{"id":132095,"date":"2025-09-29T13:58:23","date_gmt":"2025-09-29T20:58:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=132095"},"modified":"2026-03-03T15:50:26","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T23:50:26","slug":"obituaries-2025","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=132095","title":{"rendered":"Obituaries 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following people with connections to Peoples Temple have died since October 2024.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Guy Young, 2009<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Guy Young<\/strong>\u00a0was a former member of Peoples Temple who was in San Francisco in November 1978. His wife and numerous stepchildren died in Jonestown. He\u00a0died<\/a>\u00a0on August 16, 2025. Bonnie Yates\u2019 2024 profile of Guy appears\u00a0here<\/a>. A shorter remembrance appears\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Belva Davis<\/strong>, the first Black woman to work as a TV reporter and anchor in the Bay Area \u2013 and whose interviews with Jim Jones in the mid-1970s led to a mutual, if only professional, respect \u2013 died<\/a> on September 24, 2025. She described her earliest encounters with Peoples Temple in her book, Never in My Wildest Dreams<\/em>, excerpted here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Rev. Dr. J. Alfred Smith<\/strong>, whose ministry at Allen Temple Baptist Church in Oakland helped influence the moral and spiritual fabric of the city \u2013 and who both respected and challenged Jim Jones\u2019 appropriation of the Black church \u2013 died<\/a> on September 19, 2025. His essay on Peoples Temple, \u201cBreaking the Silence,\u201d appears in the book, Peoples Temple and Black Religion in America<\/em><\/a> (\u00a0University of Indiana Press, 2004).<\/p>\n

Deaths noted from previous years<\/strong><\/p>\n

Joe Sam.<\/strong>, an artist whose works included illustrations for\u00a0The Need for a Second Look at Jonestown<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1989) and\u00a0Paradise Undone: A Novel of Jonestown<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(Inkspot Publishing, 2023), died<\/a> on June 1, 2024. A remembrance by Rebecca Moore is\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following people with connections to Peoples Temple have died since October 2024. Guy Young\u00a0was a former member of Peoples Temple who was in San Francisco in November 1978. His wife and numerous stepchildren died in Jonestown. He\u00a0died\u00a0on August 16, 2025. Bonnie Yates\u2019 2024 profile of Guy appears\u00a0here. A shorter remembrance appears\u00a0here. Belva Davis, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":132189,"menu_order":50,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-132095","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/132095","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=132095"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/132095\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":135368,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/132095\/revisions\/135368"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/132189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=132095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}