Stephan comes from the Greek word stephanos, which meaning crown and garland. Gandhi is an Indian term that translates to pharmacist.. We have estimated . He saw that the jungle would make him a man. They divorced when Jordan was 6. To cope, he says he abused drugs and exercised obsessively. Top right: Stephan Jones in Junior High. When Congressman Ryan and his party came to Jonestown, Stephan and the rest of the basketball team was away in Georgetown competing against the local team. But. ". Stephan is the only living son of Jim Jones and his late wife. . "I'd go back in a minute. Jordan Vilchezs parents were Berkeley progressives in the 1960s her father African-American, her mother Scotch-Irish. Forgiveness for the Jonestown Massacre is sought by Stephan Jones. There were many photographs of the bodies, taken from various angles, in color and black and white, and in each photograph, as though defying the viewer even to believe the report of the camera, row upon row of clothed human backs lay swelling in the jungle damp. Eventually, when it came close to poison being rolled out, Stephan muttered, Oh fuck, and Jones jumped on the opportunity, claiming Stephan was too afraid to die, and using that as the redirection to call off the White Night (Reiterman 426). Stephan felt that the attack was real, though he knew his father wasnt above staging such episodes (Reiterman 361). This past year, she returned to long-overgrown Jonestown. He would rise before dawn, pick his way into the bush, and sit without moving as the quiet around him split slowly into bird cries and insect buzzing and the scuffling and calling of creatures he could not see. Stephan was extremely passionate about athletics, participating in track, football, and baseball (Reiterman 181), with his true passion being for basketball, to Jones chagrin (Reiterman 308). His net worth has been growing significantly in 2022-2023. In the days before Ryans fact-finding mission to the settlement, the players were in Georgetown for a tourney with the Guyana national teams. On Nov. 18, the day Rep. Leo Ryan and four others were shot to death on the airstrip at Port Caituma, Guyana, Stephan Jones and his teammates went to the movies in Georgetown. Who did Jim Jones have a son with? ", 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. To just be somewhere with a machete, in khakis, and just decide I wanted to go somewhere and cut myself a trail." OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) Jonestown was the highlight of Mike Touchettes life for a time. Being in Jonestown before Jim got there was the best thing in my life.. He is married to his wife Kristi Jones since 1991. Mr. Jones spent the night there, much of it "in a fetal position, sobbing like a baby, saying prayers, offering apologies." The name Stephan is derived from the Greek word stephanos, which means crown and garland. Gandhi is a phrase from India that means pharmacist., Also Read Leila Arcieri, Angel Adoree, Brendon Burchard, Jozadak. When I left at 21, I left a part of myself there, she said. "I mellowed out." algol in 12th house; michael kroger current partner; daniels funeral home rio rancho obituaries; Now, Stephan Jones is father of three daughters, ages 16, 25 and 29, and works in the office furniture installation business. Everybody did the best with what they had, even my poor, sick, monstrous fraud of a father. Learn How rich is He in this year and how He spends money? Stephan always argued against these plans. They were at a basketball tournament five years ago, in November 1978 when the congressman and the reporters came to Jonestown. I wouldn't have run.". The years have shaped another lesson for Stephan Jones, but it makes him uneasy to talk about it. Only natural son of Rev. Birth: June 1959: Nationality: United States of America: Occupation: Businessperson: Relatives. The minister was famous for his faith healings, which expelled bloody growths from the bodies of the ailing; it was not for many years that Stephan Jones learned about the sleight of hand with raw chicken giblets. "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. ", Today, Mr. Jones realizes "I couldn't have done it any differently. Jim Jones set off one of these panics every few weeks, sometimes keeping people awake all night as he shouted his warnings. He is married to his wife Kristi Jones since 1991. Of course, even if he wanted to forget Jonestown, his name was an ever-present reminder. Cite this record (2003). Jones urged Marceline to ask Stephan to come home early, but he and the rest of the team stayed, enjoying their time (Reiterman 474). He pushes through the crowd, but he cannot get to his father. "He always gave us a hug and a kiss, but it became more mechanical as time went by." Stephan Gandhi Jones is 6-foot-5, lean, broad at the shoulder, olive-eyed, black-haired, handsome as a billboard model. Stephan Gandhi Jones, age 60s, lives in Petaluma, CA. Stephan responded: This is funny. One day, when she was in high school, she came home and told her parents that her religion class had discussed Peoples Temple; only then did her father share the story of how his family was nearly wiped out. Stephans high school experience was marked by grueling weekend temple trips, multiple switches in schools, difficulty making friends outside of the temple, and sports (Reiterman 309). ", Mr. Jones says he hasn't "mourned [his]father's death, but I've certainly come to understand, forgive and to love him. He plays forward. On Nov. 18 she was at the temple house when a fanatical Jones aide received a dire radio message from Jonestown. Jim Jones, pastor of Peoples Temple in San Francisco. She gives us the order that we were supposed to kill ourselves, Vilchez recalled. There is little his father said or taught him then that stays with him now; his memory is of a man wandering around the house in his underwear or his pajamas, sleeping by day, watching the news or "Hogan's Heroes" on television and announcing that he could tell whether his son was lying simply by staring into his eyes. He grew up in Indiana, then eventually moved with the Peoples Temple to Ukiah, California. ", The thought of killing Jim Jones had occurred to his son, but Stephan never tried to do it. He called his church "Peoples Temple"--"Wings of Deliverance" had been tried earlier and discarded. But after temple gunmen killed the congressman, three newsmen and a church defector on the Port Kaituma airstrip, Jones ordered a poisoned grape-flavored drink administered to children first. "I wasn't there," he says. Yet, as he indicated in an interview yesterday, he's also loathe to disavow or ignore it. 15 Children Of Famous Cult Leaders: Where Are They Now. It makes him a little crazy sometimes. When people ask about his past, he says he was "overseas," or "in volunteer service." Jones often tried to involve Stephan in his various deceptions, including one in which Stephan would pretend to be shot while going to greet a lawyer from the U.S. (Reiterman 375), and one in which Stephan would pretend to kidnap John Stoen in a bag and then pretend to rescue him from his assailant (Reiterman 398). It won't work.' He played at school. . In 1954, Jones adopted Agnes Jones, who was part Native American, when she was 11 years old. . Before the White Night of May 13, 1978 (Jones 47th birthday), Stephan argued against his fathers plans to shoot everyone in Jonestown, saying, Do you really think you can take the lives of a thousand people? Stephan believed that church members preferred Jimmy (James Jones Jr.) over him, which sometimes resulted in teasing and fights between the two (Reiterman 104). _taboola.push({ He was right, of course. The only surviving child of Jim Jones, Stephan was born on June 1, 1959, in Indiana, USA. The only surviving child of Jim Jones, Stephan was born on June 1, 1959, in Indiana, USA. [November 2008]. He is married to his wife Kristi Jones since 1991. I see it in politics, I see it in advertising, I see it in a variety of places, and I feel theres no more pernicious or toxic belief than that. The temple was the only life he knew but says he always had his doubts. If anything, we felt pity for him, he said, and it grew into a dislike, maybe hate.. In Ukiah, Stephan tired of the repetitive, high-energy Temple sessions and would sometimes sneak out with his friends and brothers. It was he who dreamed up Jonestown, he who willed it into being, and he who brought it down: first, with the assassination of U.S. Rep. Leo Ryan and four others by temple members on a nearby airstrip on Nov. 18, 1978, then with the mass murders and suicides of hundreds, a horror that remains nearly unimaginable 40 years later. There were times when Jones reassured Stephan, or convinced him that they were a special pair. America was a genuinely unfriendly place for a boy from an interracial family and community, and Jim Jones knew how to fan that into a fear of everything that lay beyond the temple walls. It was he who dreamed up Jonestown, he who willed it into being, and he who brought it down: first, with the assassination of U.S. Rep. Leo Ryan and four others by temple members on a nearby . 1959: The Joneses adopted Suzanne (b. Family (3) Trivia (4) Only natural son of Rev. Prior to Stephan's birth, Jim and Marceline had adopted two children from Korea: a four-year-old named Stephanie and a two-year-old renamed Lew Eric. Although Laotian refugees briefly lived there in the early 1980s, nothing of the original settlement remains. " He smiles, imitates the sudden mask of disbelief. " Instead of finishing high school, Vilchez moved to San Francisco, where she lived in the church. 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. I can't imagine a better grave marker for them.". When he was ordered to Georgetown to help with supply shipments, Smith said he concocted an escape plan: Ollie and other temple singers and dancers, he believed, would soon be sent to Georgetown to perform, and the family would flee to the U.S. Embassy. When he wakes, at dawn or in the middle of the night, it takes him some time to come back. 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