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Sharon Amos
Marilyn Pursley:
I think she’s primarily been very positive. Has helped around the house and cooked dinner here a couple of nights–one night she went out and got the groceries and did the whole thing. She has been understanding of the whole situation here-the political thing with Guyana struggling to be socialist-the only socialist country in South America. Got some papers and read about some of the conflicts but I explained to her that Guyana is struggling hard as the first so. American socialist country but it isn’t easy of course. Told her about Burnham nationalizing 85% of the industries and how the English did divide the races (as she had heard about it) but Burnham was trying to integrate his Cabinet etc.
She was emotional about paying for all 4 tickets to the Interior (air tickets). She would have paid for all 4 but Joan initially had her just pay for hers and Cynthias (Marilyn’s and Cynthias) because we had two tickets already (to exchange). I suggested Joan explain that we had a lot of medical needs, antibiotics etc, and get the money forthe other two by saying she Joan was going to cash in the tickets and get medicine and to explain that they were flying in specially with her and otherwise would have waited and taken the boat. But Marilyn got all emotional and said she didn’t like her Intelligence insulted and obviously she couldhave been asked before but didn’t like all this cock and bull story about the fact that Joan made a mistake and should have asked for the money for medicine, so we talked it all out with her and explained all about the medical needs and possible devaluation eventually, which will be a problem forus. She said she had planned to give a donation eventually anyway and money didn’t mean anything to her and she paid the other two tickets. She talked to Joan for a long time (they have somewhat of a personality conflict anyway–I think Marily is somewhat threatened by Joan’s independence and by the fact too that her children have committed themselves to a cause while she a “former communist’ just visits around here and there and doesn’t do that much. She got a lot out in the talk Joan and Diane said that she needed to get out anyway and I think now she might compensate by any guilt by making more of a donation (tho I don’t know). She said she had paid Cynthia’s way here (as if that was a big thing) –said Jim Randolph would have had the church pay it (?) but she paid Cynthia’s way.
I talked to her about hesse’s Journey To the East about a man who leaves a cause only to find out at the end that he left the one thing that would have been the end of a long search for truth–but along the way he had rationalized his leaving so he even convinced himself it was the right thing to do. She seems interested in such a discussion but I can’t imagine her being contented in one place–where you can’t do your own thing and come and go as you wish. Tho at one point she did make a comment that she might just stay in Jonestown and when she was taking Joan and Diane out she said once that she felt bad spending the moeny and would rather give it to the cause or have everyone go out and enjoy it. We invited her to eat dinner with a guest tonight but she said she’d rather not eat special and she had realized that she was getting eggs when others in the house weren’t and she didn’t want to be treated differently.
She definitely sees the US is getting worse and worse–has no illusions about that. She was surprised tho when I told her Diane Mertle was in infi ltrator from the begginning–tho she knew we had to have some infiltrator being a radical movement–but liked Diane more than Elmer–he she didn’t like at all. Ran into them right after they left the church but at that time they weren’t hostile but just said they’d like to come once in awhile to PT but not all the time but PT wouldn’t have them on those terms. Said Garry Lambreth [Lambrev] after he left
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wanted to get together and talk to her but she avoided it. She thought it was a shame Liz Forman left because Liz was always going to psychiatrists and having emotional problems and it was good for her to be in PT. Quite frequently Marily mentions a person that would do so well in Jonestown and is having trouble in the US and Marilyn wishes she could have them come–one was a young girl who has a socialist mother and when the girl got raped the father didn’t handle it sympathetically and blamed her somewhat for it and now the girls’ gotten into religion (probably because of guilt) and the girls mother is upset about it.
Also, she mentioned a very creative woman in Marin who she thinks would be so much better in Jonestown.
She is surprisingly young for 58 years–enjoys affection (I bug her a lot) and the rapport of the house (the house is pretty good in that way–some good communication and we try to have some light-hearted joking to keep each other’s spirits up).
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