{"id":128018,"date":"2024-08-25T15:32:54","date_gmt":"2024-08-25T22:32:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=128018"},"modified":"2024-08-27T12:49:42","modified_gmt":"2024-08-27T19:49:42","slug":"shirlees-story-bay-city-woman-among-918-who-died-in-jonestown-massacre-45-years-ago","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=128018","title":{"rendered":"Shirlee\u2019s Story: Bay City woman among 918 who died in Jonestown Massacre 45 years ago"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Editor\u2019s note<\/strong>: This article is republished courtesy of MLive.com. The original article appears <\/em>here<\/em><\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n

(MLive.com editor\u2019s note<\/strong>: This is the first installment of a five-part series on the life of Bay City native Shirlee A. Fields (nee Miller), who was among 918 people who died in a mass murder-suicide in Jonestown and other Guyana locations on Nov. 18, 1978.)<\/em><\/p>\n

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Bay City native Shirlee A. Fields and her family, who died in Jonestown<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

BAY CITY, MI \u2014 Shirlee A. Miller was a daughter of Bay City. Raised in a Jewish family with her two sisters in the 1940s and \u201850s, she could often be found in her father\u2019s drugstore. Her teachers at Farragut Elementary School occasionally took advantage of this, tasking her with bringing them her father\u2019s wares.<\/p>\n

At 18, Shirlee bade farewell to her hometown for the west. Settling in California, she married a man in her father\u2019s profession and mothered two children.<\/p>\n

But malefic clouds were on the horizon for Shirlee and her family.<\/p>\n

Driven to eradicate poverty and injustice, Shirlee encountered a charismatic religious leader with like-minded ideals. Like Shirlee, he was a Midwesterner, born and raised in Indiana. From his pulpit, he condemned all manner of social ills \u2014 racism, sexism, and classism. At the same time, he uplifted his audience with hope for a better world, his flock reflecting the diversity he championed.<\/p>\n

With aviator sunglasses and coiffed raven-black hair, the fiery orator cast an imposing image, amassing thousands to his cause from across the nation.<\/p>\n

His name was the Rev. Jim Jones, his congregation the Peoples Temple. After joining the movement, Shirlee and her family followed Jones to the wilds of a South American rain forest in July 1977, arriving in a settlement amid the lush greenery \u2014 the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project, better known as Jonestown.<\/p>\n

Within a year of her arrival, Shirlee\u2019s hope for an egalitarian paradise devolved into a heart of darkness. She and her family would die there, along with hundreds of others in the Jonestown Massacre on Nov. 18, 1978, a mass murder-suicide led by Jones.<\/p>\n

Yet 45 years later, Shirlee\u2019s voice echoes from documents recovered in the aftermath. In a handwritten note to Jones, she advocates for mass suicide, saying she will gladly die for the group\u2019s cause. She suggests starvation as a method, stressing their act needed to draw heavy publicity and \u201cbe heard in all quarters of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another sees Shirlee outline her devotion to Jones. In one audio recording made months before her death, she tells Jones the community has discovered a plant that could prolong life.<\/p>\n

Hours after silence settled over the isolated compound on Nov. 18, 1978, Guyanese soldiers hacked their way through the foliage and uncovered a macabre scene \u2014 909 bodies scattered in piles, some with their arms eerily wrapped around those nearby. The dying had fallen in rows so close they were stacked in layers atop one another.<\/p>\n

All died from cyanide poisoning, aside from Jones himself and a nurse, who died from gunshot wounds. An additional four Temple members died in the Guyana capital of Georgetown, while five people, including a U.S. congressman, were shot to death by Temple members.<\/p>\n

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A clipping from a 1956 edition of The Bay City Times featuring a photo of Shirlee A. Miller during her freshman year at the University of Colorado. Bay City Times archives<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The day\u2019s death toll reached 918. Before the 9\/11 terrorist attacks of 2001, it marked the single greatest loss of American lives from a non-natural disaster.<\/p>\n

Who was Shirlee Miller?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Shirlee Ann Miller was born Dec. 15, 1937, to Harry V. and Jeanette Miller, who lived in the 100 block of North Grant Street in Bay City. She was the couple\u2019s second daughter, after the birth of Marilyn B. Miller in September 1933.<\/p>\n

Her parents\u2019 families emigrated from Russia, census records show.<\/p>\n

The 1940 U.S. Census states the Millers lived on North Jackson Street, with her father\u2019s occupation listed as druggist and her mother\u2019s as clerk. Harry Miller owned Miller\u2019s Drug Store, 905 Columbus Ave. The building still stands, with his first-born daughter\u2019s name etched in stone above its door.<\/p>\n

A decade later, the census shows the family back living on North Grant Street, now joined by a 9-year-old daughter, Dolores M. \u201cDee\u201d Miller.<\/p>\n

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Yearbook photo of Bay City native Shirlee A. Fields (nee Miller), who died in Jonestown (Cole Waterman)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The spelling of Shirlee\u2019s first name varies throughout her life. Her birth certificate and grave marker in Los Angeles have it as \u201cShirley,\u201d while two of her high school yearbooks go with \u201cShirlee.\u201d In documents recovered from Jonestown, Shirlee signed her name with the double E.<\/p>\n

Ruth Neitzel, 86, remembers Shirlee as a close childhood friend. Born the same year, they grew up and played together in their East Side neighborhood.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know she was popular and just good people,\u201d Neitzel said. \u201cShe was just an everyday normal, nice-looking girl.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neitzel recalls visiting Shirlee\u2019s father\u2019s drugstore.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can picture the inside of the store and everything,\u201d she said. \u201cKids were very close in those days.\u201d<\/p>\n

Colleen Turmell, 86, attended Farragut Elementary and Central High School with Shirlee. Though they weren\u2019t close friends, she too recalls often going to the store and attending a birthday party at Shirlee\u2019s house.<\/p>\n

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Bay County women remember childhood friend who died in Jonestown<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI know she was a nice person,\u201d Turmell said. \u201cShe was a quiet girl and never got into any trouble, as far as I know. Her family was nice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shirlee\u2019s name comes up often in Bay City Times archives from the 1940s and \u201850s. In the summer of 1949, an 11-year-old Shirlee and her older sister attended the YWCA\u2019s Camp Maqua on Loon Lake in Iosco County. She often attended parties hosted by her mother and was noted for her singing.<\/p>\n

Upon turning 13 in December 1950, she was the focus of her own gala at the Wenona Hotel, where the Delta College Planetarium now stands. The following August, the newspaper notes she had returned from a 10-day trip visiting a maternal aunt in Detroit.<\/p>\n

Shirlee attended Bay City Central High School, graduating in 1955. That fall, she began attending the University of Colorado. As a freshman, her classmates voted her a pinup girl in their magazine, \u201cColorado Engineer.\u201d When her parents visited her in Denver in the fall of 1956, they took in performances of Nat King Cole and Dorothy Collins, as noted by The Bay City Times.<\/p>\n

Shirlee later graduated from the Colorado Women\u2019s College-Denver, where she was affiliated with the Denver Club and Tri Chi.<\/p>\n

In July 1962, she was the maid of honor at her younger sister\u2019s wedding in Los Angeles. By then, their parents were living in Phoenix, Arizona, having closed their drugstore in August 1956.<\/p>\n

Shirlee, at 25, wedded Donald J. Fields on Aug. 11, 1963, at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in California. The Sept. 8, 1963, edition of The Bay City Times reported their union.<\/p>\n

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A Sept. 8, 1963, edition of The Bay City Times covering the wedding of Shirlee A. Miller to Donald J. Fields.Bay City Times archives<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Donald Fields, then 31, hailed from Buffalo, New York, had served in the U.S. Army and worked as a pharmacist. At various points, Shirlee worked as a pharmacist\u2019s assistant, hospital dietitian, medical secretary, and nutritionist.<\/p>\n

The couple had two children in California, Lori B. Fields on Dec. 6, 1965, and Mark E. Fields on March 22, 1967.<\/p>\n

Both of Shirlee\u2019s sisters are now deceased \u2014 Marilyn having died in Florida in 2021 and Dolores having died in California in 2013.<\/p>\n

After high school, Turmell lost contact with Shirlee. Neither she nor Neitzel knew of their friend\u2019s fate until this fall.<\/p>\n

Media at the time missed the local connection to Jonestown. Bay City Times archives indicate the paper did not report on Shirlee\u2019s death. Briefs in 1995, 2000, and 2005 even list her among Central High alumni being sought for class reunions.<\/p>\n

Fielding M. \u201cMac\u201d McGehee III, researcher and a leading authority on Jonestown, said this isn\u2019t surprising.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe listing of those known to have died didn\u2019t emerge for several weeks, and only with the assistance of surviving Temple members in the U.S.,\u201d said McGehee of the Washington state-based Jonestown Institute, a project of Special Collections of San Diego State University.<\/p>\n

McGehee and wife Rebecca Moore operate the institute\u2019s comprehensive website,\u00a0Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple<\/a>, a treasure trove of documents, first-hand accounts, investigative reports, and remembrances. Two of Moore\u2019s sisters joined Peoples Temple and died at Jonestown, as did her 3-year-old nephew, fathered by Jones.<\/p>\n

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Rebecca Moore and Fielding M. \u201cMac\u201d McGehee III. Photo provided by Fielding M. \u201cMac\u201d McGehee III<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cEven the earliest identifications \u2014 including my sisters-in-law \u2014 weren\u2019t known until late November\/early December, and we\u00a0knew<\/em>\u00a0they had been down there,\u201d McGehee said.<\/p>\n

Three decades after the massacre, McGehee in 2008 was the first person to\u00a0compile a list of all 918 people<\/a>\u00a0who died that day.<\/p>\n

Authorities identified Shirlee and her husband\u2019s body, initially designated as G-54 and G-55, by their fingerprints. The designations suggest the bodies weren\u2019t identified until late in the process, McGehee said.<\/p>\n

Learning her childhood friend died in the infamous massacre left Neitzel reeling.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am absolutely shocked she would get involved in something like that,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to believe. She came from very good family, a very strong family. How do you explain something like that? I still have a hard time thinking, \u2018How did that happen to her?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Shirlee\u2019s story is one of nearly a thousand McGehee has chronicled.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone has a different story of how they ended up (in Jonestown), especially as the population was as diverse as it was,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Through the wealth of sources McGehee and Moore have curated and made available on their website, one can get a picture of how the Fields family they spent their time in Jonestown.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were an important family,\u201d McGehee said. \u201c(Shirlee) does show up in a lot of different places.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Cole Waterman is a Michigan-based crime reporter with a long-held interest in Peoples Temple and Jonestown who has submitted numerous primary source transcripts from the FBI\u2019s FOIA files to the site beginning in the fall of 2023. He can be reached at\u00a0<\/em>Cole_Waterman@mlive.com<\/em><\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Editor\u2019s note: This article is republished courtesy of MLive.com. The original article appears here.) (MLive.com editor\u2019s note: This is the first installment of a five-part series on the life of Bay City native Shirlee A. Fields (nee Miller), who was among 918 people who died in a mass murder-suicide in Jonestown and other Guyana locations […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":128015,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-128018","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/128018","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=128018"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/128018\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":128084,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/128018\/revisions\/128084"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/128015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=128018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}