Certain details about the childhood of Jim Jones are clear: he was born in Crete, Indiana to Lynetta and James T. Jones on May 13, 1931; he moved with his mother to Richmond in 1947 and graduated high school in 1949; he married Marceline Baldwin on June 12, 1948.
Though these types of details are fairly well documented, the character and activities of the young Jim Jones are harder to determine. Many stories circulated around Peoples Temple about the antics of the young precocious Jones, yet these stories reflect the common technique of religious historiography that projects the values of the religious community onto the childhood and youth of the groups founder.
These stories about Jones, called throughout “Jimba” by his mother, are found in a variety of places in the Jonestown documents.
Town Employment Solved | Transcript | Annotated | 89-4286-BB-18-Z-37-44
Skid Row | Transcript | Annotated | 89-4286-BB-18-Z-28-35
Typhoid Fever | Transcript | Annotated | 89-4286-BB-18-Z-25-27
Feast in the Midst of Famine | Transcript | Annotated | 89-4286-BB-18-Z-23-24
World on Fire | Transcript | Annotated | 89-4286-BB-18-Z-19-22
Bedtime…Jimba’s Story | Transcript | Annotated | 89-4286-BB-18-Z-18
Potty Time | Transcript | Annotated | 89-4286-BB-18-Z-17
Mrs. Goat’s Twins | Transcript | Annotated | 89-4286-BB-18-Z-16
Animal Friends…. | Transcript | Annotated | 89-4286-BB-18-Z-3-6
The Puppy Who Cried | Transcript | Annotated | 89-4286-BB-18-Z-7-8
Night Terrors | Transcript | Annotated | 89-4286-BB-18-Z-12-14
The Long Walk | Transcript | Annotated | 89-4286-BB-18-Z-45-48
Untitled Story EE3-DDDD | Transcript | Annotated | 89-4286-EE-3-DDDD
The Old House | Transcript | Annotated | 89-4286-EE-3-FFFF
Some stories were told by Jones during his sermons or in interviews.