If I had been there, I would have been the first one to stand in line and take that poison and I would have been proud to take it… The thing that I’m sad about is this: that I missed the ending
Bea Grubbs (Nora Gallagher, “Jonestown: The Survivors’ Story”)
Bea Alethia Grubbs, more commonly known as Bea Orsot, was born on September 30, 1926 in Atlanta, Georgia. Though her mother died of cancer when she was only two years old, she formed a close relationship with her father, a professor at a university in Georgia. While her family was relatively wealthy, she still experienced racial discrimination and economic insecurity during the Great Depression in the South. In 1947, she earned a B.S. in Business Administration from West Virginia State College and two years later was employed as a secretary in the Veterans Administration in Washington D.C. In 1949 she married her first husband and had her only child, Antonio A. Harvey; the two divorced in 1959. After the divorce, Bea wrote “It was an unending struggle for survival…”
Around 1967, Bea moved to California where she worked for the IRS. The assassination of Martin Luther King Junior, just a year after her move, caused “the bottom of my life to fall out,” and Bea questioned “Who was going to represent our interests now? Who would be our leader?” She found this leader in Jim Jones, whom she first met on April 11, 1970 during a service in San Francisco. He called her up to the podium and miraculously spoke about a letter she had hidden in a chimney as a child.
Bea became extremely involved in the Temple. One FBI document indicated her as a member of the Planning Commission, an inner circle of Temple members who worked closely with Jones (RYMUR 13-971). In an interview with the FBI, she explained that she received around $400 in welfare every month, which she immediately signed over to the Temple (RYMUR 15-1207-3). She wrote of Jones, “[he was] the master teacher of my life. He gave me the kind of family I never had before or since” (Bea Orsot, “Together We Stood”).
Bea arrived in Jonestown in August of 1977 and lived in a cottage with six others, including Tom Grubbs. It is unclear when Bea married Tom, the principal of the school in Jonestown. While she expressed admiration for his intelligence, Bea thought he was too critical of Jones, and she wrote that she did “not feel good about having a selfish relationship.” While in Jonestown, she worked as the secretary of the school (“Education, Housing, and Population”).
In September of 1978, Temple attorney Mark Lane began planning a “Counter Offensive” plan of attack against Temple enemies. Bea was an active member of the team who prepared support materials for Lane; she was responsible for office organization, some typing, and providing equipment and supplies (RYMUR 89-4286-NN-6-D). In letters to Jones, she wrote that she was willing to use explosives hidden in her clothing or car to kill temple defectors or set herself on fire in Washington D.C. as an act of revolutionary suicide (RYMUR 95-N-1-A-7a, RYMUR 95-N-1-A-29c). She wrote other letters to Jones admitting to her faults, hostilities, and sexual attraction to him; these “self-evaluation” letters were common in Jonestown for maintaining the individual’s guilt and Jones’ knowledge of their faults (RYMUR 95-O-1-FF-5-q-3).
Bea was in Georgetown on the night of the Jonestown massacre, as she had a dental appointment the day before on November 17th (Bea Orsot, “Together We Stood”). She was at Lamaha Gardens, the house and office maintained by the temple in Georgetown, on the night of November 18th. Bea recorded that she prepared dinner that night and later witnessed as the police carried out the bodies of Sharon Amos and her three children. She returned to the United States two weeks after the massacre and told reporters that if she had been in Jonestown that day, she would have happily died with the others (Carey Winfrey, “Why 900 Died”). In an interview for the New York Times she stated, “If I had been there, I would have been the first one to stand in line and take that poison and I would have been proud to take it… The thing that I’m sad about is this: that I missed the ending” (Nora Gallagher, “Jonestown: The Survivors’ Story”). Her husband Tom died at the age of 36 in the Jonestown massacre (RYMUR 89-4286-EE-1-C-28).
After her return to the states, Bea desperately missed Jonestown and claimed, “In the twinkling of an eye, I was an alien in my native land.” She began working as a secretary in Charles Garry’s office in San Francisco (Garry was the temple attorney) and found solace in other Temple members. Bea formed a close relationship with Temple Member John Heneka after the Jonestown tragedy, and the two remained partners for life (Laura Johnston Kohl, “A Memorial to John F. Heneka). She continued to give interviews defending Jim Jones and remained a Temple loyalist for life.
Bea Orsot. “Together We Stood, Divided We Fell” in The Need for a
Second Look at Jonestown, ed. Rebecca Moore and Fielding M. McGehee III (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1989). Accessed at https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=16993.
“Bea Orsot Morton and James Evans, 1980.” SDSU University Library. Accessed at https://digitallibrary.sdsu.edu/islandora/object/sdsu%3A154109.
Carey Winfrey, “Why 900 Died in Guyana,” February 25, 1979, The New York Times. Accessed at https://www.nytimes.com/1979/02/25/archives/why-900-died-in-guyana.html.
“Counter Offensive; Projected Offensive Program for the People’s Temple,” Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. Accessed at https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=13908.
“Education, Housing and Population,” Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. Accessed at https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=35909.
Laura Johnston Kohl, “A Memorial to John F. Heneka. Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. Accessed at https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=67524.
Nora Gallagher, “Jonestown: The Survivors’ Story,” November 18, 1979, The New York Times. Accessed at https://www.nytimes.com/1979/11/18/archives/jonestown-the-survivors-story-jonestown.html.
“RYMUR 13-971: Interview with former member of PT,” December 8, 1978, Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. Accessed at https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=90917.
“RYMUR 15-1207-3: Interview with Jonestown survivor Bea Orsot Grubbs,” December 6, 1978, Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. Accessed at https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=91415.
“RYMUR 89-4286-EE-1-C-28: Bea Orsot to Dad,” January 8, 1978, Digital Jonestown. Accessed at https://digitaljonestown.library.drake.edu/dear-dad-letter-89-4286-ee-1-c-28-annotation/.
“RYMUR 89-4286-NN-6-D: LANE PROJECT REPORT, No. 1,” September 19, 1978, Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. Accessed at https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=13913.
“RYMUR 95-N-1-A-7a: Bea Orsot Grubbs to Father,” April 13, 1978, Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. Accessed at https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=113863.
“RYMUR 95-N-1-A-29c: Bea Orsot Grubbs to Father,” April 12, 1978, Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. Accessed at https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=113863.
“RYMUR 95-O-1-FF-5-q-3: Bea Orsot to Dad,” December 30, 1977, Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. Accessed at https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=99911.
“Who Died in Jonestown Before 18 November 1978? – Grubbs, Tom,” Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. Accessed at https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?who_died=grubbs-tom.