{"id":128060,"date":"2024-08-25T16:34:33","date_gmt":"2024-08-25T23:34:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=128060"},"modified":"2026-03-03T15:37:42","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T23:37:42","slug":"michigan-author-whose-sister-niece-died-in-jonestown-pens-harrowing-memoir","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=128060","title":{"rendered":"Michigan author whose sister, niece died in Jonestown pens harrowing memoir"},"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

\"\"<\/a>
Mary B. Wotherspoon with her daughter, Mary Margaret Wotherspoon, in 1971. They died in Jonestown, Guyana, on Nov. 18, 1978.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

GRAND RAPIDS, MI \u2014 When 918 lives ended in a mass suicide at Jonestown in the Guyanese jungle 45 years ago, Bay City native Shirlee A. Fields was not the lone Michigander among them.<\/p>\n

In all, eight people born in the Great Lakes State died in Guyana on Nov. 18, 1978, at the behest of the Rev. Jim Jones and his Peoples Temple.<\/p>\n

Among them also was 29-year-old Mary B. Wotherspoon, who perished along with her 8-year-old daughter Mary Margaret Wotherspoon and husband Peter A. Wotherspoon. Born in Grand Rapids in October 1949, she suffered the death of her father from cancer at age 4 and was raised in a strict Calvinist home.<\/p>\n

In the memoir \u201cJonestown: An American Family Tragedy,\u201d Michigan author H.J. Jones recounts how Wotherspoon, her younger sister, was searching for a greater purpose, fostering a deep yen to improve the world for its most oppressed and marginalized inhabitants.<\/p>\n

Galvanized by the turbulence of the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights Movement of the late 1960s, Wotherspoon moved from Michigan to California and joined Peoples Temple.<\/p>\n

The three-member Wotherspoon family entered Guyana in July 1977, just four days before Fields\u2019 family of four arrived. Neither family would ever return to the U.S. alive.<\/p>\n

In prose that\u2019s equal parts harrowing and heartbreaking, Jones \u2014 no relation to Jim Jones \u2014 describes how her sister was devoted to the group\u2019s community outreach. Yet when they arrived in Jonestown, Wotherspoon and her family were subjected to or witnessed abuse and mistreatment, her sister wrote.<\/p>\n

As with so many others, they were unable to escape the thrall of the group\u2019s increasingly unhinged leader-turned-tyrant, Jones wrote.<\/p>\n

With a confessional tone, Jones writes how her sister\u2019s death affected her and her family and the ensuing feeling of powerlessness. By the end, she writes with a philosophical assessment, urging compassion rather than rash judgments.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The 286-page book was published this fall by\u00a0Mission Point Press<\/a>\u00a0and is also available on\u00a0Amazon<\/a>\u00a0in both Kindle and paperback form. Jones spoke with MLive regarding the book, what she discovered in her research, and what she hopes the public learns from the tragedy that befell her sister and continues to reverberate through history.<\/p>\n

Question:<\/strong>\u00a0How did the idea of writing your book come about?<\/p>\n

Answer:\u00a0<\/strong>Thank you for asking. I got the idea after a friend – a published writer and teacher – suggested that I write something about my sister\u2019s death in Jonestown. Although by nature a writer myself, I had never considered writing a book about anything, much less such a painful event. However, my sister\u2019s story quickly grew into a book that covered generations, continents, and far more history than I ever anticipated.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong>\u00a0Once you began, how long did it take for you to complete it?<\/p>\n

A:<\/strong>\u00a0The book took over three years of almost daily research and writing. During prolonged isolation in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, I had the time. Then three years had somehow slipped by, almost unnoticed.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong>\u00a0Did you gain an understanding of what led so many people like your sister, Mary, and fellow Michigander Shirlee Fields to join Peoples Temple?<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0<\/strong>I cannot speak for others who died there, but aided by hindsight, I grew to better understand how someone like Jim Jones and Peoples Temple could have appealed to my sister. Mary had a heart for others and for important causes. Before Peoples Temple became infamous, it had focused on improving the surrounding community and serving marginalized populations. Mary would have fit right in. And after the early death of our father, I suspect Jim Jones may have served as father figure for her, too.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong>\u00a0What did you hope to learn about your sister, Peoples Temple, and Jonestown when beginning the process? Did you come away feeling you attained that goal, or something different?<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0<\/strong>When I started writing, I wanted to know more about all of it: my sister\u2019s life in the Temple, the church itself, and of course, life \u2013 and death \u2013 in Jonestown. I believe that I achieved these goals, plus I also learned about who my sister was outside of our family and home.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong>\u00a0How did your perspective of Peoples Temple change from when you started the book?<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0<\/strong>I gained far more sympathy and admiration for the talented, idealistic, and hard-working members of Peoples Temple.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong>\u00a0How does a loved one of someone who died at Jonestown make sense of what occurred there? Is there any sense to make?<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0<\/strong>There is no way to fully make sense of how a loved one could have died in Jonestown, but I would invite others to dig deeper into the tragedy, and can only hope that my book will help with that.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong>\u00a0What do you hope the public takes away from reading your book?<\/p>\n

A:<\/strong>\u00a0I invite readers to be curious about historical events such as Jonestown, to get the facts behind the headlines, and to consider how and why they came about. To dig deeper.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong>\u00a0What misconceptions regarding Peoples Temple members like your sister would you like corrected? Were there any misconceptions you had before beginning your research?<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0<\/strong>There are many misconceptions regarding Peoples Temple members like my sister, Mary. I hope that readers realize the basic humanity and goodness of those who died, and why they died. As well as what it was like for them to be led so far astray, to suffer so greatly for their misplaced trust. One of the most important misconceptions that I had at first was about the power Jim Jones held over his followers. I had mistakenly believed that my sister could have left Peoples Temple if she had wanted to. I thought she had more choices than she did. Than all of them did.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong>\u00a0Toward the end of your book, you mention being told by Jim Jones\u2019 son Stephan G. Jones that \u201cForgiveness is not a useful concept. Compassion is.\u201d How did this sentiment affect your perspective?<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0<\/strong>This profound insight helped me to understand and deal with my anger – anger at Jim Jones and anger at all of his enablers. But more than that, I thought of it as a way of life. How much better the world would be if we – all of us – exchanged our bitterness for understanding \u2013 for compassion? We can all be led astray in ways we may not even be aware of.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong>\u00a0Why is it important to continue sharing the stories of those who joined Peoples Temple and died at Jonestown? What can we as a culture still learn from the Jonestown tragedy?<\/p>\n

A:<\/strong>\u00a0It\u2019s important to continue sharing the stories of Peoples Temple. The saying that \u201chistory repeats itself\u201d still applies. Even today, demagogues with many followers appeal to humanity\u2019s worst instincts, threatening to derail our fragile democracy.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong>\u00a0How do you feel about or assess your sister\u2019s decision to join Peoples Temple and what ultimately befell her? Do you feel differently from when you initially learned of her death, or since you began writing her story?<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0<\/strong>After more than three years of research and writing, I now better understand how Jim Jones appealed to my sister, and equally important, how Peoples Temple provided crucial support for her at a vulnerable time in her life.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong>\u00a0What would you like the public to understand about your sister and the others who died at Jonestown?<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0<\/strong>I would like the public to understand that many, if not most, who were murdered in Jonestown were intelligent, idealistic people who wanted to prove to the world that there is a better way. A way of sharing our burdens and caring for one another just as Jesus once said, \u201cLove one another as I have loved you.\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.) GRAND RAPIDS, MI \u2014 When 918 lives ended in a mass suicide at Jonestown in the Guyanese jungle 45 years ago, Bay City native Shirlee A. Fields was not the lone Michigander among them. In all, eight people born in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":128015,"menu_order":7,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-128060","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/128060","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=128060"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/128060\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":135346,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/128060\/revisions\/135346"}],"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=128060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}