Sugartown Publishing

It has taken half a lifetime to sort out their emotions and responses to what happened to so many of their students at Opportunity High, an alternative school established in the heart of San Francisco where the charismatic minister Jim Jones placed his teenage members of Peoples Temple.

Judy Bebelaar was a co-founder of Opportunity, as well as an instructor and school counselor. Ron Cabral not only taught several classes, including journalism and social studies, but coached the baseball team and coordinated the school's radio program.

That was more than forty years ago. In 1978, Judy and Ron learned that many of their students had died in the tragic event that has come to be referred to as "Jonestown" and gave our culture the phrase, "don't drink the Kool-aid." But when these teachers knew the Peoples Temple teenagers, they were just young people coming-of-age, writing poetry, playing ball, attending their church, and even falling in love.

And Then They Were Gone is a compelling narrative about the Peoples Temple teenagers during their high school years, and an examination of what happened to them when they "disappeared" over a few months time to join Jim Jones and the congregants of Peoples Temple in Guyana, Latin America. Though the story of Jim Jones and Peoples Temple, and the murder-suicide event on November 18, 1978, has been told by survivors, journalists, and sociologists, it has never been told specifically through the lens of these adolescents whose lives were -- in most cases -- cut off as they stood on the brink of adulthood in one of the most complicated and painful stories of the 20th century. 

Judy Bebelaar, photo by Laurie Bell Bishop

Ron Cabral, photo by Rita Cabral

[Map copyright by Ralph Solonitz]

Of the 918 Americans who died in the shocking murder-suicides of November 18, 1978, in the tiny South American country of Guyana, a third were under eighteen. More than half were in their twenties or younger. And Then They Were Gone: Teenagers of Peoples Temple from High School to Jonestown begins in San Francisco at the small school where Reverend Jim Jones enrolled the teens of his Peoples Temple church in 1976. Within a year, most had been sent to join Jones and his other congregants in what Jones promised was a tropical paradise based on egalitarian values, but which turned out to be a deadly prison camp. Set against the turbulent backdrop of the late 1970s, And Then They Were Gone draws from interviews, books, and articles. Many of these powerful stories are told here for the first time.

"And Then They Were Gone is a mind-blowing and heart-opening account of
the utopian dreamers who died at Jonestown, Guyana, in November, 1978.
The story honors in particular the adolescents whom the authors had known
and taught as students full of promise, children who appeared, en masse, in
their classes at Opportunity High School in San Francisco, a year or two
before the bizarre events that are variously referred to as 'the Jonestown
massacre' or, simply, 'Jonestown.'"
—Catharine Lucas, Professor Emeritus, San Francisco State University

"A moving portrait of the high school students who lost their lives in
Jonestown. Through documentation, personal memory, and in many cases,
the teenagers’ own poetry, Judy Bebelaar and Ron Cabral show us the real
young people behind the grim headlines."
—Autumn Stephens, author of the Wild Women book series 

The "Cudjoe," the fishing trawler that transported Jonestown participants from the harbor to the inland community.

"And Then They Were Gone provides fresh information about the teen members of Peoples Temple, filling a vast gap in our overall understanding of Jim Jones and his (mostly) doomed followers. I’m grateful to the authors for these insights." — Jeff Guinn, author of The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple.

"Seen through the eyes of two of the Jonestown teens’ high school teachers, this book is a work of love and fond memories. . . a testament to how youth and innocence can be hijacked. The dead cannot speak, yet Judy Bebelaar and Ron Cabral have allowed us to hear their voices once more." — Deborah Layton, author of Seductive Poison: A Jonestown Survivor’s Story of Life and Death in the Peoples Temple

"This book humanizes such a horrific tragedy by inviting readers to become well acquainted with these teenagers—so many of whom were killed in the mass murder-suicide. Before they were victims of a crazed religious leader, they were just kids—with the hopes and dreams common to children everywhere. By reading about them, we honor their memories."
— Julia Scheeres, author of A Thousand Lives: The Untold Story of Hope, Deception, and Survival at Jonestown

"Many people have forgotten about these Jonestown deaths and many others have never learned about them in the first place. This book is an antidote to that forgetfulness by putting a face on some of the victims. It teaches us how not to forget, but instead to bear witness to these interrupted lives."— from the Foreword by Herbert Kohl, educator and author