{"id":110782,"date":"2021-07-26T17:06:38","date_gmt":"2021-07-27T00:06:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=110782"},"modified":"2021-10-16T13:59:23","modified_gmt":"2021-10-16T20:59:23","slug":"george-donald-beck","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=110782","title":{"rendered":"George Donald Beck"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I\u2019d always known in the back of my mind that Don Beck\u2019s first name was George. It struck me with full force when I read his obituary. But both George and Don made up the person I knew for many years.<\/p>\n

Of course, Don was the person we first encountered in San Diego in 2000. Soft-spoken, gentle, kindly. It\u2019s easy to imagine Don as an elementary school teacher or as the director of the Peoples Temple children\u2019s choir. But he was also an avid researcher and a prolific writer. He created many of the most helpful resources on the Jonestown website.<\/p>\n

For example, Don took up the job of organizing the journals of Edith Roller<\/a>, the chronicler of daily life in Peoples Temple. The work that he and Michael Bellefountaine undertook to transcribe her typed entries \u2013 and more challenging, the handwritten ones \u2013 have been useful to scholars ever since they were first posted. In addition, Don\u2019s summaries of entries, his charting of her observations<\/a> \u2013 when she got up in Jonestown, what they ate there, the activities conducted there \u2013 offer a glimpse of the quotidian, apart from the sensationalism of the deaths.<\/p>\n

Don was also a dedicated defender of the people of Peoples Temple. All of his work served to humanize those who died in the community. For the better part of a decade, he was part of the volunteer team that sought to identify everyone who died in Jonestown. Most recently he worked on identifying members whose photographs appear on the Flickr gallery <\/a>\u00a0so that family members, as well as researchers, could find their relatives. He also color corrected and enhanced many of the photos.<\/p>\n

I often find myself using charts, tables, maps, and other resources that Don created, and thank him mentally every time I do. I wish I had thanked him more frequently when I had the chance.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>But then there was George. This was the curmudgeon who did not suffer fools gladly. If some young hapless student wrote to ask a question about \u201cJamestown,\u201d he would shoot off a blistering email along the lines of: \u201cJamestown?!? What\u2019s Jamestown? I don\u2019t know of any Jamestown! Do you mean Jonestown? Maybe you should get your facts straight.\u201d<\/p>\n

I myself received some grumpy emails from George. No matter how irritated he was, however, he would always sign off, \u201cPeace, Don.\u201d This would make me laugh. If I wasn\u2019t too annoyed at what he had written.<\/p>\n

I think the George side of Don was the result of poor health. He was in pain much, or most, of the time that I knew him. It\u2019s actually amazing that he wasn\u2019t cranky more often.<\/p>\n

For the most part, however, he was Don when we worked together on the Jonestown website, when we socialized informally, when we organized reunions of survivors, and when we just hung out. He was a frequent dinner guest, as were Neva Sly and Laura Kohl, at our house on Eugene Place in San Diego. All of us connected in deep and unforgettable ways.<\/p>\n

George Donald Beck. He was both. And even though George did make his periodic appearance, Don was never too far away.<\/p>\n

I love and miss you, Don. And I\u2019m glad that George is finally at peace.<\/p>\n

(Editor\u2019s note:<\/strong> Rebecca Moore\u00a0is Professor Emerita of Religious Studies at San Diego State University. She has written and published extensively on Peoples Temple and Jonestown. Rebecca is also the co-manager of this website.\u00a0Her other articles in this edition of\u00a0<\/em>the jonestown report\u00a0are\u00a0<\/em>Bringing Release, Finding Peace: Memories of Vernon Gosney<\/a><\/em>; <\/em>A Monumental Problem: Memorializing the Jonestown Dead<\/a><\/em>;\u00a0<\/em>InTOXICating Followership: A Review<\/a><\/em>; and Spreadsheet Offers Downloadable Demographic Tool for Researchers<\/a>. Her collection of articles on this site may be found\u00a0here<\/a>. She may be reached at\u00a0<\/em>remoore@sdsu.edu<\/em><\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019d always known in the back of my mind that Don Beck\u2019s first name was George. It struck me with full force when I read his obituary. But both George and Don made up the person I knew for many years. Of course, Don was the person we first encountered in San Diego in 2000. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"parent":108495,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-110782","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/110782","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=110782"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/110782\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":111648,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/110782\/revisions\/111648"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/108495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=110782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}