They, on the other hand, have moved on with their lives. Basement Rejects is the source of this image. Eugene Smith recalls how his mother, a churchgoing African-American, bought into Jim Jones dream after they attended a service in Fresno. November 29, 2022 by cyfrows. It would have been like I was a counter-revolutionary, in some sense.". When John Cobb was born in 1960 in a black section of Indianapolis, his mother and older siblings already were temple members. Top left: Stephan with his father, Jim Jones. ", Mr. Jones says he hasn't "mourned [his]father's death, but I've certainly come to understand, forgive and to love him. It was all about survival in his domain. Maybe they just thought, 'God, leave me alone. I believed there was too much racism, and there was a need for change. And how do you adapt to seeing the outside world for the first time in decades? Mr. Jones spent the night there, much of it "in a fetal position, sobbing like a baby, saying prayers, offering apologies." ". We recommend you to check the complete list of Famous People born on 1 June. In 1954, Jones adopted Agnes Jones, who was part Native American, when she was 11 years old. Top right: Stephan Jones in Junior High. Jim Jones had adopted other children, gathering around him what he liked to call his "rainbow family"--Stephan's brothers and sisters were black and Korean--but Stephan remembers days spent mostly by himself: there was a cleared-out place in the underbrush where he could crouch and become Hercules, or a soldier of war. The next day, Stephan and Jones had a public confrontation about Shandas treatment, which lead to Stephan calling him a fucking liar and then both wheeling away. ", Certainly the term could apply to the basketball tournament in which he and five or six other young men from Jonestown played in Georgetown, the capital of Guyana, just days before the massacre. In 1961, the Joneses made history by becoming the first white couple in Indiana to adopt a black child. Who is dating Marcus Dobre? Stephan Jones and some other team members believe they might have changed history if they were there. The founder of Scientology,L. Ron Hubbard, passed in 1986. Neither were the White Nights where everyone stayed up, armed with machetes to fight enemies who never arrived. "There's just nothing like it," he says. 'Baby killer. It was Stephan Jones who managed security--who carried a gun, watched over temple members and planned group escape routes--when Jim Jones began summoning his community into a frenzied series of meetings to prepare for imminent attacks from outside. For the young Caucasian, there was more: "The white man was so preached against by my father as a way of winning black people, and here I am a white man, feeling like everybody resents me and I have something to apologize for," he says. The Washington Post. "I would have been a traitor to the greatest cause there ever was . How do you live down the fact that your father orchestrated the biggest mass suicide in history? Jonestown: Paradise Lost, a 100-minute TV docudrama about the final crazed days of the wannabe multiracial utopia in equatorial South America and the 47-year-old zealot and megalomaniac who ordered the mass suicide and murder, thereby ensuring that Nov. 18, 1978, would be a day that would live in infamy. The only surviving child of Jim Jones, Stephan was born on June 1, 1959, in Indiana, USA. Those raised in the temple or who joined as teens lost the only life they knew. It would become a little town where people of all ages and colors raised food and children. In October 1978, Jones began sleeping with nineteen-year-old Shanda James (Reiterman 455), though when she wrote him a note saying she wanted to be with someone else, Jones had her put in the ECU and drugged, to the great displeasure of many of the younger men. the jones firstborn Though he waved and smiled at Peoples Temple services, seemingly enraptured like the rest, Stephan Gandhi Jones says he always had his doubts. He has read most of "Raven," which he believes to be the best of the books about his father, but he has never been able to bring himself to read the chapter about the suicides and murders. "I was still naive enough--well, not necessarily naive enough; I still believe the CIA is capable of all kinds of things--but I felt that we could geniunely be a threat to the image of the United States and that people might be trying to do things to undermine or eliminate what was happening down there," he says. The only surviving child of Jim Jones,Stephan was born on June 1, 1959, in Indiana, USA. Suggest an alternative. . As a self-taught bulldozer operator, he worked alongside other Peoples Temple members in the humid heat, his blade carving roads and sites for wooden buildings with metal roofs. He seemed to have had a difficult existence after what happened to his family. We have estimated . Stephan Gandhi Jonesis the son of the notorious religious cult leaderJim Jones. And when her 23-year-old sister joined, Jordan went to live with her at age 12. Jones declined to answer questions until he had the opportunity to speak to an attorney. What used to be the pavilion where Jim Jones harangued his malnourished, sleep-deprived, overworked followers with stories of impending doom, nuclear holocaust and Armageddon --and later commanded them to die -- is now occupied by "this incredibly blooming maroon-purple bougainvillea, fed by their dead bodies and, of course, their spirits. His son was not among the boosters. Where they were lying. Jim Jones. "I think I have a lot of the same tendencies he had. He is still elated by it. They must be prepared to die in the defense of socialism. "I was building me a place, too," he says. He says his daughters have seen him gnash his teeth when he talks. A basketball game saved Stephan Gandhi Jones's life. Retrieved December 10, 2022, from https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2861599/, Reflections and articles by Stephan Jones. that one last act would be admitting he was a coward, and about nothing. He rode bulldozers, dodged falling trees, killed snakes, lit brush fires and rode the slow boats upriver with loads of cut wood for flooring and walls. ", Stephan Jones spent three months in a Guyana jail after the November deaths, imprisoned there while Guyanese authorities tried to determine who had killed the devoted Peoples Temple aide Sharon Amos and her three children, all of whom were found with their throats slashed in the Georgetown Temple headquarters on the day of the suicides. He is married to his wife Kristi Jones since 1991. Most read in News BEHIND BARS In a 2019 interview, Stephan stated, I just wish people could understand what was attractive about him. And I've come to believe in a God, creator of all things, all powerful, all knowing, incredibly loving, but it's a God far beyond any religion I've ever encountered. Stephan is one of the late Jim Jones sons that survived, and he is deeply troubled by the events of the past. He cries out, "My God, you're not dead!" In "Raven," the detailed Jim Jones biography by Tim Reiterman and John Jacobs, it is Stephan Jones who stands in the shadows as his father lies and fakes and bends the people around him, his sickness mounting through the years. I would have been doing more than just leaving a family. Jim Jones (1931-1978) and Marceline Jones (1927-1978). Stephan Gandhi Jones is the son of Jim Jones, the controversial religious cult leader. Jim Jones was cultivating his growing celebrity--elected officials visited the San Francisco temple, Mayor George Moscone had used temple members as campaign workers, and much was made of the 1976 photo that showed Jim Jones and Rosalynn Carter together during the Democratic Central Committee meeting in San Francisco. They have three children. He is an actor, known for Written in Blood (2018), The People's. I believe 100 percent that not everyone would have been dead, he said. He is a member of famous Actor with the age 64 years old group. To cope, he says he abused drugs and exercised obsessively. For 19 of his 24 years, they were all he knew. "I just say something like, 'You remember Jonestown?' Among the films in which he appeared were Written in Blood (2018), The Peoples Advocate: The Life and Times of Charles R. Gary (2007), and The True Story of Charles R. Gary (2007). . 1959 Stephan Jones was born on June 1, 1959 in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA as Stephan Gandhi Jones. "I'd go back in a minute. More at IMDbPro Contact info Agent info Resume Born June 1, 1959 Add to list Photos Known for The People's Advocate: The Life & Times of Charles R. Garry 7.2 Self - Interviewee 2007 P3 Dokumentr . But. That way no one else would want to live. Stephan believed that church members preferred Jimmy (James Jones Jr.) over him, which sometimes resulted in teasing and fights between the two (Reiterman 104). But when he got there [in mid-1977] overnight it became a totally different place. His name was the Rev. "But there's a sadness . When people ask about his past, he says he was "overseas," or "in volunteer service." Jim Jones, pastor of Peoples Temple in San Francisco. We were trying to build a new world, a progressive socialist organization.. Stephan, like his father, is looking for forgiveness. Being in Jonestown before Jim got there was the best thing in my life.. Relation: Name: Birth: Father: Jim Jones: May 13 1931: Mother: Marceline Jones: Spotted an error? "I remember being afraid when he started talking about it, and getting butterflies," he says. Everyone participated in it and because of that, it went as far as it did, she said. Wiki User. On Nov. 18 she was at the temple house when a fanatical Jones aide received a dire radio message from Jonestown. September 5, 1977, Stephan learned there were guns in Jonestown when Jones used a .357 magnum revolver to fire a few shots at a banana leaf. "I think I knew it was just a bunch of junk and that it was really about nothing," Stephan Jones said. "I usually try to tell people when we're in a good time to talk about it, because my God, it takes two hours just to scratch the surface," Stephan Jones says. It made it easy to find playmates, but there were also high expectations put on his shoulders as the son of the prophet. Stephan resented the attention other Temple children sometimes demanded of Jones, and would remind them in no uncertain terms that Jones was his father, not theirs (Reiterman 105). At 64 years old, Stephan Jones height not available right now. He revealed that he was sober in a recent interview. During a White Night in Spring 1978, he urged his father to stop, whispering, Youre putting people through unnecessary pain (Reiterman 391). Jim Jones and his people. By the fall of that year, almost 1,000 Temple members emigrated to Jonestown, but for Stephan Jones, the pleasure crumbled when his father arrived. 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