I was an active member of Peoples Temple from July \u201867-June \u201869. My introduction to PT was\u00a0through my paternal aunt, Laura McQueen,\u00a0in Hamilton, Ohio, in the late 1950\u2019s. Along with Jack and Rheaviana Beam, Jim and Marceline Jones would\u00a0often stay at my aunt\u2019s home when Jim conducted services at various churches in the Cincinnati area.\u00a0I was four years old at the time, and according to my aunt, Jim took an immediate liking to me. He always had an affinity for small children and young people, and would often befriend them.<\/p>\n
My aunt first met\u00a0Jim\u00a0through PT\u00a0members Joe and Clara Phillips with whom she\u00a0would attend services\u00a0at the original Temple in Indianapolis. She also donated money in support of Jim\u2019s missionary trip to Brazil several years later.<\/p>\n
After my parents\u00a0divorced, I moved to Florida with my aunt and alternated living with her and my\u00a0paternal grandmother.\u00a0By that time, Jim had relocated to California, but my aunt\u00a0kept in contact through the years and was invited out for a visit in the fall of 1966. During her visit, Jim\u00a0told her that he had a revelation that I was on the verge of an emotional breakdown because of my dysfunctional family situation. I needed a masculine figure in my life, he said, and strongly suggested that a stay with the Temple would provide the stability and structure that I needed during my adolescent years.<\/p>\n
Arrangements were made for me to fly out to California\u00a0the following summer to get oriented and\u00a0enroll in school with other Temple youth in the fall. During my first year I lived in Ukiah, California with the Phillips family\u00a0\u2013 Joe and Clara\u00a0and their children Danny, Janet, and Laura. I attended Anderson Valley High School in Boonville, 20 miles from Ukiah, during the \u201867-\u201968 school year with Danny Phillips and\u00a010 other students from the Temple. (Jim taught at the local elementary school in the same community.) The following year, I went to Ukiah High School. I lived with the Phillips family\u00a0for my first 13 months in California, until Joe and Clara divorced, and Jim forced Joe to leave the church. Jim then\u00a0arranged for me to live with\u00a0Jack and Rheaviana Beam and their children, Jack Arnold, Joyce, and Eleanor. During my 23-month stay, I\u00a0attended Temple services every week, sang in the choir, and participated as a member of the youth group. I also assisted with the construction of the Redwood Valley Temple during the summer of 1968.<\/p>\n
By\u00a0December \u201868, I noticed that Jim\u2019s sermons had\u00a0become increasingly ominous and bizarre. He claimed he was the physical embodiment of Jesus Christ on earth, and\u00a0because Jesus had become God he himself had become God. He also claimed\u00a0to have lived as Buddha, Karl Marx, and Vladimir Lenin in previous\u00a0lives. He became increasingly paranoid and warned\u00a0all the Temple young people to associate only with other Temple members. It was around this time that he began to brag about his sexual prowess and claimed he routinely made love to his wife as many five times a night. He attributed such stamina\u00a0to the fact that he was no normal man, and because his desires put such a physical demand on his wife, she had\u00a0consented that he seek fulfillment\u00a0with other partners. I found such claims to be\u00a0narcissistic\u00a0and self-indulgent and had absolutely nothing to do with establishing an egalitarian society\u00a0free of bigotry and social injustice.<\/p>\n
By June 1969, when my aunt and her sister visited, I was more than\u00a0ready to return home. Jim found my decision to be tantamount to betrayal\u00a0and disloyalty. He reminded me that he had been a\u00a0\u201dprophet and shepherd\u201d to me, and warned that I would face certain nuclear annihilation with the rest of\u00a0mankind if I did not return to the Temple in the future. I told him the reason I was leaving\u00a0\u2013 besides being homesick \u2013 was that because I\u00a0perceived the ministry to be more focused on him and not the ideals of socio-economic equality. Over Jim\u2019s protests \u2013 and despite his warnings \u2013 I did return to Florida where I graduated from a small Catholic high school in 1970.<\/p>\n
Despite the passage of time and the tragic events of Jonestown, I still have many fond memories of former Temple members both living and dead.\u00a0Even to this day I can honestly say they were some of the most highly principled individuals I have ever been associated with.\u00a0Until earlier this year, the only contact I have had with anyone associated with the Temple during my stay was Mike Cartmell, who I spoke with by phone\u00a0back in late 1998, but more recently, I have been in touch with several others, including Garry Lambrev, Ron Crawford, and Laura Kohl. I ask that anyone from the Temple\u2019s days in Redwood Valley who remembers me to get in contact with me at jbblanton_easternus@yahoo.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n (Bernie Blanton lives in <\/em>Tampa,\u00a0Florida and is employed in the financial services industry.) <\/em><\/p>\n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I was an active member of Peoples Temple from July \u201867-June \u201869. My introduction to PT was\u00a0through my paternal aunt, Laura McQueen,\u00a0in Hamilton, Ohio, in the late 1950\u2019s. Along with Jack and Rheaviana Beam, Jim and Marceline Jones would\u00a0often stay at my aunt\u2019s home when Jim conducted services at various churches in the Cincinnati area.\u00a0I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"parent":29512,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-29256","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/29256","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\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29256"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/29256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":107585,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/29256\/revisions\/107585"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/29512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}