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Timeline: The Life and Death of Jim Jones

1931 - 1965 | 1971 - 1978  

1931

Jim Jones as a child sitting outdoors on the lawn, 1935. May 13: James Warren Jones is born to James Thurman and Lynetta Putnam Jones in Crete, Indiana.

1949

Jim Jones marries Marceline Baldwin.

1952

Jim Jones works as a student pastor in the Methodist church. He becomes disillusioned with services that segregate parishoners by race.

1955

Jones preaching with Marceline at his side. Jim and Marceline Jones found Wings of Deliverance in Indianapolis, a corporate trust that will soon be renamed the Peoples Temple.

1959

June: Marceline gives birth to Stephan Gandhi Jones, Jim and Marceline's only biological child. (More than 15 years later, Jones will father a son by Peoples Temple member Caroline Layton and claim paternity of John Victor Stoen, the son of Temple members Tim and Grace Stoen.)

1960

The front cover of a brochure, with Jim Jones in bow tie. The brochure's title reads: "Pastor Jim Jones Meets Rev. M. J. Divine." Peoples Temple joins the Disciples of Christ.

1961

Marceline Jones stooping next to Jim Jones Jr. who is riding a tricycle and wearing a party hat on his birthday in Brazil. The Joneses adopt a black boy, James Warren Jones Jr. This is the first interracial adoption in Indianapolis and possibly the state of Indiana.

1964

The Disciples of Christ ordains Jones as a minister.

1965

Jim Jones in Redwood, CA. Jones relocates his ministry to Redwood Valley, near Ukiah in Northern California, after reading in Esquire magazine that the area would survive a nuclear war.

1931 - 1965 | 1971 - 1978  

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Jonestown American Experience