FF-2-102A<\/p>\n
VIRGINIA DEAN TAYLOR<\/u> (Mom Dean)<\/p>\n
b. 1886<\/p>\n
\nWe can\u2019t let them hurt those little children and those women up there! When they turned the fence to get to me we started pouring that dynamite at their feet and everywhere\u2026<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
I was an unwanted child but I enjoyed a fairly good life. I went to\u2028good schools such as Frederick Douglas School in East Walnut Hill, Cincinnati, Ohio where I was born in 1886. I sang all kind of songs and tried to cover up everything that would break a little child\u2019s heart. I didn’t have the love\u2028of my mother and father. My mother didn\u2019t really want me and she didn’t allow\u2028my father to hardly pick me up or touch me and that I craved so much to be\u2028loved and picked up as other children were. I never had that blessing. But\u2028I made the best of it. I swung in an old rope swing outdoors and got jolly\u2028and rolled old hoops and old tires and made the best of my childhood. I was\u2028the only child. It\u2019s a cute little thing happened to me: I hooked a piece of\u2028chalk from school and I hid it on some of the rafters in the basement and I\u2028measured myself every day to see how fast I was growing up, so I could get out\u2028of that mess I was in. I lived 3 blocks from Howard Tafts Mansion His mansion was on Grandon Rd. Three blocks over where I lived was called the\u2028ghetto, you know. The rich people, Alice Longworth lived on one corner. I passed by Howard Taft\u2019s house every day going to school and you know he became President of the United States. But I\u2019m glad for that experience because I can understand people better this day. I can know people\u2019s problems and things. I can relate to people because I went through quite a bit of it.<\/p>\n
And when I was 17 I ran away with the show called “Holiday in Dixie”. I stayed with that show two years. At that time I had a pretty nice voice\u2028and I sang. And after I came out of the show business and had to be forced back home. I was 18 then and they couldn’t keep me. And I later married a man by\u2028the name of Harrison Taylor from Columbia, South Carolina. We had a fairly\u2028nice life for about 28 years and then he started drinkin’ and running around\u2028as most men do and then it got kinda dull. I promised him without a shadow\u2028of a doubt if he ever hit me \u2026 that would be him. And I meant that from the\u2028bottom of my heart. I kept my old trusty .45 where I knew it was at and I had\u2028been taught to shoot by shooting tomato cans and corn cans off of the fence.\u2028I was a pretty good shotsman.<\/p>\n
Finally Harrison worked with the Pittsburg Coal Company. The Company needed an airway drilled and cut through for the miners in Kentucky and they\u2028moved him down there and I moved with him. And I had took training as a nurse\u2028and I was signed up with a nursing group. And I went from door to door on a\u2028mule there was no such thing as a car in Pike Co. Kentucky where they tell me\u2028now the roads are fixed. In those days you had to ride through the creeks up the mountains and all over the hills on a mule was the only way you could\u2028get there. And I\u2019d hang my bag on the saddle and away I\u2019d go five miles back\u2028in the woods to help the doctor deliver a baby and whatever happened. My husband had sent back to Pennsylvania and got 15 black men to come and help load coal because they were short on coal loaders.<\/p>\n
But one night the whites of that community decided that the black people\u2028were getting all the money. We heard an expression one day, “We\u2019re gonna run\u2028all the niggers out of town tonight.” And right back my house on the top of\u2028the hill was the Company Powder House. I only had the .45 and I had those ten\u2028men as boarders and there was a German among them named Mike. He and my husband\u2028kind of buddied together. He was a good fellow. He said, “I\u2019ll tell you\u2028what we\u2019ll do, Taylor, we\u2019ll go up here and break in the powder house and get\u2028the dynamite out. We don’t have a lot of bullets and we don’t have a lot of ammunition, we\u2019ll get some.\u201d So he and my husband broke in the powder house\u2028and brought down 3 cases of dynamite what they call Moneybelle and the fuse\u2028that went with it. So I had a little girl there about 17 who was my little\u2028dishwasher and my little helper and I sat down there on the floor and taught her how to cut that fuse in two small pieces four to five inches long and stick it into that dynamite, and cut that dynamite half in two and pack it in the boxes. I gave my husband and this man mike 2 boxes to take up on the\u2028hill. These men were shooting into all the black people\u2019s houses and as they came up the road\u2028four or five miles down the road, we could hear them shooting as they came. When they got to the turn of our road my husband and Mike set off\u2028this dynamite on the hill and it was just rainin’ rocks! One right after another \u2013 BOOM, BOOM BOOM!\u2028 It sounded like cannons going off. There was about ten families above my house and a lot of little children and I says to this girl: \u201cWe can\u2019t let them hurt those little children and those women up there.\u201d When they turned the fence to get to me, we started pouring that dynamite at their feet and everywhere. As I looked over to the road, I saw this man coming this way by hisself and I figured he was going to try and overpower us or do something and I shot the 45. Later the next morning I learned that\u2028I had shot through the Superintendent\u2019s hat, that, to my great surprise. He called<\/p>\n
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FF-2-102B<\/p>\n
hisself trying to make peace with the men, how was I to know that? I had\u2028already shot him right through that felt hat he had on. This happened about\u20281920 and I was about 33 years old. So we just poured that dynamite every\u2028which way and they broke and ran back. I had saved those 10 families that\u2028lived above me. They had shot those others that lived there on the road,\u2028shot through their houses and their men had run to the mountains and the women were in the clothes cupboards and children ran under the beds and everywhere to keep from being shot. The next morning my husband went down to\u2028the Company Store to see how they felt about what happened. He heard Old Man\u2028Belcher what lives in Pike Co. Kentucky been there for years living only 18 miles from the county seat and had never been to town. And with his country\u2028hillbilly twang he says, \u201cI\u2019ll just tell you there ought to be something\u2028done to those niggers up on Red Row, they run my son last night till his tongue\u2028was hanging out!\u201d Of course we got a kick out of that. My husband immediately went to Jenkins, that\u2019s a company town, and bought a little box car and we\u2028loaded it that morning with all our belongings and put a padlock on it and\u2028got the 9:45 train on out to West Virginia. They tell me that the judge said\u2028if he ever got his hands on me he was going to make an example out of me.\u2028But I certainly blew that town up that night. .<\/p>\n
We lived comfortably there in Coalwood, W. Virginia, right out of Welch\u2028and not too far from BlueField. One day my husband had an abscessed tooth\u2028and the doctor told me to take him to Welch to have the tooth pulled. I was\u2028driving an open Chevrolet, you have to get out and put the curtains up when it\u2028rains. I took him over to get his tooth pulled and the Dr. lanced it and\u2028pulled it and we headed back home. Now while I was gone the driver of the\u2028Company Store Truck had come and picked up $35.00 worth of empty pop cases.\u2028I had this store called the “Elks Cozy Corner”. I served sandwiches and homemade pies and cakes and candy and chewing gum and things like that in the store I sold. He had picked up those cases and took them back to the store. When I drove down to get my credit for them he said I was a damn nigger liar,\u2028that he didn\u2019t pick them up. But the Polish lady next door had seen him pick\u2028them up. I told the manager of the store whose name was Mr. Green the best\u2028way we can prove this out is I just had a little party at my store and I had\u2028some bills struck (handbills) that said Elks Cozy Corner on them. Some of the\u2028girls that were serving at that party swept that dirt in those empty cases.\u2028Go look in those cases and you\u2019ll find some of those bills and he looked in his\u2028storeroom and sure enough he found those bills and he counted them right on\u2028down. He said, “Don”, that boy\u2019s name was Don.” Don, I don\u2019t know why you\u2019d lie\u2028like that”. Here\u2019s Mrs. Taylor\u2019s bills in there showing that she did have those\u2028cases. So he gave me the credit and I bought up the 35 dollars worth in candy and chewing gum and Pop for my store. Now this boy had called me a damn nigger liar?<\/p>\n
Well I went back to my store and I had a gate that I let down to keep\u2028people from coming back behind the counter. I let the gate down and was standing there casually drinking a bottle of NEHI pop. It was one of them thick\u2028fancy bottles they made then. So Mr. Green had told this boy Don that whenever he picked anything up he was to give me a ticket and keep one hisself,\u2028saying what he left and what he picked up. And when he finished writing the\u2028slip this day he says, \u201cHere nigger, tell the boss that!” and when he said\u2028that he hit me with his fist up under my chin. And I popped him on up the side\u2028of his head with that NEHI bottle and the bottle broke and I kept the neck of\u2028the bottle in my hand and I cut him all in the top of his head with the neck\u2028of that bottle. Of course being in West Virginia something had stirred then!\u2028Everybody wanted to find me.<\/p>\n
Now my husband was an Elk and the Elks took me and my baby and put us\u2028in a laundry truck right up against the cab with big bundles of laundry tied up\u2028with sheets all up around me and left me room enough I could get air, I had\u2028adopted this baby right after I had just lost my own newborn baby at childbirth. I took this baby and even nursed her from my breast until I bought her a cow to feed her because she had a stomach problem. So I gave the baby one of those tranquilizer pills that the doctor had left me when she\u2019d have those stomach cramps. I gave her one of them so she wouldn\u2019t cry and she\u2019d sleep as they\u2028drove me out of the county. They drove me over to Huntington W.V. where I\u2028caught a train and came on in to another state. I brought the child and my\u2028husband came 3 mos. later. They promised if they ever got a hold of me\u2026 they, said that guy\u2019s head was cut up like hamburger. Well I had gotten mad and maybe I didn\u2019t realize what I was doing. But he had struck me up under my chin and called me a damn nigger liar. So these are some of the things that\u2028happened to me in my life.<\/p>\n
Many years later, long after my husband was gone and I had come out to Los Angeles, California a friend of mine came to me and says, \u201cC\u2019mon, I want you to go with me to hear a man named Jim Jones.” Well I want to say I had long since fell out with all religion. Those preachers weren\u2019t doing nothing.<\/p>\n
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FF-2-101G<\/p>\n
They were preachin\u2019 the bible but living everything they wanted \u2013 drinking and running with women and breaking up people\u2019s homes \u2013 everything he\u2019s big enough to do and telling me to be good. I was fed up with that mess, sick of it. I\u2019d listened to Oral Roberts and all those evangelists and there wasn\u2019t nothin’ to none of it. I didn’t want to hear of it. She begged and persuaded me to go and told me he was different. “That\u2019s what they all say,\u201d was my reply. She convinced me to go one day just for the ride. So there I went to meet this man Jim Jones. I went there specially to pick him to pieces. I went there with my mind to see everything in him that was crooked. So I was sittin’ down and he came out, I looked him up and down and through and through to see was he real. I had seen so many crooks and pretenders. So I looked . and looked and I saw nothing. I turned to my friend and said,” I’ll tell you something, that man is a man of God.\u201d She said, “you do? I said, “I sure do”. But that day in the Embassy Auditorium in Los Angeles, I was the first one dressed ready to go back the next morning and I been coming and going ever since.<\/p>\n
I am grateful to be where I am at in Jonestown today \u2013 because I lived under fear all the time when I lived in the states. I always thought when I saw a stranger around he was always looking for me. But, I am so happy today because I am 92 years old and I’m active and able to get around and go and have my right understanding. I have my right mind, I’m -not senile and. I just love it down here where I’m at in this lovely, lovely place in this wonderful air and sunshine. Its perfectly beautiful to me. I admire the beans and the banana trees and everything is growing so fine. I have flowers growing in my window. I\u2019m just enjoying myself immensely, and I believe anybody that would be down here in Jonestown, ought to be happy to. And I am now revising a song in the tune of “Is It True What They Say About Dixie?\u201d Is it true what they say about Jonestown? Does the sun really shine every day?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
FF-2-102A VIRGINIA DEAN TAYLOR (Mom Dean) b. 1886 We can\u2019t let them hurt those little children and those women up there! When they turned the fence to get to me we started pouring that dynamite at their feet and everywhere\u2026 I was an unwanted child but I enjoyed a fairly good life. I went to\u2028good […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":18647,"menu_order":14,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-138358","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/138358","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=138358"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/138358\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":138359,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/138358\/revisions\/138359"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/18647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=138358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}