28-08-2015, 02:32 PM
3. From the Cradle to the Company
Lynetta Putnam was born on April 16[SUP]th[/SUP], 1902 in a small settlement on the Wabash River in Southwestern Indiana, though this cannot be confirmed as all records of her birth have been lost. Little is known of Lynetta's early life. Reports are vague and sometimes contradictory but it is known she was a breed apart from others of her generation. As her contemporaries enjoyed the frivolity of the Roaring Twenties, Lynetta pursued a college degree with a headstrong aggression that was her predominant trait. She attended Jonesboro Agricultural College in Arkansas, followed by two years at Lockyear Business college. Though she was better educated than most men of her time, Lynetta abandoned plans for a career in business for a short-lived stay in the field of anthropology. Not content to be an "armchair anthropologist" and determined to prove she was as capable as any male counterpart, she aspired to study primitive Black African tribes. She worked hard and her dream came true when, still in her mid-twenties, she travelled to a tiny African village. Had she pursued this career, Lynetta may have reached the prominence of Margaret Mead or one of her other, more successful colleagues; but Lynetta had yet another calling. As she lay sleeping in an African hut, a recurring dream beckoned her to return to the United States. In the dream, her deceased mother advised her to marry as she was destined to bear a son; a messiah who would right the wrongs of the world. Perhaps the dream was only a manifestation of some deep fear that she was growing too old to bear children but, regardless, Lynetta left Africa and returned to Indiana to marry a most unlikely mate, James Thurmond Jones, a semi-invalid, sixteen years her senior. He was forty-three, she was twenty-seven.
James T. Jones, a resident of the east Indiana hamlet of Crete, came from a family of Quakers. While serving in France during World War I, he was a casualty of chemical warfare. Mustard gas had scarred his lungs for life. He worked, when he was able, on farm, road and railroad crews but he spent most of his time alone in his house or at the local Veteran's Administration Hospital, as even the slightest exertion would leave him breathless. By most accounts, he was an uneducated, ill-mannered, bad tempered loner and a known member of the Ku Klux Klan. His position in the KKK may have been of some significance as the organization's national headquarters was only seventy miles away in Indianapolis.
So the aggressive, well-educated anthropologist gave up her work in Africa to marry and help support a semi-invalid pensioner sixteen years her senior, whose only interest in society was his involvement in the racist Ku Klux Klan. It would appear that the marriage was a terrible mismatch. Actually, James and Lynetta shared only two things in common; their interest in the Black race and their only son, born May 13[SUP]th[/SUP], 1931, James Warren Jones. It would seem that the child's destiny was set at birth.
Crete, Indiana was no more than six dilapidated farmhouses surrounding a grain elevator owned by Lynetta's foster grandfather and surrogate father, Lewis Parker. The newlyweds farmed a small plot of land that was probably a gift from Parker whom Lynetta described as being "generous to a fault". Unfortunately, the produce they grew and James' disabled veteran's pension were not sufficient to support the family. It was the height of the Depression, Parker lost his extensive grain holdings and could no longer help support his granddaughter. Lynetta was forced to get a job but the nearest employment opportunities were five miles west in the small town of Lynn. James' father was also in Lynn, as was the nearest school system; a consideration as "Little Jim" approached school age. James sold the land and the Joneses moved to Lynn, where the local townspeople met a not-so-typical family. No one in Lynn nor in the remaining residents of Crete would remember Lynetta's pregnancy, or the event that was later described as the birth of the anti-Christ.
In Lynn, Big Jim spent most of his days in the pool hall or at home, listening to the Cincinnati Reds game on the radio or just sleeping. His nights were a mixture of KKK business and his duties as "Night Marshall"; a title that, along with a gun, had been bestowed on him by the town fathers. Almost everyone avoided Big Jim. Lynetta was never accepted by the local women. She was the bread-winner in her family, not the bread-baker. She was too aggressive, too rough, nearly masculine in her dress and manner. She enjoyed taunting the neighbour wives by rolling her own cigarettes and defiantly puffing as she passed the appalled spectators. Above all, she was known for her foul disposition and abusive language. Lynetta could swear better than any man in town. Little Jim was different too. His head of thick blue-black hair stood out in a community populated by blond Germans, most of whom worked in the town's predominant industry; casketmaking. There was talk that Lynetta was part American Indian, or that the child's true father was a Black man. One surviving account contends that Lynetta was married, not at age twenty-seven, but at age twenty-nine. She turned twenty-nine one month before delivering Little Jim. Though just small town gossip, the accusations might have been serious in Lynn where it was the unwritten law that Blacks, Indians and Catholics were not welcomed. To this day, that part of the country is still extremely racist. A common sight along the highway are billboards proclaiming the righteousness of the Ku Klux Klan and the popular slogan, "Nigger don't let the sun set on you here". When the sun did set, it was the night marshall's job to enforce the unwritten law. Big Jim did his duty, and Little Jim was twelve years old before he even saw a Black person.
Little Jim completed his first eleven years of education at the Washington Township School where his teachers remember him as a bright but devilish organizer with a foul mouth, no doubt inherited from his mother. Lynetta's example was not all bad. She had taught little Jim not only how to read, but to read. By the third grade he was signing out books from the library that were intended for high school students. He was rarely seen without a book in his hand and it was not just for show. Even in grammar school, it was said that he was more knowledgeable than some of his teachers. Medicine, psychology and Nazi Germany were his favourite subjects. Though his IQ score was well above average at 120, Jim's grades were not outstanding. School work bored him, while the world he discovered in books urged him on to bigger things. Even at this early age, he was more of an adult than a child.
Lynetta had worked in a variety of odd jobs before settling on a position in an auto/aircraft engine assembly plant twenty miles south in Richmond. Since she was gone for most of the day and Big Jim was absolutely no help, Little Jim was sent to a neighbour woman who babysat the child after school. It has been said that Jim was raised as a Methodist, but neither Lynetta nor Big Jim attended any church. It was the neighbour woman, Mrs. Myrtle Kennedy, who instilled a fiery religious belief in the boy, or at least that is what Jim would say about his "second mother". Actually, Jim was never intrigued by Mrs. Kennedy's Bible stories as much as he was intrigued with the power religion exerted over her. He wondered why she donated her time to teach Bible classes at the Methodist Church, or why her husband gave up his weekends to help maintain the church properly. Jim learned his lessons, but he learned more about people than he did about the Bible. During this period he began to indiscriminately tour the local churches. He could be seen with the Methodists or the Quakers or the Nazarenes, or the Disciples of Christ or the Pentecostalists. The wife of the local Pentecostal minister befriended Little Jim and he was often seen at her home, reading the Bible and practicing what she saw as his tremendous talent as a preacher. Jim's childhood was spent studying religion from every possible angle.
Little Jim conducted his first "pretend church" in the loft of a carriage house in his back yard. He would gather together the neighbourhood children and officiate at services that were a combination science fair and revival. Jim sat, like a judge, in the only chair while the others gathered round the table to examine a slide in his microscope or the chicken to which he had tried to graft a duck's leg. Sometimes he preached from the Bible, sometimes he helped them with their homework or conducted funerals for their deceased pets, some of which he had killed just to create the services in which he would be in charge. A neighbour, at the time, later recalled Little Jim's "pretend church",
He would preach a good sermon. I remember working about two hundred feet from the Jones place. He would have about ten youngsters in there, and he would put them through their paces… line them up and make them march. He'd hit them with a stick and they'd scream and cry. I used to say, What's wrong with those other kids, putting up with it?' But they'd come back to play with him the next day. He had some kind of magnetism. I told my wife, You know he's either going to do a lot of good or he's going to end up like Hitler'.
Hitler could hardly have escaped the attention of the German population of Lynn in the late thirties, nor could he be a stranger to the impressionable young boy who studied Nazi Germany before the war. Little Jim often mimicked Hitler, slicking his hair to one side and awaiting the "Heil, Hitler" password that would admit a playmate into the loft. Other times, he wore a white, hooded robe, like his father's KKK outfit but, unlike his father, Little Jim would parade in his costume during the light of day. There has never been any evidence to suggest a local Nazi Party influence on either Big or Little Jim, but there is no doubt that Little Jim embraced the Nazi philosophy, at least from a distance. It was more than just play. He studied and understood the Nazis. Understanding world politics, even having an interest in the subject is extremely rare for a little boy, and though he was an adult in many ways, Little Jim was only just a boy.
The Joneses never had much money. There was only Big Jim's pension and Lynetta's pay from the factory that had since shifted operations to fill defence contracts during World War II. Between the two incomes they were able to raise Little Jim, whose childhood was at least indirectly funded by the War Department. Big Jim's brother, Bill, tried to help. He lived with the Joneses until he reportedly fell to his death from the G Street Bridge in Richmond. Years later, Lynetta would claim that Uncle Bill had been murdered.
Soon after the war, toward the end of Jim's junior year in high school, Lynetta and Big Jim separated. They never had much of a marriage. They had always slept in separate beds, some said due to Big Jim's coughing spells, but moreover theirs was but a marriage of convenience held together and perhaps even prompted by the sake of the child Jim. Now that he was close to finishing school and capable of earning a living, there was no further need for the charade. Big Jim moved into a room at the Waldon Hotel in Lynn where he died three years later. Lynetta and son moved to Richmond where Jim enrolled as a senior at Richmond High School and accepted a full time position as an orderly at Reid Memorial Mental Hospital. After a year as both a full time student and orderly, Jim graduated in mid-semester, and the announcement in the Richmond High School Year Book attests to his interest in medicine, "Jim's six syllable medical vocabulary astounds us all". While working at Reid Memorial, Jim met Marceline Baldwin, a nurse four years older than he, who had graduated from a federally-funded program to work at the hospital. Marceline and her roommate, Evelyn Eadler, were often seen in the company of young Jones in Richmond's coffee shops and movie theatres. On June 12[SUP]th[/SUP], 1949, soon after his graduation, Jim and Marceline were married in a double ceremony with Marceline's sister and her groom. Evelyn Eadler was the maid of honor. The bride's father, Walter Baldwin, was a respected Republican city council member and the wedding, held at the Methodist church where he was known as an elder, was attended by the mayor and the city fathers of Richmond. Immediately following the ceremony, without so much as a honeymoon evening, the newlyweds moved to Bloomington where Jim had enrolled in Indiana University as a business major. He had been rooming with a student who later remembered him as "maladjusted"; an embarrassment who was generally ignored by the other students. Jim continued his studies while Marceline supported the couple, working nights in surgery in the hospital across the street from their one room apartment. She spent her days taking care of their home and studying for her credentials in nursing education. After completing three semesters on the Bloomington campus, Jones decided to change his major to the social services and move to Indianapolis to pursue a law degree. This was a critical point in Jim's (or any other young man's) life, when thoughts of the future encouraged him to set a course. Instead of concentrating on one of his interests, Jim decided to pursue them all in a unique career. He would combine his interest in science, medicine, religion, business, social services and law to become a faith healing preacher. There were many such evangelists, but none who were as intelligent, talented or knowledgeable as Jim Jones. It will never be known whether the sum total of his interests and experience dictated his career choice, or the career choice had guided him through the various experiences on the way to a pre-determined goal. It suffices to say he was perfect for the job. Jones saw more than just the Cadillacs, flashy clothes, power, money, religious groupies and the other benefits of the occupation. With his background in science and medicine, he knew what experts have since discovered; the power of the emotions and spirit to heal the body. Jones was well ahead of the times as this holistic approach to medicine would not be accepted until years later through the combined efforts of scientists and evangelists, such as President Carter's sister, Ruth Carter Stapleton. Most of Jones's faith healings were faked stage shows but that should not discount his desire and ability to study the subject from a scientific point of view.
Ronnie Baldwin, Marceline's ten-year-old cousin, came to live with the Joneses in their small apartment behind the Shriner's Temple in Indianapolis. Ronnie had been remanded to a foster care home after the untimely death of his father. His mother, it was said, was "incapable" of caring for the boy. Ronnie would remain with the Joneses for about a year, during which time Jim used the boy to create the image that he was a family man, which helped to dispel some of the suspicion associated with being the only White face in a Black crowd. Since Marceline supported the family, Jim was free to attend classes, lectures and church services. He attended Black church services with young Ronnie who, after a year of being dragged from one Black church to another, was only too glad to move back with his mother. Jones studied the various techniques of Black ministers and preachers while attending Butler University part time. It would take him ten years to earn a bachelor's degree in education.
Jones helped supplement Marceline's income by working part time as a night watchman. Like his father, he carried a revolver, and like his father he carried it to enforce law and order which, considering the place and time, carried with it an extreme prejudice against communists and Blacks. On one occasion, he and Ronnie, hand-in-hand, attended a lecture on communism that he promptly left after being told the meeting was under surveillance by the FBI. It was the McCarthy Era and there were many such communist witchhunts, especially in right-wing, KKK country like Indianapolis. Considering his later work, the incident raises a question as to whether Jones was afraid of being spied on, or afraid of being exposed as a spy. The incident, which occurred in 1952, may well be the first recorded report of Jim Jones' work for government intelligence.
In June of 1952, Jones officially entered the ministry when he accepted a position as student pastor at Somerset Methodist Church in a poor, White neighbourhood of Indianapolis. He studied for the Methodist ministry and preached a doctrine of racial equality that alienated the exclusively White congregation but attracted new Black parishioners to the services. He had met many Black church-goers while touring the Negro houses of worship with young Ronnie. He invited all to come and hear him preach at Somerset. Many did and the conservative church elders asked Jones to resign. He did.
Meanwhile, Jones had been establishing a name for himself at church conventions in Columbus and Detroit. Even under the scrutiny of fellow preachers, he stole the show. He was a spell-binding orator with a particular talent to "discern"; a popular revivalist's trick. Jones would call out the names of various people in the audience and discern some secret about them. He would reveal their phone number or some physical complaint or past illness. The subject would step forward and the young preacher would pray for them and, with a slap on the forehead, they would "fall out"; a phenomenon that is a combination of emotional overload and a severe blow to the head. Some would rise immediately, brush themselves off, and return to their pew, while others would lie on the floor for hours, quietly or in convulsions.
Following the theatrics, the collection plate would be passed through the faithful. All the ministry know that discerning is a hoax, but they admired Jones' skill, his style of showmanship and extraordinary memory, to say nothing of the professional detective work it required to gain the discerned information without the subject's knowledge. Jones was great. He could repeat social security, insurance policy and driver's license numbers for dozens of people, all from memory. Never once in his career did he speak from notes. Perhaps his success was due in part to his access to government files.
While researching the discerned information, occasionally, Jones would discover that the subject had recently complained of some ailment. A prime example was the elderly, somewhat feeble Black woman who had complained to a doctor about a sore throat. The information may have come from the doctor's office, or the pharmacy, or from Marceline at the local hospital, but in any event, Jones would call out her name during the services and discern something that impressed the congregation. He would then claim that through the divine intervention of the Holy Spirit he had a revelation that she had cancer of the throat. Religious fanaticism aside, the subject would tend to believe him, especially in the wake of her recent complaint and his uncanny knowledge of information contained in the most personal files. She would come forward and Jones or Marceline or some other Caucasian aide would force their fingers down the subject's throat until she choked and gagged. Through slight of hand they would emerge from the clutch with the "cancer"; a spoiled chicken liver dripping with blood from a concealed capsule. It was all very authentic, even the blood was real, having been drawn from Jones or an aide prior to the show. Cancer passings were common practice. In addition to throat cancer, there was a rectal passing as well but, like the violence in a Greek play, it was performed off stage and left to the audience's imagination.
Jones worked his Black congregation into such a fury that each healing was an outburst of emotion that electrified the air. Of course the collection plate was circulated immediately. The money was counted in a back room while things calmed down on stage. An aide would whisper the total to Jones in the pulpit who would select another subject, pass another cancer and pass another collection plate. The series would continue, sometimes for several hours, until the total donations equalled the estimated total contents of their pockets.
Many of the faith healings were performed on and by the preacher's assistants in disguise, especially when Jones took his show on the road to Ohio where the locals were less likely to recognize the accomplice. The most convincing healings were those in which the subject was an innocent believer. Their spontaneous emotion was far more effective than anything that could be staged.
After being forced out of Somerset Methodist in 1954, Jones rented an abandoned church building in a poor neighbourhood of Indianapolis. He dubbed his first business the "Community Unity" and, as the name implies, it was more of a social services office than a church. He had conducted services in the loft as a child and in borrowed churches, on street corners and in backyards since, but now he had a pulpit of his own. The Community Unity defies description. Even though some worshipped there on Sunday, it was not a church, it was not recognized by any denomination nor was Jones an ordained minister; he would not be for another eight years. The Community Unity defies description.
No one would argue with the fact that Jones was a brilliant religious showman, whose talent in the pulpit could have been successful with any demographic, but Jones never tried to recruit wealthy Caucasians; he wanted an exclusively Black congregation. By almost all accounts, his congregation was both Black and White (and later Native American) but this multi-racial image is simply not true. His organization resembled the caste system of ancient Egypt. The capstone at the peak of the pyramid was the pharaoh, everything and everyone else existed to support him. The next lower level consisted of a group of priests, physicians and merchants who carried out the pharaoh's will and knew some of the state secrets. Below them was a larger group of slaves who comprised the broad foundation for this social structure modelled after the design of the pyramids. Jones, of course, was the pharaoh. Below him was a group of several dozen trusted aides; the middle management, the spies who collected the "discerned" information and the medical technicians who drew the blood and prepared the rancid chicken livers for the phony faith healings. They were all Caucasian. Below them was the largest group; the congregation, and they were all Black. Jones did use his White lieutenants to his advantage but the primary purpose of his work was to extort money from the Blacks. Everyone admired him; the Blacks for his self-proclaimed divinity, and the Whites for his ability to convince the Blacks of his divinity and fleece their pockets at the same time. Everyone admired him, and many of these early recruits would follow him across two continents to the bitter end.
One such early recruit was the Caucasian assistant pastor Jack Beam, an employee of a local pharmaceutical company. Beam was a tough, abrasive personality. He was Jones' second-in-command, bodyguard, strongarm man and assistant in the faith healings. In the technique of interrogation known as "good cop, bad cop", Beam was the bad cop; the threat of violence if the manipulated subject did not comply with the wishes of the good cop Jim Jones. Beam provided Jones with the ability to intimidate any Black parishioner who stepped out of line or strayed from the flock without tarnishing his own benevolent image. Virginia Morningstar later summarized the Blacks' generally accepted impressions of Beam, "I always felt as if he (Beam) was a hit man… I never felt he was legitimate".
Most of the early followers were recruited from other churches. Jones would target a desirable congregation and arrange to bring a contingent of his followers to their services. As was the custom, Jones would give a guest sermon and the hosting minister would reciprocate the following Sunday when he would escort some of his congregation to services at the Community Unity. Many visiting parishioners left their previous church to return to the Community Unity which attests to Jones' superior talents. Many others were drawn to Jones through his weekly broadcasts on radio WPFB in Middletown, Ohio. During this period, he often looked east to Ohio for new followers. Perhaps it was the larger Black population or the predominant German population or the federal jurisdiction over his interstate business that made Ohio attractive, but regardless, it shows how Jones was reaching out for a select congregation rather than broadening his ministry in order to attract more local Indianapolis residents. In 1954 and 1955, Jones toured the small towns between Cincinnati and Columbus with a traveling revival show held in local Pentecostal churches or under the circusy atmosphere of a rented tent. He recruited a strong following in Xenia, Dayton and Hamilton and many followed him back across the state line to Indianapolis.
Jones rarely, if ever, mentioned the word "God", except in later years when he cursed what he called the "Impotent Sky God". His sermons were more apt to quote the newspaper than the Bible. His was a ministry of current events; a down-to-earth religion; more concerned with pleasing the federal government's requirements to receive financial support than pleasing God for some afterlife reward. The Community Unity, like his subsequent churches, was more political and social than religious. Even according to Jones' own account it was not a church but a "movement". Meanwhile, the Jones household grew as fast as the congregation. A middle-aged woman named Esther Mueller moved in to help Marceline with the housework. She would cook and clean and remain their personal maid until her death in Guyana. An eighteen-year-old blonde girl, described only as "Goldie", was another addition to the family. Her relationship with Jim and Marceline has never been established beyond one report that the couple was helping her to start a career in nursing. In 1954, the Joneses adopted a pretty nine-year-old girl named Agnes whose mother had unexplainably given up her daughter to the young preacher and his wife.
By 1956, Jones had amassed sufficient funds to purchase a modest church building on Fifteenth and North New Jersey Streets in an inner-city neighbourhood of Indianapolis. He named his new headquarters the "Wings of Deliverance". Of course, Sunday was his busy day. At 8 AM he would broadcast a short sermon on radio WOWO in Fort Wayne. The regular service at the Wings of Deliverance was 10:45 AM. The miracle service, which included the faith healings, was scheduled for 2:30 PM. The evangelistic service was held at 7:45 PM, followed by an evening sermon broadcast on WIBC in Indianapolis. The different services allowed Jones to reach more people than his little church could hold, while the individual theme of each performance enabled him to attract and please a variety of believers.
Shortly after the Wings of Deliverance opened its doors, Jones organized a huge, five day religious convention that was held in an Indianapolis hall in June of 1956. Headlining the bill was the popular Southern author and faith healing evangelist, the Reverend Bill Branham, and, of course, the aspiring young preacher Jim Jones, who sacrificed top billing for the sizable crowds that Branham would attract. The event was widely publicized and drew some eleven thousand to the opening ceremonies. As usual, Jones stole the show and the new parishioners he recruited into his flock were exceeded only by the dollars he put into his pocket. It was at this convention in the summer of 1956 that the Wings of Deliverance became the Peoples Temple Full Gospel Church, and the odyssey began.
Jones preached an anti-communism doctrine that reflected the philosophy of the McCarthy Era in general, and the KKK and the American Nazi Party in particular. Though in retrospect it might seem a bit absurd, Jones' stated campaign was to fight communism through communalism. He made reference to the communal lifestyle of Christ's apostles, and quoted such passages from the Bible as, "And they sold their possessions and goods and imparted them to every man as every man had need". He established Jim/Lu/Mar, an Indiana corporation for profit owned by Jim, his mother, and his wife. The corporation's charter states that its purpose was to receive donations of real estate. Like many others, Esther Mueller donated her home and possessions in exchange for Jones' promise to provide her needs for life. Esther alone contributed $27,000; a considerable sum in 1950 dollars.
So much money flowed into the Peoples Temple that, within a year, Jones purchased a second, more impressive church building on Tenth and North Delaware Streets in a nicer neighbourhood of Indianapolis. The massive front steps, the three-storey façade, the stained glass window and uptown address was a quantum leap forward in the young preacher's career, especially since he did it all on his own, without help from any established denomination. The new Peoples Temple seated 400 and the adjacent brick parsonage was large enough to one day house forty. Jones had purchased the property from Rabbi Maurice Davis for fifty thousand dollars. He took possession of the building with a small down payment and a promise to pay the balance, interest-free, in one year's time. He did so 364 days later. Jones would purchase two other church properties in his career. Both the Peoples Temple in San Francisco and Los Angeles were, like the first in Indianapolis, former Jewish synagogues. This defies all probable odds and leaves one to wonder what made former synagogues so attractive to Jones. Perhaps it was the church-like atmosphere, but with geometric designs in the stained glass instead of portrayals of Christian Saints. Jones liked the eternal flame that was left by the previous tenants. He kept it lit in place of the traditional Christian cross. The Peoples Temple was not a Christian religion. There is convincing evidence that it was not even a religion, but it is unclear why Jones was attracted to former Jewish temples; an interesting pattern for a closet racist whose favourite subject was Nazi Germany.
In mid 1958, Jones set out to help the federal government solve a very serious problem. During the Korean War, American servicemen had fathered many children who had been abandoned both by their fathers (who returned to the States) and their mothers, many of whom were prostitutes. The illegitimate children had been remanded to special orphanages in Seoul. The government of South Korea expressed its discontent to Washington over the burden of supporting their children, and warned the U.S. that the racially-mixed orphans would never be accepted in Korean society as Korean racial prejudices are extreme by American standards. They would probably die from neglect in the orphanage unless the U.S. took them in. The scenario would be repeated twenty years later in the wake of the Vietnam War, but this was the first time Washington had to deal with it and individual adoption seemed the only solution. From his pulpit at the Peoples Temple, Jones encouraged his congregation to adopt these war babies and, to set a good example, he and Marceline travelled to the West Coast in October of 1958, to adopt two orphans sent from Seoul to California. The newest additions to the Jones family were four-year-old Stephanie, and two-year-old Chioke who they renamed Lew Eric. During this, their first trip to California, Marceline conceived their only child. In May of the following year, Marceline was eight months pregnant and stayed behind as Jim, Stephanie and a contingent of supporters travelled to Cincinnatti for one of their exchange services. On the way back home, Jones rode in one car, which young Stephanie rode in another car with Mable Stewart, the Temple's nursing home supervisor, and four of her workers. All six would die in a car crash of undetermined cause. Jones would lament over the deaths for years to come. He would recall a premonition he had received earlier that evening which prompted him to lead the Cincinnati congregation in a chorus of,
On up the road
Far in the distance
I saw a light shining in the night…
Then I knew…
Biographers would later claim that Jones sabotaged the car to silence Mable Stewart and her assistants who had been questioning the untimely deaths of several senior parishioners Jones had placed in their care. The death of young Stephanie exempted Jones from any suspicion and , if he did actually sabotage the car, that was probably the reason he wanted his daughter to ride with Mable Stewart. Jones, if only in later years, was capable of murder. Three weeks after the accident, on June 1[SUP]st[/SUP], 1959, Marceline gave birth to Stephan Gandhi Jones, named for Stephanie and the East Indian leader. Within the year, the Joneses would adopt another child; a Black baby boy about Stephanie's age who they named James Warren Jones Jr. Later they adopted Suzanne, another Korean War orphan and Tim Tupper, a blue-eyed blond who completed what Jones proudly called his "Rainbow Family".
Once he had attracted a sizeable Black congregation, Jones knew that he had to do something spectacular to keep them in the fold, and that nothing could bind a group together like the threat of a common enemy. Since none existed, he created one. Temple members began receiving late night phone calls and anonymous letters that warned the parishioners that their affiliation with the racially-integrated Peoples Temple had put them at odds with the powerful Ku Klux Klan and the Nazi Party. Several Temple services were interrupted while Jones emptied the building after allegedly receiving a bomb threat. All the threats were staged to create the image that some unseen "bad people" were threatening the "good people", led by Jim Jones (who went so far as to paint swastikas and racial insults on the homes of his Black followers). The fake threats served to blind the Black congregation together under the leadership of their new hero, but the overall effect was to disguise what was essentially a Caucasian experiment in the control of Blacks.
By 1960, the Temple's social programs exceeded those offered by the city of Indianapolis. Jones had opened a free soup kitchen that served one hundred meals a day to the city's destitute. He established a youth center to educate and entertain idle teenagers and several nursing care homes for the elderly; at least those who had a house to donate and a pension to support them. The social programs provided good publicity and implied the Temple's sense of social conscience and wholesome community spirit, when in reality the programs were profit-making businesses. Jones allocated only $25 a week to the soup kitchen. Temple volunteers gleaned over-ripened, stale and discarded food from local businesses, turning the losses of local grocers into tax-deductible, charitable contributions. All food stores, restaurants included, throw away everything from bones and meat scraps to dented cans and bruised produce. The Temple offered the businessman a grossly inflated tax deduction for what would have been his loss. A good example might be a grocer who was stuck with a hundred dollars worth of bananas that had spoiled. The Temple allowed him to turn a hundred dollar loss into a five hundred dollar tax deduction while they used the free bananas to make pudding for the soup kitchen and the nursing homes that received most of the donated food. Meanwhile, Jones used the inflated needs of the free soup kitchen to exact hundreds of dollars from anyone who pitied the poor. The youth centre often provided able-bodied slave labourers, but the most profitable program was the nursing home business. Elderly victims, hand-picked by Jones, would donate their houses, savings and pensions to Jim/Lu/Mar in exchange for the companionship, security and attention they needed in their later years. The major advantage to Jones was that most of the money was paid in advance for the long-term services that never equalled the cost and continued only as long as the patient lived. Many residents of Temple nursing homes would die prematurely under suspicious circumstances. Twenty-four such seniors lived in Jones' home that had been partially converted into a care facility managed by Marceline's parents. Walter Baldwin had taken an early retirement from politics to live with his daughter and son-in-law and run their business as the Joneses were getting ready to leave Indianapolis. The Baldwins would be semi-involved in the Peoples Temple for the next eighteen years until, on the final day, they departed Jonestown as Congressman Ryan arrived.
It is easy to view Jones as a showman, a trickster and a crook but, despite his often brutal extortion tactics, he was not interested in personal financial gain. He never spent the money on himself. He did buy a used black limousine, but that was expected, especially at funeral services. His clothes were old, he had no expensive habits like drinking or smoking, he led an austere life and reinvested all the profits into the Temple and his growing household. Jones did not desire money; he wanted power. In the end, his personal reward was not money but a bountiful sex life.
News of Jones' alleged good work spread and, in 1960, the Peoples Temple was accepted into the Christian Church, Disciples of Christ denomination; a distinction they would enjoy until the end. The affiliation with the Disciples of Christ would provide some capital and the much needed security of a well-established tax-exempt status.
By all accounts, Jones was truly brilliant. He was extremely intelligent, well-read, and highly skilled in perception and deception. Everyone respected his abilities. To the Blacks he was a White messiah whose miracles were evidence of his alleged close relationship with God. He was equally admired by his Caucasian assistants, not for his demi-divinity, but for this talent to attract, organize, control and deceive Black people; a rare ability for a White man. Sometime prior to 1960, Jones' work caught the attention of the Central Intelligence Agency. Always on the lookout for talented people to recruit, the federal agency recognized Jones' power over Blacks and offered to help in his career in exchange for his services rendered. He may not have had a choice but, in any event, Jim Jones joined the CIA.
Lynetta Putnam was born on April 16[SUP]th[/SUP], 1902 in a small settlement on the Wabash River in Southwestern Indiana, though this cannot be confirmed as all records of her birth have been lost. Little is known of Lynetta's early life. Reports are vague and sometimes contradictory but it is known she was a breed apart from others of her generation. As her contemporaries enjoyed the frivolity of the Roaring Twenties, Lynetta pursued a college degree with a headstrong aggression that was her predominant trait. She attended Jonesboro Agricultural College in Arkansas, followed by two years at Lockyear Business college. Though she was better educated than most men of her time, Lynetta abandoned plans for a career in business for a short-lived stay in the field of anthropology. Not content to be an "armchair anthropologist" and determined to prove she was as capable as any male counterpart, she aspired to study primitive Black African tribes. She worked hard and her dream came true when, still in her mid-twenties, she travelled to a tiny African village. Had she pursued this career, Lynetta may have reached the prominence of Margaret Mead or one of her other, more successful colleagues; but Lynetta had yet another calling. As she lay sleeping in an African hut, a recurring dream beckoned her to return to the United States. In the dream, her deceased mother advised her to marry as she was destined to bear a son; a messiah who would right the wrongs of the world. Perhaps the dream was only a manifestation of some deep fear that she was growing too old to bear children but, regardless, Lynetta left Africa and returned to Indiana to marry a most unlikely mate, James Thurmond Jones, a semi-invalid, sixteen years her senior. He was forty-three, she was twenty-seven.
James T. Jones, a resident of the east Indiana hamlet of Crete, came from a family of Quakers. While serving in France during World War I, he was a casualty of chemical warfare. Mustard gas had scarred his lungs for life. He worked, when he was able, on farm, road and railroad crews but he spent most of his time alone in his house or at the local Veteran's Administration Hospital, as even the slightest exertion would leave him breathless. By most accounts, he was an uneducated, ill-mannered, bad tempered loner and a known member of the Ku Klux Klan. His position in the KKK may have been of some significance as the organization's national headquarters was only seventy miles away in Indianapolis.
So the aggressive, well-educated anthropologist gave up her work in Africa to marry and help support a semi-invalid pensioner sixteen years her senior, whose only interest in society was his involvement in the racist Ku Klux Klan. It would appear that the marriage was a terrible mismatch. Actually, James and Lynetta shared only two things in common; their interest in the Black race and their only son, born May 13[SUP]th[/SUP], 1931, James Warren Jones. It would seem that the child's destiny was set at birth.
Crete, Indiana was no more than six dilapidated farmhouses surrounding a grain elevator owned by Lynetta's foster grandfather and surrogate father, Lewis Parker. The newlyweds farmed a small plot of land that was probably a gift from Parker whom Lynetta described as being "generous to a fault". Unfortunately, the produce they grew and James' disabled veteran's pension were not sufficient to support the family. It was the height of the Depression, Parker lost his extensive grain holdings and could no longer help support his granddaughter. Lynetta was forced to get a job but the nearest employment opportunities were five miles west in the small town of Lynn. James' father was also in Lynn, as was the nearest school system; a consideration as "Little Jim" approached school age. James sold the land and the Joneses moved to Lynn, where the local townspeople met a not-so-typical family. No one in Lynn nor in the remaining residents of Crete would remember Lynetta's pregnancy, or the event that was later described as the birth of the anti-Christ.
In Lynn, Big Jim spent most of his days in the pool hall or at home, listening to the Cincinnati Reds game on the radio or just sleeping. His nights were a mixture of KKK business and his duties as "Night Marshall"; a title that, along with a gun, had been bestowed on him by the town fathers. Almost everyone avoided Big Jim. Lynetta was never accepted by the local women. She was the bread-winner in her family, not the bread-baker. She was too aggressive, too rough, nearly masculine in her dress and manner. She enjoyed taunting the neighbour wives by rolling her own cigarettes and defiantly puffing as she passed the appalled spectators. Above all, she was known for her foul disposition and abusive language. Lynetta could swear better than any man in town. Little Jim was different too. His head of thick blue-black hair stood out in a community populated by blond Germans, most of whom worked in the town's predominant industry; casketmaking. There was talk that Lynetta was part American Indian, or that the child's true father was a Black man. One surviving account contends that Lynetta was married, not at age twenty-seven, but at age twenty-nine. She turned twenty-nine one month before delivering Little Jim. Though just small town gossip, the accusations might have been serious in Lynn where it was the unwritten law that Blacks, Indians and Catholics were not welcomed. To this day, that part of the country is still extremely racist. A common sight along the highway are billboards proclaiming the righteousness of the Ku Klux Klan and the popular slogan, "Nigger don't let the sun set on you here". When the sun did set, it was the night marshall's job to enforce the unwritten law. Big Jim did his duty, and Little Jim was twelve years old before he even saw a Black person.
Little Jim completed his first eleven years of education at the Washington Township School where his teachers remember him as a bright but devilish organizer with a foul mouth, no doubt inherited from his mother. Lynetta's example was not all bad. She had taught little Jim not only how to read, but to read. By the third grade he was signing out books from the library that were intended for high school students. He was rarely seen without a book in his hand and it was not just for show. Even in grammar school, it was said that he was more knowledgeable than some of his teachers. Medicine, psychology and Nazi Germany were his favourite subjects. Though his IQ score was well above average at 120, Jim's grades were not outstanding. School work bored him, while the world he discovered in books urged him on to bigger things. Even at this early age, he was more of an adult than a child.
Lynetta had worked in a variety of odd jobs before settling on a position in an auto/aircraft engine assembly plant twenty miles south in Richmond. Since she was gone for most of the day and Big Jim was absolutely no help, Little Jim was sent to a neighbour woman who babysat the child after school. It has been said that Jim was raised as a Methodist, but neither Lynetta nor Big Jim attended any church. It was the neighbour woman, Mrs. Myrtle Kennedy, who instilled a fiery religious belief in the boy, or at least that is what Jim would say about his "second mother". Actually, Jim was never intrigued by Mrs. Kennedy's Bible stories as much as he was intrigued with the power religion exerted over her. He wondered why she donated her time to teach Bible classes at the Methodist Church, or why her husband gave up his weekends to help maintain the church properly. Jim learned his lessons, but he learned more about people than he did about the Bible. During this period he began to indiscriminately tour the local churches. He could be seen with the Methodists or the Quakers or the Nazarenes, or the Disciples of Christ or the Pentecostalists. The wife of the local Pentecostal minister befriended Little Jim and he was often seen at her home, reading the Bible and practicing what she saw as his tremendous talent as a preacher. Jim's childhood was spent studying religion from every possible angle.
Little Jim conducted his first "pretend church" in the loft of a carriage house in his back yard. He would gather together the neighbourhood children and officiate at services that were a combination science fair and revival. Jim sat, like a judge, in the only chair while the others gathered round the table to examine a slide in his microscope or the chicken to which he had tried to graft a duck's leg. Sometimes he preached from the Bible, sometimes he helped them with their homework or conducted funerals for their deceased pets, some of which he had killed just to create the services in which he would be in charge. A neighbour, at the time, later recalled Little Jim's "pretend church",
He would preach a good sermon. I remember working about two hundred feet from the Jones place. He would have about ten youngsters in there, and he would put them through their paces… line them up and make them march. He'd hit them with a stick and they'd scream and cry. I used to say, What's wrong with those other kids, putting up with it?' But they'd come back to play with him the next day. He had some kind of magnetism. I told my wife, You know he's either going to do a lot of good or he's going to end up like Hitler'.
Hitler could hardly have escaped the attention of the German population of Lynn in the late thirties, nor could he be a stranger to the impressionable young boy who studied Nazi Germany before the war. Little Jim often mimicked Hitler, slicking his hair to one side and awaiting the "Heil, Hitler" password that would admit a playmate into the loft. Other times, he wore a white, hooded robe, like his father's KKK outfit but, unlike his father, Little Jim would parade in his costume during the light of day. There has never been any evidence to suggest a local Nazi Party influence on either Big or Little Jim, but there is no doubt that Little Jim embraced the Nazi philosophy, at least from a distance. It was more than just play. He studied and understood the Nazis. Understanding world politics, even having an interest in the subject is extremely rare for a little boy, and though he was an adult in many ways, Little Jim was only just a boy.
The Joneses never had much money. There was only Big Jim's pension and Lynetta's pay from the factory that had since shifted operations to fill defence contracts during World War II. Between the two incomes they were able to raise Little Jim, whose childhood was at least indirectly funded by the War Department. Big Jim's brother, Bill, tried to help. He lived with the Joneses until he reportedly fell to his death from the G Street Bridge in Richmond. Years later, Lynetta would claim that Uncle Bill had been murdered.
Soon after the war, toward the end of Jim's junior year in high school, Lynetta and Big Jim separated. They never had much of a marriage. They had always slept in separate beds, some said due to Big Jim's coughing spells, but moreover theirs was but a marriage of convenience held together and perhaps even prompted by the sake of the child Jim. Now that he was close to finishing school and capable of earning a living, there was no further need for the charade. Big Jim moved into a room at the Waldon Hotel in Lynn where he died three years later. Lynetta and son moved to Richmond where Jim enrolled as a senior at Richmond High School and accepted a full time position as an orderly at Reid Memorial Mental Hospital. After a year as both a full time student and orderly, Jim graduated in mid-semester, and the announcement in the Richmond High School Year Book attests to his interest in medicine, "Jim's six syllable medical vocabulary astounds us all". While working at Reid Memorial, Jim met Marceline Baldwin, a nurse four years older than he, who had graduated from a federally-funded program to work at the hospital. Marceline and her roommate, Evelyn Eadler, were often seen in the company of young Jones in Richmond's coffee shops and movie theatres. On June 12[SUP]th[/SUP], 1949, soon after his graduation, Jim and Marceline were married in a double ceremony with Marceline's sister and her groom. Evelyn Eadler was the maid of honor. The bride's father, Walter Baldwin, was a respected Republican city council member and the wedding, held at the Methodist church where he was known as an elder, was attended by the mayor and the city fathers of Richmond. Immediately following the ceremony, without so much as a honeymoon evening, the newlyweds moved to Bloomington where Jim had enrolled in Indiana University as a business major. He had been rooming with a student who later remembered him as "maladjusted"; an embarrassment who was generally ignored by the other students. Jim continued his studies while Marceline supported the couple, working nights in surgery in the hospital across the street from their one room apartment. She spent her days taking care of their home and studying for her credentials in nursing education. After completing three semesters on the Bloomington campus, Jones decided to change his major to the social services and move to Indianapolis to pursue a law degree. This was a critical point in Jim's (or any other young man's) life, when thoughts of the future encouraged him to set a course. Instead of concentrating on one of his interests, Jim decided to pursue them all in a unique career. He would combine his interest in science, medicine, religion, business, social services and law to become a faith healing preacher. There were many such evangelists, but none who were as intelligent, talented or knowledgeable as Jim Jones. It will never be known whether the sum total of his interests and experience dictated his career choice, or the career choice had guided him through the various experiences on the way to a pre-determined goal. It suffices to say he was perfect for the job. Jones saw more than just the Cadillacs, flashy clothes, power, money, religious groupies and the other benefits of the occupation. With his background in science and medicine, he knew what experts have since discovered; the power of the emotions and spirit to heal the body. Jones was well ahead of the times as this holistic approach to medicine would not be accepted until years later through the combined efforts of scientists and evangelists, such as President Carter's sister, Ruth Carter Stapleton. Most of Jones's faith healings were faked stage shows but that should not discount his desire and ability to study the subject from a scientific point of view.
Ronnie Baldwin, Marceline's ten-year-old cousin, came to live with the Joneses in their small apartment behind the Shriner's Temple in Indianapolis. Ronnie had been remanded to a foster care home after the untimely death of his father. His mother, it was said, was "incapable" of caring for the boy. Ronnie would remain with the Joneses for about a year, during which time Jim used the boy to create the image that he was a family man, which helped to dispel some of the suspicion associated with being the only White face in a Black crowd. Since Marceline supported the family, Jim was free to attend classes, lectures and church services. He attended Black church services with young Ronnie who, after a year of being dragged from one Black church to another, was only too glad to move back with his mother. Jones studied the various techniques of Black ministers and preachers while attending Butler University part time. It would take him ten years to earn a bachelor's degree in education.
Jones helped supplement Marceline's income by working part time as a night watchman. Like his father, he carried a revolver, and like his father he carried it to enforce law and order which, considering the place and time, carried with it an extreme prejudice against communists and Blacks. On one occasion, he and Ronnie, hand-in-hand, attended a lecture on communism that he promptly left after being told the meeting was under surveillance by the FBI. It was the McCarthy Era and there were many such communist witchhunts, especially in right-wing, KKK country like Indianapolis. Considering his later work, the incident raises a question as to whether Jones was afraid of being spied on, or afraid of being exposed as a spy. The incident, which occurred in 1952, may well be the first recorded report of Jim Jones' work for government intelligence.
In June of 1952, Jones officially entered the ministry when he accepted a position as student pastor at Somerset Methodist Church in a poor, White neighbourhood of Indianapolis. He studied for the Methodist ministry and preached a doctrine of racial equality that alienated the exclusively White congregation but attracted new Black parishioners to the services. He had met many Black church-goers while touring the Negro houses of worship with young Ronnie. He invited all to come and hear him preach at Somerset. Many did and the conservative church elders asked Jones to resign. He did.
Meanwhile, Jones had been establishing a name for himself at church conventions in Columbus and Detroit. Even under the scrutiny of fellow preachers, he stole the show. He was a spell-binding orator with a particular talent to "discern"; a popular revivalist's trick. Jones would call out the names of various people in the audience and discern some secret about them. He would reveal their phone number or some physical complaint or past illness. The subject would step forward and the young preacher would pray for them and, with a slap on the forehead, they would "fall out"; a phenomenon that is a combination of emotional overload and a severe blow to the head. Some would rise immediately, brush themselves off, and return to their pew, while others would lie on the floor for hours, quietly or in convulsions.
Following the theatrics, the collection plate would be passed through the faithful. All the ministry know that discerning is a hoax, but they admired Jones' skill, his style of showmanship and extraordinary memory, to say nothing of the professional detective work it required to gain the discerned information without the subject's knowledge. Jones was great. He could repeat social security, insurance policy and driver's license numbers for dozens of people, all from memory. Never once in his career did he speak from notes. Perhaps his success was due in part to his access to government files.
While researching the discerned information, occasionally, Jones would discover that the subject had recently complained of some ailment. A prime example was the elderly, somewhat feeble Black woman who had complained to a doctor about a sore throat. The information may have come from the doctor's office, or the pharmacy, or from Marceline at the local hospital, but in any event, Jones would call out her name during the services and discern something that impressed the congregation. He would then claim that through the divine intervention of the Holy Spirit he had a revelation that she had cancer of the throat. Religious fanaticism aside, the subject would tend to believe him, especially in the wake of her recent complaint and his uncanny knowledge of information contained in the most personal files. She would come forward and Jones or Marceline or some other Caucasian aide would force their fingers down the subject's throat until she choked and gagged. Through slight of hand they would emerge from the clutch with the "cancer"; a spoiled chicken liver dripping with blood from a concealed capsule. It was all very authentic, even the blood was real, having been drawn from Jones or an aide prior to the show. Cancer passings were common practice. In addition to throat cancer, there was a rectal passing as well but, like the violence in a Greek play, it was performed off stage and left to the audience's imagination.
Jones worked his Black congregation into such a fury that each healing was an outburst of emotion that electrified the air. Of course the collection plate was circulated immediately. The money was counted in a back room while things calmed down on stage. An aide would whisper the total to Jones in the pulpit who would select another subject, pass another cancer and pass another collection plate. The series would continue, sometimes for several hours, until the total donations equalled the estimated total contents of their pockets.
Many of the faith healings were performed on and by the preacher's assistants in disguise, especially when Jones took his show on the road to Ohio where the locals were less likely to recognize the accomplice. The most convincing healings were those in which the subject was an innocent believer. Their spontaneous emotion was far more effective than anything that could be staged.
After being forced out of Somerset Methodist in 1954, Jones rented an abandoned church building in a poor neighbourhood of Indianapolis. He dubbed his first business the "Community Unity" and, as the name implies, it was more of a social services office than a church. He had conducted services in the loft as a child and in borrowed churches, on street corners and in backyards since, but now he had a pulpit of his own. The Community Unity defies description. Even though some worshipped there on Sunday, it was not a church, it was not recognized by any denomination nor was Jones an ordained minister; he would not be for another eight years. The Community Unity defies description.
No one would argue with the fact that Jones was a brilliant religious showman, whose talent in the pulpit could have been successful with any demographic, but Jones never tried to recruit wealthy Caucasians; he wanted an exclusively Black congregation. By almost all accounts, his congregation was both Black and White (and later Native American) but this multi-racial image is simply not true. His organization resembled the caste system of ancient Egypt. The capstone at the peak of the pyramid was the pharaoh, everything and everyone else existed to support him. The next lower level consisted of a group of priests, physicians and merchants who carried out the pharaoh's will and knew some of the state secrets. Below them was a larger group of slaves who comprised the broad foundation for this social structure modelled after the design of the pyramids. Jones, of course, was the pharaoh. Below him was a group of several dozen trusted aides; the middle management, the spies who collected the "discerned" information and the medical technicians who drew the blood and prepared the rancid chicken livers for the phony faith healings. They were all Caucasian. Below them was the largest group; the congregation, and they were all Black. Jones did use his White lieutenants to his advantage but the primary purpose of his work was to extort money from the Blacks. Everyone admired him; the Blacks for his self-proclaimed divinity, and the Whites for his ability to convince the Blacks of his divinity and fleece their pockets at the same time. Everyone admired him, and many of these early recruits would follow him across two continents to the bitter end.
One such early recruit was the Caucasian assistant pastor Jack Beam, an employee of a local pharmaceutical company. Beam was a tough, abrasive personality. He was Jones' second-in-command, bodyguard, strongarm man and assistant in the faith healings. In the technique of interrogation known as "good cop, bad cop", Beam was the bad cop; the threat of violence if the manipulated subject did not comply with the wishes of the good cop Jim Jones. Beam provided Jones with the ability to intimidate any Black parishioner who stepped out of line or strayed from the flock without tarnishing his own benevolent image. Virginia Morningstar later summarized the Blacks' generally accepted impressions of Beam, "I always felt as if he (Beam) was a hit man… I never felt he was legitimate".
Most of the early followers were recruited from other churches. Jones would target a desirable congregation and arrange to bring a contingent of his followers to their services. As was the custom, Jones would give a guest sermon and the hosting minister would reciprocate the following Sunday when he would escort some of his congregation to services at the Community Unity. Many visiting parishioners left their previous church to return to the Community Unity which attests to Jones' superior talents. Many others were drawn to Jones through his weekly broadcasts on radio WPFB in Middletown, Ohio. During this period, he often looked east to Ohio for new followers. Perhaps it was the larger Black population or the predominant German population or the federal jurisdiction over his interstate business that made Ohio attractive, but regardless, it shows how Jones was reaching out for a select congregation rather than broadening his ministry in order to attract more local Indianapolis residents. In 1954 and 1955, Jones toured the small towns between Cincinnati and Columbus with a traveling revival show held in local Pentecostal churches or under the circusy atmosphere of a rented tent. He recruited a strong following in Xenia, Dayton and Hamilton and many followed him back across the state line to Indianapolis.
Jones rarely, if ever, mentioned the word "God", except in later years when he cursed what he called the "Impotent Sky God". His sermons were more apt to quote the newspaper than the Bible. His was a ministry of current events; a down-to-earth religion; more concerned with pleasing the federal government's requirements to receive financial support than pleasing God for some afterlife reward. The Community Unity, like his subsequent churches, was more political and social than religious. Even according to Jones' own account it was not a church but a "movement". Meanwhile, the Jones household grew as fast as the congregation. A middle-aged woman named Esther Mueller moved in to help Marceline with the housework. She would cook and clean and remain their personal maid until her death in Guyana. An eighteen-year-old blonde girl, described only as "Goldie", was another addition to the family. Her relationship with Jim and Marceline has never been established beyond one report that the couple was helping her to start a career in nursing. In 1954, the Joneses adopted a pretty nine-year-old girl named Agnes whose mother had unexplainably given up her daughter to the young preacher and his wife.
By 1956, Jones had amassed sufficient funds to purchase a modest church building on Fifteenth and North New Jersey Streets in an inner-city neighbourhood of Indianapolis. He named his new headquarters the "Wings of Deliverance". Of course, Sunday was his busy day. At 8 AM he would broadcast a short sermon on radio WOWO in Fort Wayne. The regular service at the Wings of Deliverance was 10:45 AM. The miracle service, which included the faith healings, was scheduled for 2:30 PM. The evangelistic service was held at 7:45 PM, followed by an evening sermon broadcast on WIBC in Indianapolis. The different services allowed Jones to reach more people than his little church could hold, while the individual theme of each performance enabled him to attract and please a variety of believers.
Shortly after the Wings of Deliverance opened its doors, Jones organized a huge, five day religious convention that was held in an Indianapolis hall in June of 1956. Headlining the bill was the popular Southern author and faith healing evangelist, the Reverend Bill Branham, and, of course, the aspiring young preacher Jim Jones, who sacrificed top billing for the sizable crowds that Branham would attract. The event was widely publicized and drew some eleven thousand to the opening ceremonies. As usual, Jones stole the show and the new parishioners he recruited into his flock were exceeded only by the dollars he put into his pocket. It was at this convention in the summer of 1956 that the Wings of Deliverance became the Peoples Temple Full Gospel Church, and the odyssey began.
Jones preached an anti-communism doctrine that reflected the philosophy of the McCarthy Era in general, and the KKK and the American Nazi Party in particular. Though in retrospect it might seem a bit absurd, Jones' stated campaign was to fight communism through communalism. He made reference to the communal lifestyle of Christ's apostles, and quoted such passages from the Bible as, "And they sold their possessions and goods and imparted them to every man as every man had need". He established Jim/Lu/Mar, an Indiana corporation for profit owned by Jim, his mother, and his wife. The corporation's charter states that its purpose was to receive donations of real estate. Like many others, Esther Mueller donated her home and possessions in exchange for Jones' promise to provide her needs for life. Esther alone contributed $27,000; a considerable sum in 1950 dollars.
So much money flowed into the Peoples Temple that, within a year, Jones purchased a second, more impressive church building on Tenth and North Delaware Streets in a nicer neighbourhood of Indianapolis. The massive front steps, the three-storey façade, the stained glass window and uptown address was a quantum leap forward in the young preacher's career, especially since he did it all on his own, without help from any established denomination. The new Peoples Temple seated 400 and the adjacent brick parsonage was large enough to one day house forty. Jones had purchased the property from Rabbi Maurice Davis for fifty thousand dollars. He took possession of the building with a small down payment and a promise to pay the balance, interest-free, in one year's time. He did so 364 days later. Jones would purchase two other church properties in his career. Both the Peoples Temple in San Francisco and Los Angeles were, like the first in Indianapolis, former Jewish synagogues. This defies all probable odds and leaves one to wonder what made former synagogues so attractive to Jones. Perhaps it was the church-like atmosphere, but with geometric designs in the stained glass instead of portrayals of Christian Saints. Jones liked the eternal flame that was left by the previous tenants. He kept it lit in place of the traditional Christian cross. The Peoples Temple was not a Christian religion. There is convincing evidence that it was not even a religion, but it is unclear why Jones was attracted to former Jewish temples; an interesting pattern for a closet racist whose favourite subject was Nazi Germany.
In mid 1958, Jones set out to help the federal government solve a very serious problem. During the Korean War, American servicemen had fathered many children who had been abandoned both by their fathers (who returned to the States) and their mothers, many of whom were prostitutes. The illegitimate children had been remanded to special orphanages in Seoul. The government of South Korea expressed its discontent to Washington over the burden of supporting their children, and warned the U.S. that the racially-mixed orphans would never be accepted in Korean society as Korean racial prejudices are extreme by American standards. They would probably die from neglect in the orphanage unless the U.S. took them in. The scenario would be repeated twenty years later in the wake of the Vietnam War, but this was the first time Washington had to deal with it and individual adoption seemed the only solution. From his pulpit at the Peoples Temple, Jones encouraged his congregation to adopt these war babies and, to set a good example, he and Marceline travelled to the West Coast in October of 1958, to adopt two orphans sent from Seoul to California. The newest additions to the Jones family were four-year-old Stephanie, and two-year-old Chioke who they renamed Lew Eric. During this, their first trip to California, Marceline conceived their only child. In May of the following year, Marceline was eight months pregnant and stayed behind as Jim, Stephanie and a contingent of supporters travelled to Cincinnatti for one of their exchange services. On the way back home, Jones rode in one car, which young Stephanie rode in another car with Mable Stewart, the Temple's nursing home supervisor, and four of her workers. All six would die in a car crash of undetermined cause. Jones would lament over the deaths for years to come. He would recall a premonition he had received earlier that evening which prompted him to lead the Cincinnati congregation in a chorus of,
On up the road
Far in the distance
I saw a light shining in the night…
Then I knew…
Biographers would later claim that Jones sabotaged the car to silence Mable Stewart and her assistants who had been questioning the untimely deaths of several senior parishioners Jones had placed in their care. The death of young Stephanie exempted Jones from any suspicion and , if he did actually sabotage the car, that was probably the reason he wanted his daughter to ride with Mable Stewart. Jones, if only in later years, was capable of murder. Three weeks after the accident, on June 1[SUP]st[/SUP], 1959, Marceline gave birth to Stephan Gandhi Jones, named for Stephanie and the East Indian leader. Within the year, the Joneses would adopt another child; a Black baby boy about Stephanie's age who they named James Warren Jones Jr. Later they adopted Suzanne, another Korean War orphan and Tim Tupper, a blue-eyed blond who completed what Jones proudly called his "Rainbow Family".
Once he had attracted a sizeable Black congregation, Jones knew that he had to do something spectacular to keep them in the fold, and that nothing could bind a group together like the threat of a common enemy. Since none existed, he created one. Temple members began receiving late night phone calls and anonymous letters that warned the parishioners that their affiliation with the racially-integrated Peoples Temple had put them at odds with the powerful Ku Klux Klan and the Nazi Party. Several Temple services were interrupted while Jones emptied the building after allegedly receiving a bomb threat. All the threats were staged to create the image that some unseen "bad people" were threatening the "good people", led by Jim Jones (who went so far as to paint swastikas and racial insults on the homes of his Black followers). The fake threats served to blind the Black congregation together under the leadership of their new hero, but the overall effect was to disguise what was essentially a Caucasian experiment in the control of Blacks.
By 1960, the Temple's social programs exceeded those offered by the city of Indianapolis. Jones had opened a free soup kitchen that served one hundred meals a day to the city's destitute. He established a youth center to educate and entertain idle teenagers and several nursing care homes for the elderly; at least those who had a house to donate and a pension to support them. The social programs provided good publicity and implied the Temple's sense of social conscience and wholesome community spirit, when in reality the programs were profit-making businesses. Jones allocated only $25 a week to the soup kitchen. Temple volunteers gleaned over-ripened, stale and discarded food from local businesses, turning the losses of local grocers into tax-deductible, charitable contributions. All food stores, restaurants included, throw away everything from bones and meat scraps to dented cans and bruised produce. The Temple offered the businessman a grossly inflated tax deduction for what would have been his loss. A good example might be a grocer who was stuck with a hundred dollars worth of bananas that had spoiled. The Temple allowed him to turn a hundred dollar loss into a five hundred dollar tax deduction while they used the free bananas to make pudding for the soup kitchen and the nursing homes that received most of the donated food. Meanwhile, Jones used the inflated needs of the free soup kitchen to exact hundreds of dollars from anyone who pitied the poor. The youth centre often provided able-bodied slave labourers, but the most profitable program was the nursing home business. Elderly victims, hand-picked by Jones, would donate their houses, savings and pensions to Jim/Lu/Mar in exchange for the companionship, security and attention they needed in their later years. The major advantage to Jones was that most of the money was paid in advance for the long-term services that never equalled the cost and continued only as long as the patient lived. Many residents of Temple nursing homes would die prematurely under suspicious circumstances. Twenty-four such seniors lived in Jones' home that had been partially converted into a care facility managed by Marceline's parents. Walter Baldwin had taken an early retirement from politics to live with his daughter and son-in-law and run their business as the Joneses were getting ready to leave Indianapolis. The Baldwins would be semi-involved in the Peoples Temple for the next eighteen years until, on the final day, they departed Jonestown as Congressman Ryan arrived.
It is easy to view Jones as a showman, a trickster and a crook but, despite his often brutal extortion tactics, he was not interested in personal financial gain. He never spent the money on himself. He did buy a used black limousine, but that was expected, especially at funeral services. His clothes were old, he had no expensive habits like drinking or smoking, he led an austere life and reinvested all the profits into the Temple and his growing household. Jones did not desire money; he wanted power. In the end, his personal reward was not money but a bountiful sex life.
News of Jones' alleged good work spread and, in 1960, the Peoples Temple was accepted into the Christian Church, Disciples of Christ denomination; a distinction they would enjoy until the end. The affiliation with the Disciples of Christ would provide some capital and the much needed security of a well-established tax-exempt status.
By all accounts, Jones was truly brilliant. He was extremely intelligent, well-read, and highly skilled in perception and deception. Everyone respected his abilities. To the Blacks he was a White messiah whose miracles were evidence of his alleged close relationship with God. He was equally admired by his Caucasian assistants, not for his demi-divinity, but for this talent to attract, organize, control and deceive Black people; a rare ability for a White man. Sometime prior to 1960, Jones' work caught the attention of the Central Intelligence Agency. Always on the lookout for talented people to recruit, the federal agency recognized Jones' power over Blacks and offered to help in his career in exchange for his services rendered. He may not have had a choice but, in any event, Jim Jones joined the CIA.