The Seniors of Peoples Temple

Capitalism, Ageism, and The Draw of a Communal-Socialist Movement for Older Americans

[Editor’s Note: Ellie Stuccio wrote this paper for Prof. Alexandra Prince’s class on Peoples Temple and Jonestown at Skidmore College in the Spring of 2025.]

Introduction

One of Peoples Temple’s first and longest enduring social initiatives were their nursing and care homes. In 1955, Jim and Marceline Jones saved an older member, Betsy Cooper from an abusive nursing home in Indianapolis, and she moved into their home to become the first resident of their first nursing home.^[1] From the start Peoples Temple was intertwined with the lives, needs, and financial contributions of seniors. And the important presence of seniors followed the group through their move from the U.S. to Guyana, where seniors made up a substantial portion of the demographic with around 20% of residents over the age of 61.^[2] Despite their high numbers, their experience and role in the movement largely falls to the wayside in both academic and wider discussions. Why were so many older Americans drawn to Peoples Temple and moved to leave behind their home country? What was life like in Jonestown for elderly members? By understanding what drew senior citizens to join Peoples Temple and what their lives were like in Jonestown, we can better understand the unique appeal of a communal movement like the Temple and how, at their best, Peoples Temple put their socialist values into action.

Demographics

Of the over 900 Temple members who lost their lives in the mass death event on November 18, 1978, 186 were senior citizens, aged 61 and older.^[3] A small number of survivors also fell into the older age demographic. Of the eldest Temple members a large portion were identified as “Single Seniors” with no family members living in Jonestown with them.^[4]Of this group 95% were Black, 93% were women, and 69% were from the American South.^[5] The majority were widowed or divorced with a smaller percentage never married.^[6] Many of these seniors were engaged in a life care agreement with the Temple, giving tens of thousands of dollars in exchange for guaranteed housing, general care, and other services.^[7] Members without these financial resources either passed on their social security payments or simply enjoyed the socialist welfare benefits of the Temple’s senior care systems built from the network of life care agreements, donations, and member tithes.^[8] These life care agreements and care systems will be discussed in more detail later in the paper.

Aging in Capitalist America

To better understand why so many older people were drawn to Peoples Temple, one must first understand the experience of aging in America and the U.S.’s treatment of its older citizens, especially women and people of color. As a capitalist society, the value of American individuals is placed on their ability to work and contribute to the economic system. And when one reaches an age where they are no longer able to operate in the traditional workforce, their value to society plummets.^[9] This is one of the driving undercurrents of ageism in the U.S and other capitalist nations. Additionally, the very real decline of the aging body is combined with the image and stereotyping of the elderly as weak and sick, a concept popularized in the early 20th century, in order to push older individuals out of the workforce and reshape them into marginal dependents.^[10] These intertwined forces make it difficult for older Americans to paradoxically both participate in the workforce or survive outside of it. On the other end of the spectrum are the pressures of the theories of successful and active aging, originating in the 1960s and gaining popularity in the following decades. The concept of successful aging is defined as “high physical, psychological, and social functioning in old age without major diseases.”^[11] This theory, originally intended to encourage the success and health of aging populations, overemphasizes individual responsibility, self-reliance, and capitalist-driven ideas of productivity.^[12] By orienting the ideal of aging well around physical health and the ability to contribute to society through work or consumerism, this concept devalues community, interdependence, and disability while largely ignoring the life long effects of racism, misogyny, trauma, and poverty on an individual’s situation.^[13]

Older Americans living in the 1950’s, 60’s, and 70’s were subject to the underlying and sometimes contradicting pressure to be productive through economic labor or successful aging while simultaneously worked upon by the stereotypes of the elderly as sick and weak and unable to contribute to American society. Combined with the intersecting forces of racism, sexism, and poverty, ageism facilitated feelings of loneliness, a lack of support systems, and poor physical health for many Black Americans during the years of Peoples Temple’s existence and beyond.^[14] An article titled “The Aged Black in America —The Forgotten Person” written in 1975 describes the many factors that contribute to the poorer housing, education, health, and economic statuses of older Black Americans of the time: “… a member of the 65 and over age bracket, the newest minority group, his life is one of struggles for economic survival, limited social status, with a tendency toward a feeling of social uselessness-thus becoming a forgotten person.”^[15]

Additionally the options for good holistic support for older Black Americans, especially women were low. For example many of the older single Black women who joined Peoples Temple took part in the great migration, moving North with their husbands and often ending up with little familial or economic support following their husband’s passing.^[16]Traditional nursing homes were, and continue to be, expensive, isolating, and often rampant with discrimination, abuse, and neglect.^[17] Many Black Americans, due to more limited education, racism, and misogyny, were prevented from holding well paying, secure jobs that come with access to pensions and other retirement benefits. Therefore many Black Americans, at least the ones who qualified, were often forced to rely more heavily on social security benefits in the older years. But discrimination continued within the welfare systems with Black seniors in 1983 receiving 75 to 85 percent of the amount received by similarly situated white recipients.^[18] Along with this inequity, recipients of social security also had to cope with the capitalist-driven welfare stigma that looked down upon the members of society who did not economically contribute.^[19]

 The Draw of Peoples Temple

 In key ways, Peoples Temple stood in welcome contrast to America’s lackluster treatment of its oldest citizens and instead offered resources and support systems that could address the largely unmet social and resource needs of older Americans. Care for senior citizens was integrated into the Peoples Temple mission from the start. In both Indiana and California that Temple operated nursing homes and less formal communal care homes that offered high quality care and community.  Many members who joined the Temple as seniors did so through life care agreements where they gave $30,000 to $40,000 in exchange for the promise they would be taken care of for life.^[20] As part of this agreement, elder members were given housing, food, medical care, and access to the more niche services of the Temple. For example, Temple social workers regularly assisted members in their dealing with the complicated welfare bureaucracy.^[21] These life care agreements and the collected social security payments, among other lanes of income, also made these services accessible to the more economically disadvantaged members, offering good quality care for the older American willing to commit to the Temple and its mission: “In doing so, the Temple was offering something unique: a readily available welfare service, free of charge, in an environment which did not harbour the popular welfare stigma.”^[22]

These life care agreements and the contribution of social security payments are often cited by critics of Peoples Temple as proof Jim Jones and the Temple manipulated and took advantage of vulnerable seniors. And while with the limited information available on the reality of the broad spectrum of senior experiences, this cannot, and should not, be altogether denied, a 1979 report by the U.S. Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare reported “no basis has been found for concluding that the Peoples Temple stole or fraudulently used social security benefits received by its members.”^[23] A separate set of legal cases found the life care agreements to be legitimate.

Joining the Temple as a senior citizen also offered something beyond services and resources. It offered a community of like minded folks who valued you in your old age and actively worked, with varying success, to create a society apart from the racism that plagued America. Many of the older members of Peoples Temple describe the racism and oppression they experienced and witnessed living in 19th and 20th century America in the oral histories collected in the book “Stories From Jonestown.”^[24] The descriptions of their early lives contextualize and emphasize the appeal of Peoples Temple as a united interracial movement working against racism and capitalism. One member, Henry Mercer born in either 1885 or 1902 in Georgia, chronicles his childhood and early adult life, decades spent plagued by racist threats and unlivable wages.^[25] Peoples Temple and Jonestown offered an escape from racist America. Henry Mercer reaffirms the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project as superior to his home country: “I’ll never go back to the U.S. again. Jonestown is the onliest place you can relax, it’s the onliest place you can be safe, and I love it out here.^[26]

The Peoples Temple and the Jonestown community valued its senior population. The socialist values of the movement created a system that respected and appreciated the youngest and oldest of their movement. This underlying principle is so ingrained it even appears in a lively debate held by junior high aged Peoples Temple members on the merits of socialism v. capitalism. One child states: “In socialism, it is better than capitalism, ‘cause we think about the children and the seniors…”^[27]  In many ways the elderly members were the backbones of the community. One couple Luvenia and David Betts Jackson, affectionately known as Mom and Pop Jackson in Jonestown, were beloved members of the community, serving in informal maternal and paternal roles. Precisely because they were valued in the larger movement and Jonestown group, older members found true community as part of the Temple. In contrast to American individualism and the epidemic of loneliness among older individuals in the U.S., senior Temple members were able to work, play, and rest with people of all ages, instead of alone or only among other elderly. As member Edith Roller puts it: “[Peoples Temple] believe[s] in all ages living together.”^[28] This was an especially influential draw among the single seniors, many of whom were widowed, divorced, or divorced, who had little biological family in their lives. Peoples Temple and Jonestown offered a true, supportive community away from the rampant and unapologetic racism of America. Pop Jackson puts it well: “Now, when it comes to Jonestown, I’m telling you it’s the best place that ever was. I want Jonestown to be cared for because it cared for me… I been fooling around the United States for a hundred years and it didn’t do a thing for me.”^[29]

Life in Jonestown

Many elder Peoples Temple members left behind their home country of many decades and in exchange found a new lifestyle and a community of friends, family, and caretakers in Jonestown. Many of the accounts of seniors and younger members emphasize the positive experiences of the eldest members. Dick Tropp describes the revived energy and purpose many found upon arrival in the jungle community: “We just cannot get the old folks here to “retire.” The place turns them on, makes them forget they’re old. 250 senior citizens, mostly black, mostly ghetto dwellers are here finding a place of peace and beauty, a new lease on life.”^[30] The U.S. pushes a contradictory message of the elderly as sick and weak while offering little support for their needs. Under the strong sun with free medical and educational resources combined with a strong community of support, elders, largely Black women were able to work, likely for the first time in their life, for themselves and their community in a reciprocal system, instead of a capitalist system that takes and takes but offers little in return. Seniors worked a range of jobs from rice sorter to teacher to medical staff, contributing in small and big ways to the successful operation of the project.^[31] Many seniors also made crafts that were sold to finance the project.

Seniors were also able to finally experience their well-deserved rest in Guyana and were not required to work if they did not desire to do so. There were other ways to fill their time, for example adult education classes were available and older members who never had access to the proper education were finally given the opportunity to achieve literacy. Tim Carter describes this important work: “One of the very first things we did with the school was give lessons to any of the seniors who wanted to learn to read or write. What some of these people saw and what they lived through, their stories are just amazing.” The prioritization of senior’s educational needs and the value placed on their stories, further demonstrates the esteem the movement held for its eldest members and the life experience. Eugene Smith sums up the life many older Americans found in Peoples Temple and Jonestown in his description of his mother, Mattie Gibson’s, experience in the Temple: “ Mom lived in one of the senior citizen housing units in the Temple and she had friends, she had running partners, so to speak,” he smiles. “And for the first time, she was really, really happy.”^[32]

Not everyone found Jonestown up to their expectations, and this is true among the large senior population. In a group of almost 200 it’s expected for there to be a large breadth of experiences and opinions, especially with the transition to a vastly different climate and way of living. With the vast majority of seniors and their stories lost on November 18, 1978, this spectrum of senior experiences can never be truly known, but the book “Onliest One Alive” written by senior survivor Hyacinth Thrash offers some insight into the possible negative experiences of senior members. Hyacinth Thrash was a longtime member of the Temple who moved to Jonestown in July of 1977. Her experiences in Jonestown appeared to have solidified the ongoing discontent she was experiencing within the movement and towards Jim Jones. She generally found the food, housing, physical accessibility, and general lifestyle dissatisfactory. She describes the shoddy leaky structures she and other seniors were housed in temporarily upon arrival: “We were just sick and disgusted!”^[33]Her writing suggests she preferred life in the U.S compared to Jonestown in the last year and a half of its existence. In describing the hard work members had to perform in the fields she makes this clear: “I felt so sorry for them. They went from nice homes in the States to working in the hot sun in jeans!”^[34] It’s also worthy to note in discussions of the negative experiences in Jonestown, the numerous difficulties facing the project and the ongoing work to create the ideal communal society, especially the largely unsupportable population jump the project experienced in late 1977.

Conclusion

The community and system of support offered by Peoples Temple appears especially appealing in the context of America’s treatment of its senior population. Growing old in America often brings with it loneliness, ageist stereotypes, a lack of affordable care options, and the general dismissal from productive society. Peoples Temple and Jonestown through their robust welfare system and its interracial and multi-generational community offered seniors the possibility of escaping the experience of aging in a capitalist and racist nation. Not all found life in Jonestown satisfactory, but many reported a revived sense of purpose, joy, and care among the communal socialist movement. Tragically the full vision of Jonestown was never reached and the seniors were never able to live out their natural lives in their largely beloved community. 71 year old Rosa Keaton who lost her life in the White Night described the peace she found among the nature of Jonestown: “​​I never tire of watching the clouds, the sun rise and sunset, the rains, the gardens, the fields, the flowers, the animals, birds and the beautiful community of Jonestown. I love it here and I hope to be here a long time.”^[35]

Bibliography

Notes

^[1] John R. Hall, Gone From the Promised Land: Jonestown in American Cultural History, (Transaction, Inc, 1987): 46.

^[2] Rebecca Moore, “An Updated on the Demographics of Jonestown,” Alternative Considerations of Jonestown & Peoples Temple, December 26, 2022, https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=70495.

^[3] Moore.

^[4] Sarah Rex, “The Single Seniors of Jonestown,” Alternative Considerations of Jonestown & Peoples Temple, October 27, 2023, https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=124610.

^[5] Rex.

^[6] Rex.

^[7] John R. Hall, Gone From the Promised Land, 91-92.

^[8]  Rex.

^[9] Thomas R. Cole, “The ‘Enlightened’ View of Aging: Victorian Morality in a New Key” The Hastings Center Report 13, no. 3, 1983: 37-38.

^[10] Cole.

^[11] Robert L. Rubenstein and Kate de Medeiros, ““Successful Aging,” Gerontological Theory and Neoliberalism: A Qualitative Critique, The Gerontologist 55, no. 1 (2015).

^[12] Israel Doron, “Re-Thinking Old Age: Time For Ageivism,” Human Rights Defender 27, no. 1 (2018): 34.

^[13] Rubenstein and de Medeiros.

^[14] Ira F. Ehrlich, “The Aged Black in America: The Forgotten Person,” The Journal of Negro Education 44, no. 1 (1975): 1-5.

^[15] Ehrlich, 12.

^[16] Rex.

^[17] Edwin Nyamwaya Mogaka et al, “Elderly Abuse and Neglect in American Nursing Homes: A Systematic Review” AHSI 2, no. 1 (2020).

^[18] The Status of the Black Elderly in the United States, Washington, DC: National Caucus and Center on Black Aged, Inc, 1987: 10-11.

^[19] The Status of the Black Elderly in the United States.

^[20] Hall, Gone From the Promised Land, 91-92.

^[21] Hall, Gone From the Promised Land, 82.

^[22] Georgia Box, “Escaping American Individualism: Peoples Temple,” Alternative Considerations of Jonestown & Peoples Temple, July 5, 2021, https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=110708#Individualism.

^[23] John R. Hall, “Collective Welfare as Resource Mobilization in Peoples Temple: A Case Study of a Poor People’s Religious Social Movement,” Sociological Analysis vol. 49, 1988: 14.

^[24] Leigh Fondakowski, Stories From Jonestown, (University of Minnesota Press, 2013).

^[25] Fondakowski, 172-173.

^[26] Fondakowski, 173.

^[27] Q668 Transcript, The Jonestown Institute, late fall 1977, https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=27525.

^[28] Edith Roller Journals, November 28, 1977, https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=35690.

^[29] Box.

^[30]  Fondakowski, 200.

^[31] Rex.

^[32] Fondakowski, 237.

^[33] Catherine Hyacinth Thrash, The Onliest One Alive: Surviving Jonestown, Guyana, (Marian Kleinsasser Towne, 1995): 85

^[34] Thrash, 92.

^[35] Rosa Keaton, EE-1-K-53, Transcribed by Darren Kissi.