{"id":29377,"date":"2013-07-25T17:01:50","date_gmt":"2013-07-25T17:01:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alternativejonestown.com\/?page_id=29377"},"modified":"2013-12-09T22:21:55","modified_gmt":"2013-12-09T22:21:55","slug":"lettersawyer","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=29377","title":{"rendered":"Letter from Mary Sawyer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=MsoNormal2>Dear Mr. Haulman, <\/p>\n<p>I am greatly distressed to learn of the efforts to impede our dedication of the Jonestown Memorial scheduled for Sunday, May 29.<\/p>\n<p>I was living in northern California from 1975 to 1980, and it was during these years that I became acquainted with the People Temple movement. I had the opportunity to work with staff and members of Peoples Temple and became friends with many of them. I lost 23 friends in the Jonestown tragedy, including two precious children who are buried at Evergreen.<\/p>\n<p>I contributed to the fund to build the Jonestown Memorial. I am planning on attending the service on the 29th. I will be flying from Omaha, Nebraska on Southwest Airlines Sunday morning, arriving via Phoenix at the Oakland Airport just in time to take a cab to the cemetery. I have reservations that night at the La Quinta Inn at 8465 Enterprise Way in Oakland.<\/p>\n<p>I and others have been waiting a very, very long time for this occasion&#8211;a time to gather together, a time to honor those who lost their lives, a time to reflect and seek healing. I will be extremely distraught if I arrive at the cemetery to find controversy rather than compassion. I firmly believe that the irrationality of one individual should not be allowed to preclude the rest of us&nbsp;from erecting an appropriate monument&nbsp;to loved ones.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Please know of my gratitude for your support of our efforts to properly memorialize these four hundred plus individuals.<\/p>\n<p>Sincerely,<br \/>           Mary Sawyer<br \/>Professor of Religious Studies<br \/>           Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies<br \/>           402 Catt Hall &#8211; ISU<br \/>         Ames, IA 50011<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dear Mr. Haulman, I am greatly distressed to learn of the efforts to impede our dedication of the Jonestown Memorial scheduled for Sunday, May 29. I was living in northern California from 1975 to 1980, and it was during these years that I became acquainted with the People Temple movement. I had the opportunity to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"parent":29400,"menu_order":59,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-29377","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/29377","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=29377"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/29377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51544,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/29377\/revisions\/51544"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/29400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}