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Jim Jones & the The Peoples Temple Padre Beto & The Holy Spirit Skip and the FBIHistory of Jim Jones & The People's Temple
Redwood Valley is not marked on most maps and yet has a compelling, contemporary history. Redwood Valley was home to the notorious Jim Jones and The People's Temple.
I knew Jim Jones as "Mr. Jones," my substitute English
teacher at Ukiah High School. I remember his charismatic, captivating personality, which inspired students and adults. He was the founder and leader of The People's Temple, which he built on land he purchased on East Road in our
valley. He believed a nuclear holocaust would occur on July 15, 1967, and his research revealed Redwood Valley would be one of the few places in the world likely to survive the holocaust. He predicted the surviving elect would
create a new socialist Eden on earth, and he intended to be the leader of that select group.
The holocaust did not happen. Even so, Jim Jones' congregation remained faithful and the church membership increased. He expanded,
opening new churches in San Francisco and Los Angeles.
His sphere of influence continued to grow, and he and his congregation were applauded for helping the poorest of the poor –- drug addicts, the homeless, and racial minorities
throughout California.
During the 1970s, The People's Temple purchased and managed at least nine residential care businesses, including my family's board and care home. At first, my parents respected his work with the poorest
of society; however, in mid 1975, he tried to cheat them out of a portion of their vineyard land and their opinion changed.
I went to visit Jim Jones in August 1973. What follows is an excerpt from my book (Chapter 27):
...During my parent's visit at the San Diego commune a couple of years earlier, they'd spoken highly of Jim Jones's accomplishments—helping drug addicts, the homeless, and racial minorities throughout California—and had even encouraged me to join The People's Temple.
Just
that morning they'd told me the County Deputy District Attorney and his family were members of the church, adding to its credibility. The People's Temple was flourishing.
I wanted to share my religious experiences and find
out about the church's mission. Maybe Mr. Jones's group was a better answer to my desire to serve the Lord than The Children of God.
The Temple was located two miles from my parent's property. Borrowing their pickup truck,
I went to meet with Pastor Jones before his Sunday service. Gravel and rocks popped and cracked under the car tires as I drove into the parking lot and parked near a large unmarked building. A small wooden sign on the side of the
building pointed to an office. Approaching the front door, I found a tall, thin, black man with a harsh look on his face. He clutched a rifle in his hands."
May I help you?" he asked."
Is this The People's Temple?
I'm looking for Pastor Jim Jones. Isn't he the pastor here?" I was confused to see a man with a rifle on church premises."
Yes," he said, looking me over. I was wearing a long, sleeveless dress and sandals, trying to be
comfortable in the hundred-degree August heat."
May I see him?"
"Do you have an appointment?"
The weapon in his hands and the stern face did not make me feel at home or welcome. "No, but he used to be my high
school teacher. I've just come back from two years in the mission field and I want to share my testimony with him."
"He's not receiving visitors. Please leave." His rough, dismissive tone of voice surprised me.
It's
not in my nature to turn away from opposition without some type of response, but this time I didn't stay to argue. The rifle shocked me. There was nothing spiritual or enticing about the rifle. Why would Jim Jones need an armed
guard at the door of his office? I didn't bother to ask, and drove back to my parents' house, unable to understand what I had just experienced. My hands trembled on the steering wheel.
Nobody was prepared for what happened
years later, after Jim Jones moved his followers to a remote jungle in British Guyana, called "Jonestown." There, on November 18, 1978, Jim Jones, my former teacher, a man who lived in my hometown, ordered the mass suicide of over
900 followers. Men, women, and children died agonizing deaths. Some were shot, and others were forced to drink poisoned "Kool aid." Most were said to have willingly participated in what was called "revolutionary suicide."
I
heard the news on my car radio. I pulled the car to the side of the highway and sat there listening in complete shock. The pictures of death were soon broadcast to the world. The dead, lying on top of each other, mothers lying
face down holding onto their young children, and men holding their wives. I lost several of my neighbors that day. They were good caring people who followed Jim Jones and moved to Guyana to find peace and purpose. He had promised
them life in a Utopia – he delivered death. It was a sad day for the world, and for all of us from Redwood Valley.
I am forever grateful that God was looking out for me on that hot August day in 1973. In retrospect,
I believe that the man standing at the front door of The People's Temple with a rifle was actually an angel, stopping me from entering Jim Jones's world.
Skip and the FBI
My parents raised me to be independent, responsible and make
good choices.
I didn’t always.
Two years before graduation, at the
age of sixteen, my girlfriend, Debi, called to tell me she’d gotten a summer
job cleaning cabins at a resort in Homewood, on the west side of Lake Tahoe.
“If you get a job there,” she said,
“we can spend all summer together. Just don’t tell them you know me ‘cause they
don’t hire friends.”
I found my mom in the backyard
hanging sheets on the clothesline. The cats scampered over the woodpile as I
slammed the backdoor.
“Please, Mom,” I begged. “This is a
great opportunity for me to get some work experience. And Debi is going to be
there so I won’t be alone. Please?”
She conferred with my dad and they
agreed to let me go. “Promise you’ll behave and listen to the adults in
charge,” Dad said.
“I will,” I promised, not quite believing myself. My tendency
was to say anything I needed to say, to get my own way.
I applied and they hired me as office
help. I packed my ‘56 Chevy station wagon, a present my parents gave me for my
sixteenth birthday. Veda’s husband, Paul, a mechanic, had painted it blue and
added pinstripes. I stuck on five yellow plastic-flower decals and, filled to
the brim with youthful excitement, drove myself to Lake Tahoe, some seven hours
away.
I’d lied to my parents, telling them
the resort owners knew I was only sixteen. I’d lied on my job application,
giving my age as eighteen. I justified the lying as something I needed to do to
be independent and have fun.
The summer promised to be
liberating—with no parents, and no supervision. I lived next to a beautiful,
deep-blue lake, amongst tall majestic pine trees, with warm weather and
hundreds of teenagers. Debi and I worked and roomed together at Chambers Lodge.
One Saturday evening, we drove forty
minutes to the Crystal Bay Casino at Stateline, the line separating California
and Nevada, to gamble using our false I.D.’s. There we met Skip, a tall,
handsome young man and his equally tall roommate, Hank, both eighteen. They
parked cars for the casino patrons.
“They’re cute,” we agreed, giggling, as
we left my car with them and entered the smoke-filled casino. Hours later,
after having lost our first paychecks on the nickel and quarter slot machines,
we returned to the parking garage to find Skip and Hank punching their time
cards.
“Hey, ladies,” Skip said, his blue
eyes catching my attention. “Where you two goin’? We’re just getting off work.
Want to stop by our place in Kings Beach for a beer?”
We talked, flirted, accepted their
invitation to hang out and drove home that first night feeling like we’d won
the casino jackpot. Debi and I returned to visit them almost every day after
work and within a couple of weeks—a lifetime for a teenage girl—I fell in love
with Skip.
Debi dated Hank, and the four of us
spent all of our free time together. We drove around the lake and visited
tourist spots like Reno and Virginia City. We shopped, cooked meals, and
partied. We played house, acting like adults.
Besides parking cars, the guys sold
pot on the side. Skip, always protective of me, didn’t let me smoke it. He said
he loved me and my life felt new, exciting and complete. He showed his love as
he held my hand walking on the beach, or held me close in the car as I nestled
under his arm. He whispered his love as we listened to late-night radio music.
I was smitten and for the first time in my young life, I felt special and
wanted.
The magical summer ended and I
returned home a different person, no longer willing to be just a child. Hour
after hour, I laid on my bed writing poems of love to and about Skip, longing
to see him. I stared at the tall oak trees outside my bedroom window, aimlessly
counting the acorns clumped on the tree limbs. I felt sad, moody and depressed
as I waited for his phone calls. His love defined me somehow. How could I go on
without him? He drove from Lake Tahoe to Redwood Valley several times, and I
made the drive to see him whenever I could sneak away. I even joined the Ukiah
High Ski Club so Debi and I could go on their ski trip to Soda Springs, near
the lake—anything to get close to Skip. We planned to be together the following
summer and counted the weeks and months.
That didn’t happen. The police
arrested Skip for selling pot and put him in jail. He wrote to let me know and
I drove the ten hours to Los Angeles to visit him.
“I’ll always love you and be here for
you,” I promised, hating the thick pane of glass between us. “I’ll wait for you
no matter how long it takes.”
I held the black phone receiver in
one hand while pressing my other hand against the window pane, reaching out,
wanting to touch him—like a scene in a movie.
“What did you tell your parents to
let you drive down here?” he asked.
“They don’t know,” I confessed. “I
asked permission to spend the weekend at Debi’s house in Santa Rosa, and then
drove all night to get here. Thankfully, they didn’t check with her parents.
She’ll cover for me if they call.”
“Will you be back here tomorrow?”
“I can’t. I’ll drive to Deb’s house
tonight. And, Skip, I don’t think I’ll be able to make it back down here again.
It’s too risky. But I promise I’ll write. . . every day.”
I drove away wiping the tears from my
face. How could they have him locked up? He’s not a criminal, he’s my love. I
kept my promise, in part, and wrote to him almost every day.
A few months later, on a warm Friday
afternoon, I heard Suzy the goose squawking with indignation. Within moments
came the sound of someone cursing at Suzy, and then a loud knock on our front
door. I rushed to open it, wondering who Suzy was attacking now. Two men stood
before me, dressed in black suits and shiny black shoes, official and stern
looking. Suzy waddled behind them, pecking at their heels.
“We’re here to see Linda Cassells,”
the taller of the two said, without preamble.
“That’s me,” I replied as my mom
walked up behind me.
“What’s this about?” Mom asked.
“We’re from the FBI. Lincoln Phillips
escaped from jail. We want to know if your daughter knows of his whereabouts.”
I gasped.
“What?” Mom said.
“Escaped?” I said.
“Who’s Lincoln Phillips?” Mom turned to ask
me. I wanted to hide.
“That’s Skip’s real name.” I tried to stay calm as I faced the
men who stood at the door. “I don’t know anything about him escaping.”
“Why do you think she knows
something?”
“She’s the only one who has gone to
visit him at the jail, and we have a record of the letters she sent him.”
“What jail?” Mom stepped closer to me
and I cringed. Busted. I sensed big trouble on the immediate horizon.
“Los Angeles County Jail,” the
shorter man replied.
“Los Angeles? You’ve gone to Los
Angeles? When? How?”
The FBI men left, after warning me
about the penalty for hiding a fugitive.
“Linda, what’s going on? What’ve you
done?”
“Nothing, Mom. I just went to visit
Skip once. I’m sorry, but I had to. You don’t understand. . .he needed me.”
She took away my car keys, sent me
to my room to think about my actions, and grounded me for a month.
You’d think I’d learned my lesson, or
that my parents watched me more closely. I didn’t and they didn’t.
Instead, I created a façade. I
continued to do my homework and get good grades. I smiled and nodded in
agreement with those in authority—but, I had a secret life. I snuck out at
night to meet friends and experimented with cigarettes and pot, enjoying the
feeling of independence. Sometimes, I’d lie, saying I’d be at the movies and
instead drive the hour and a half to Santa Rosa with girlfriends to cruise up
and down 4th Street listening to “Wolf Man Jack” on the radio, while checking
out cute boys driving by in souped-up cars.
One night, Karen and I lied to our
parents about our whereabouts and camped out at Lake Mendocino with some
hitchhiking hippies. We smoked pot and lay outside under a huge star-speckled
sky, stoned out of our minds. I loved the adrenaline rush of independence,
never fearing where my risk-taking might lead me.
There were consequences for my
actions, like being grounded or losing phone and driving privileges, but they
didn’t faze me. I mostly did what I wanted. I did what I had to do to get my
own way.
However, a few years later, huge
consequences would catch up to me and affect the rest of my life. And, sitting
in a Mexican jail was just one of them.