staircases. A Black Uncle Tom was willing to burn up his own Black brothers and sisters. (Pause) Now if you think the Uncle Tom will do that, how much more will Mickey Mouse do?
[Applause]
Jones: Well, they just don’t realize how serious it is, till it comes home. That’s why I had to let this thing come home to us. It didn’t need to happen, but it’s a good lesson, because when we look at that thing, you’ll know how mean America is, and when I tell you to start and get ready to leave to the Promised Land, you better move.
Former associate pastor David Wise was in Los Angeles at the time, but the San Francisco church fire has come up during our conversations more than once.
David Wise: Well, there is a crap load of people stuffed in every nook and cranny in that, in that building. There is no way that you had an accidental fire and just one or two witnesses on. And then Jim has this reputation, like they called his name and it went out. The very church burns down, and you, you're supposed to be this big healer, and this miracle worker that can move, stop people from dying in the road, and everything like that. I mean they got a handsome insurance payout, and nobody was hurt in there. I mean if the place really burned down, you got all them people that can like go and dump water on something or whatever, and the fire department's right handy because it's right in the city. At this time, I'm suspicious with no absolute proof or foreknowledge that they set a fire for the insurance.
Denise: but I often thought that that was engineered, I really did. Just because of the fact that it just conveniently happened when we were away, and the way it happened. When I lost everything, one of the reasons that kind of spurred me on to leave was that it seemed like the people on the outside were much more charitable than the people on the inside. Nobody was donating clothes to me. Nobody was offering to give any kind of assistance. They were still demanding the same stuff and I was just like, you know what, this is weird. Because the place that I worked took up a collection for me, I had told them that my apartment had burned down. I didn't because I didn't tell anybody where I was from or what I was doing and literally I did lose everything that I owned, all my clothes, everything, everything was gone. What happened was, they took up a donation for me, and all the young women, you know, I worked at the Continental Insurance Company, which is a huge company at that time, they gave me enough clothes to get started, and they gave me enough of a donation to where I made the decision rather than give that money to the Church, I made the decision to hold it aside. And that was part of what I was able to put down on the little apartment for myself. That was something that prompted me to make the decision to leave, because the opportunity was there, and I just felt that it was a good time to get out. And, you know, this is the thing, like if the Church had been charitable to the people that lost everything, like I didn't have any family there or anything, so I really relied upon the Church for everything, but they weren't charitable to me at all. Like no one offered me a place to stay, no one offered me anything. I don't, I remember just taking time, like as soon as I get done with work, I'd start going and looking at apartments because I was just so disgusted with everything. I was just like, can you believe this? Because at the time they took my whole paycheck and were giving me a $2 allowance. That's all I was given, was $2 allowance. I had just barely enough money to take bus fare back and forth to work.
Q960 Jones: In spite of the building all being burned up...every vital thing I had in my own room was saved, because there was a certain aura. Even though it was the place that burned. The back part of the building, or the stage burned the most flagrantly, but every valuable thing I had was saved. Even my shirts. And I said I need some socks. I don’t want my socks burned. None of my socks were burned. I had some important books that were valuable. There wasn’t a– wasn’t even a bit of smoke on the books. Though the whole building– the floor burned out of my apartment, yet nothing was lost that I wanted lost.
As the Geary Boulevard church was rebuilt, Temple members' possessions lost in the fire were trivialized and forgotten by Jim Jones.
Upon the Church's reopening, newspapers reported that the Temple was not only beautifully restored but had been magnificently upgraded. The restored San Francisco Temple now featured hand crafted chandeliers, giant pine castle doors, hand molded wooden details and thick maroon shag carpeting. Popular opinion and the press seemed to agree, the church fire was arson. But the question remains, who burned down the Peoples Temple?
David Wise: So the suspicion was that, of course, everyone's got their own conspiracy things, and there's nothing worse than being falsely accused. If you've ever had people going around making up some damn lie on you, it's really tragic. The word is, is that they burned it for insurance, and so. No I chose not to get, I had, I could have been involved in that as the pastor of the LA church. I could have been involved in anything I wanted to be involved in. Yeah I didn't burn nothing down, I don't burn things. Unfortunately, Jones was against pot, so nobody burned a joint or nothing.
Mike Wood, a long-time Temple member and son-in-law of Jim Jones at the time, was able to shine some light on what really happened.
Mike Wood: There were two stories that somehow emanated from the Church. I wasn't involved with their being spread at all, but I was involved with the follow-up to the fire which is why I know something about it. So there was the Black Muslim temple right at the corner of Fillmore and Geary, which is the old Fillmore Auditorium. But in those days it was the Black Muslim Mosque, and so one of the rumors was that they burned it down, and another rumor is that a bunch of white racists burned it down, and the truth of the matter is we burned it down. The building cost us $66,000 in 1969, and we got, I think like $69,000 from the insurance company. Completely remodeled the place. And it was much better for our purposes afterwards than before that's for sure.
Q960 Jones: (Voice climbs) I did say there would be fiery trials, but I reiterate, and I do declare that I will not allow more to be put on you than you are able to bear. I said it, and I will carry it out.
Congregation: Applause.
Jones: I have said to you that, keep my sayings, you will never– I mean if you live a million years – and I may just do that, allow some of you to live a million years without ever going by the grave – I say to you that I will not allow more to be put on you than you are able to bear.
Terri Buford, an important member of Temple leadership was quoted as saying, “the fire was deliberately set to reinforce members' beliefs that outside enemies were plotting their destruction.” She said just before the fire, Jack Beam, Sr., told everyone they had to leave the San Francisco Temple and go to an emergency meeting in Redwood Valley. Everyone went except Jack.
Q960 Jones: You better learn one thing. Don’t mess with Father’s children. He don’t like it. But the fact is, I know that some devil, and some devils behind the devil, tried to burn my children. And do you know, I’m like the hound of heaven, I’m not gonna stop, I’m gonna get my own detection, I’m gonna use my own supernatural power, I’m gonna get every whammy I can get, and I’m gonna get money, because money is– the love of money is the root of all evil – I’m gonna bribe those devils, if I have to go out and sell Coke bottles, I’ll raise the ante, till I’ll get one of ‘em to tell on somebody else, uh, they mess with the (draws out word) wrong one now.
Jones: (Cries out) Now I warned those people, don’t mess with my children. I’ve told people over and over, don’t you touch my children, because I am a (draws out word) mean Daddy-o.
Jim Jones reinforced his paranoid fantasies with fake evidence with no regard to the consequences for those whose lives he let burn. Denise knew it was time to go.
Denise: I think he was an egomaniac. As an adult, looking back on it, I think that he required total and complete devotion. When people would leave him that was the ultimate, the ultimate disloyalty. That was like, you stabbed him in the back. No matter what your reason was, he just couldn't handle that, he just couldn't handle it. Yes, I did sneak out. What had happened was I had taken the money that I had gotten from that collection from the fire from work, and I had gone out and looked at different apartments, and I found one that was within my price range in, in Oakland. You know, I had to put in my first month and my last month's rent, and I had just enough money to do that, and I just remember, I had barely enough money to buy peanut butter and bread, and get myself to work the next week [laughs]. And over time, I started hanging out with other people that weren't in the Church, of course. And little by little, you know, some of my friends, they would go out, on like say like a Friday night and some of the guys that were there, they would buy me like a little appetizer or whatever they had out, they would…. So that's how I got by for like almost a year, and then I finally just got to a point where I was like, I just decided I had to leave, so. Too much, and it's just too much trying, it was so isolated even then. And I remember the holidays were horrible, horrible for me, because not only did I not have anybody from the Church, but I couldn't afford to go home either. So I basically, the holidays were basically just spent by myself, and that was, that was, it was rough. It was really a very, very lonely time for me, and I often questioned should I go back, but then I was like, no I can't ever go back to that, I know I can't live that lifestyle. And finally I broke down and told my parents how unhappy I was, and they sent me the money to go home.
The Temple did try to lure Denise back. But given Jim Jones propensity to overreact, he handled Denise’s defection with a bit more grace.
Denise: They did track me down. They did try to convince me to come back. At that time I was, I had presented divorce papers to my ex husband. He was studying medicine in Guadalajara, Mexico. Him and Larry Schacht were together there, and I had not heard from him for months, and suddenly he shows up, and he's like well, we need to go back, we, you know, let's go back, let's go back. And here come to find out he had been suffering with like hepatitis. When I had left the Church, they had said to him don't contact her, you know, she'll, she'll be back, but don't, don't contact her, just leave her alone. Well then when he did come back for break or whatever, they encouraged him to come see me, but I had already been living on my own for about six months at that time. And he was like well, we need to go back, and I said to him, I said, no Steven, I can't go back to that. I said, I want a real life. I said I want to eventually have a family, and I want to have a home, and I want to have stability in my life. I don't want to go back and give my whole paycheck to the Church and then end up with nothing every day. I don't want that anymore, I just don't. I’m very materialistic, I can never be a socialist like that. I want to have a life. It wasn't too long after that that everything got finalized in our divorce and that was the end of it. I think primarily the reason why no one ever forced me or tried to coerce me into coming back, at that point, I was not a trusted person to be part of the inner circle. My status was one of being, like watched, so I didn't have like a whole lot of insider, what they might have considered, damaging insider information. But I think that I was, my relationship with Marceline, and my family's relationship, and my relationship that I had had with Jim, from prior years, played in my favor. They knew I wasn't going to say anything and that's what I did. I just basically went away and tried to live a very anonymous life.
When Denise left the Temple, she was determined to reinvent herself. She was 24 years old. The Temple had been a part of her life since she was a baby, every milestone or significant memory had some connection to her Temple family. Even though they hadn’t spoken much in the last few years, she missed Loretta Cordell, and those big meals after Sunday service. When Denise first left, life without Peoples Temple was unbearably lonely. Denise was determined to experience life as if the Temple had never existed. She never spoke about it with new friends or her parents. By removing herself from the Temple’s story she established anonymity for her future.
Denise: I won't tell people, I don't tell people that I, that I had this background. I've declined interviews with New West magazine beginning around `78. I declined interviews, and there have been other people over the years that have tried to contact me, and I just have basically said no. I just don't want to talk about it, because I just don't want, I didn't want focus in on me. I was living a perfectly content, happy life, and finally it took me over 20 years to get my bearings on things, and stopped having nightmares about the Church, and stopped having guilt feelings, and thinking that the 16th of every month the world might end in nuclear war.
Announcer: This is a channel 7 News Team Special Report with our continuing coverage of the Peoples Temple story and the murder of Congressman Leo Ryan.
Van Amburg: I also have to warn you as we begin this special report that what you're about to see almost defies description, and some of you may not want to watch it. As soon as these pictures from Jonestown cleared our newsroom everybody, even a lot of hardened news people, reacted in horror and disbelief. These are the first pictures out of Guyana on the incredible orgy of death that took place in the Peoples Temple Agricultural...
Five year later, Denise was watching the evening news with her husband on November 18, 1978.
Denise: I was at home with my husband, and my baby was a year old at that time. I remember seeing the news and being in total shock and having not disclosed my past to my husband, having to explain everything to him when the FBI called the house and wanted to investigate me. Of course, I went through great despair because I didn't know at that time that some of my closest friends had already defected prior to Guyana, because I had been, when I left, I basically broke off ties with everybody and everything. I just completely left and I kept an extremely low profile, I remained anonymous to everybody. And no one would have ever known that I had ever had an affiliation with Peoples Temple, if it hadn't been for the fact that the FBI came calling.
Every news story about Jonestown that flashed across the screen broke Denise’s heart. As the shocking details unfolded, she realized that Jones had become a tyrant in Jonestown and the violence she witnessed during her time in the Temple, was merely a pre show. Denise watched numbly, as faces she remembered from childhood filled the pages of Newsweek, now distorted by decay. Jim Jones had broken the golden rule and because of his ego, almost everyone she used to know was dead.
Denise: Well when I listened to the tapes I realized that there was an awful lot of people that probably didn't want to die. There were probably also a lot of people that really believed that they were doing something for the revolutionary cause. But the reality of the whole thing is that there were probably an awful lot of people that had already become disillusioned, but did not have a way out. That's what I truly believe, I believe that they didn't have a way out, and that because the children were killed first, or died first... You know, if I had to watch my child die, you might as well go ahead and kill me. Just go ahead and shoot me with whatever you got, or I'll drink whatever Kool-Aid you got, because I don't want to live anymore if I have to watch my child die such a horrible death. But I do think that there are some people that really, to the very end, believed that they were doing this for their socialist cause. It took me, I'm going to say, at least 20 years before I felt that I was not terrified of somebody finding out about me, and discovering my life, and tearing my life apart. And that may sound crazy, but even though I, even though I left on kind of like a, I didn't leave on a good note, but it wasn't really horrible. There was no big fanfare or anything. But, I do know that like, there had been other people that had tried to leave, and Jim had made such a threatening tone in his sermons about it, that I had a lot of fear. I had a lot of fear. I had nightmares about the idea that maybe I had made the wrong choices. For many, many years I thought, did I do the wrong, have I set myself up for some horrible karma? Listening to the tapes that you had, I realized that he continued to talk about the people that had defected and left him, and how, or you know, they had to live a nightmare every day and, you know what, he's probably right to a certain extent; even now, occasionally, I have a nightmare.
Q323 Jones: They have dreams almost nightly. (Pause) They have dreams almost nightly, to the last person, and they have guilt, tremendous guilt...
Denise: I left before they went over to Guyana, and lucky for me. Because sadly, I probably would have been one of the ones that would drink the Kool Aid. Probably a good thing I left when I did. My whole life had been built around the Church, and around the friends that I had made there, and when I left of course, it meant I went into nothing.
Denise spent her youth devoted to a cause and a community that made her feel like a part of something larger than herself. Realizing the dream had been an illusion, shook the foundations of her ideals, and made her question her own perceptions of reality.
Denise: If he had continued being the way that he was when he was in Indianapolis, I think that people would have stayed with him. I think that they would have more than willingly done what needed to be done, because especially at that time, if you think back about around the 60s, the 70s, that timeframe, people were looking for leadership, they were looking for something to have a cause in. And I think that a lot of people, that's what attracted them, a lot of people initially. But then, when they got in there, you started seeing that there was an undercurrent that was becoming more and more violent. I think some people, later on, may have been attracted because of that message. But I know that for myself, that's when I started saying no, this isn't, there's something going on here that I'm not happy with. I'm no longer a part of something that I feel is going to be the betterment of my fellow man. I'm involved in something that I'm not sure of any more. That I see is becoming anti everything just about, and fear, everything was driven by fear: they're out to get us. That was a big theme on everything; they're out to get us. And sadly I think the world is, the message that he may have been able to deliver in the beginning, is certainly not the message he delivered in the end. For his 15 minutes of fame, and yeah it's a shame. It's really, truly a shame.
Many years after the tragedy, Denise wrote about What happened in Jonestown, asking herself the question: What do I believe the world will remember about Jim Jones and Peoples Temple. She wrote:
I believe the phrase, “drink the Kool-Aid” speaks volumes. The tragedy of Jonestown will not be revered as one of revolutionary death or sacrifice for a cause, but rather a nightmare born out of one man’s paranoia and control. The original teachings that inspired so many wonderful people to live a life of giving and sacrifice, to exemplify God through good works and service to their fellow man, has been diminished by the tragedy of Jonestown. The days of soup kitchens for the hungry, the adoption of a rainbow family in a culture of bigotry, the fight against social injustice and racial inequality have been dimmed by the garish color images of Jonestown’s final days. These facts have become a burden of frustration and sadness for those who once believed in Jim Jones and Peoples Temple, those who gave their everything in an effort to fulfill the original dream but survived only to have the good works forgotten and replaced with the legacy of insanity. Perhaps as it searches to understand the complexity, corruption, and ultimately the demise of what could have been, the world will come to understand the inspiration that stirred so many to give their soul and everything they possessed to obtain the dream.
The Attention Span Recovery Project would like to thank Denise for having the courage to share her story for the first time. We would also like to thank David Wise, Thomas Beikman, and Mike Wood. This project would not be possible without the Jonestown Institute and listeners like you. No cause is ever worth compromising your safety or the safety of others. Listen to your instincts when you detect warning signs. Never dismiss the feeling that you're being exploited or abused. Your body's defense systems are designed to protect you from the fire so that you don't get burned. As late Associate Pastor Archie Ijames used to say, “if there's a fire you're trying to douse, you can't put it out from inside of the house.”
End transmission