{"id":102909,"date":"2020-10-17T13:15:04","date_gmt":"2020-10-17T20:15:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=102909"},"modified":"2026-02-13T12:37:38","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T20:37:38","slug":"father-knows-best","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=102909","title":{"rendered":"Father Knows Best"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Jack Arnold Beam<\/strong> was a former member of Peoples Temple who left with his wife Cinthia in November of 1975, no longer wanting to be associated with Jim Jones who had turned into a despot. He wrote this poem 23 days after the Jonestown tragedy, on December 5, 1978. He recently unearthed it from among some papers that had been in a flood that hit Florida in 1993. He set the poem to music in October 2020: <\/p>\n<p><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-102909-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Father-Knows-Best.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Father-Knows-Best.mp3\">https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Father-Knows-Best.mp3<\/a><\/audio>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Father knows best, let him be your bright tomorrow<br \/>\nHe\u2019ll fill your heart with joy, and comfort you in sorrow<br \/>\nFather knows best, trust his gifts of knowledge and truth<br \/>\nYour brotherhood dreams will come true, if you do<br \/>\nFather\u2019s love will always take care of you<\/p>\n<p>When I heard the news today I cried, he must have gone insane<br \/>\nMade my family drink the poision and die, begging them not to complain<br \/>\nRyans life had been snuffed out, then father killed all his friends<br \/>\nOnly liquid purple hell..survived that day, in a bucket with a cold suringe<\/p>\n<p>Father knows best, let him be your bright tomorrow<br \/>\nHe\u2019ll fill your heart with joy, and comfort you in sorrow<br \/>\nFather knows best, trust his gifts of knowledge and truth<br \/>\nYour brotherhood dreams will come true, if you do<br \/>\nFather\u2019s love will always take care of you<\/p>\n<p>Fathers druged out mind, made him rant and rave all day<br \/>\nHis girlfriend shot him in the jungle sun, pulled the trigger he couldn\u2019t face<br \/>\nA power hungry ego, finally brought him down<br \/>\nWhile the murdered congregation laid lifeless on the ground<\/p>\n<p>Father knows best, let him be your bright tomorrow<br \/>\nHe\u2019ll fill your heart with joy, and comfort you in sorrow<br \/>\nFather knows best, trust his gifts of knowledge and truth<br \/>\nYour brotherhood dreams will come true, if you do<br \/>\nFather\u2019s love will always take care of you<\/p>\n<p>Valiant souls were slain that day, but the world found out the truth<br \/>\nWhen you put your trust in a tyrant, there\u2019s no limit to what he\u2019ll do<br \/>\nTold lies about the cruelty till the very end, his last act on earth was a cowards revenge<br \/>\nBetter pray that mankind learned this lesson, so it\u2019s never taught again<\/p>\n<p>Father knows best, let him be your bright tomorrow<br \/>\nHe\u2019ll fill your heart with joy, and comfort you in sorrow<br \/>\nFather knows best, trust his gifts of knowledge and truth<br \/>\nYour brotherhood dreams will come true, if you do<br \/>\nFather\u2019s love will always take care of you<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Written: 12\/5\/1978<br \/>\nMusic added: 10\/15\/2020<br \/>\nTragic Memories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jack Arnold Beam was a former member of Peoples Temple who left with his wife Cinthia in November of 1975, no longer wanting to be associated with Jim Jones who had turned into a despot. He wrote this poem 23 days after the Jonestown tragedy, on December 5, 1978. He recently unearthed it from among [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"parent":111220,"menu_order":42,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-102909","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/102909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=102909"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/102909\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":133696,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/102909\/revisions\/133696"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/111220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=102909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}