November 12, 1998, San Francisco Chronicle, Haunted by Memories of Hell, by Kevin Fagan,

November 12, 1998, San Francisco Chronicle, Haunted by Memories of Hell, by Kevin Fagan, Chronicle Staff Writer, First of Two Parts,

 

LEWIS /C/04NOV98/MN/LH--Freddie Lewis holding his one picture showing six of his seven children who were killed in the mass suicide ordered by Jim Jones twenty years ago. His wife as well as nineteen of his relatives were also part of the mass tragedy. Photo by Liz Hafalia Photo: LIZ HAFALIA

 

 

On November 18, 1978, gunmen from the Peoples Temple opened fire at a jungle airstrip in Guyana. Five people, including Rep. Leo Ryan, were killed. Within hours, another 914 people had been murdered or committed suicide at Jonestown, including temple founder Jim Jones.

 

Jones had built his ministry into a force in San Francisco with a program of helping the young, elderly and destitute. Supporters, including powerful officials, defended him against allegations that he was abusing followers.

 

The probes drove Jones to Guyana. When a visiting delegation led by Ryan tried to leave with defectors, Jones turned to murder and "revolutionary suicide."There are no pictures of Fred Lewis' wife or seven children on the walls of his tidy San Francisco duplex. He wants no such reminders of the horror.

 

Twenty years ago next Wednesday, Lewis' entire immediate family and 19 other relatives died in the mass murder-suicide at the Rev. Jim Jones' cult compound in Guyana. He lost more family than anyone else in Jonestown that day.

 

The bitterness and grief, the memories of the poisonings and shootings that left him so totally alone, are never more than the blink of an eye away.

 

"It is always with me, always," said Lewis, 69, sitting at his kitchen table and leafing through clippings he usually pulls out only on the Jonestown anniversary day.

 

"That . . ." he struggled with his words, "that . . . man Jones took my family."

 

Lewis does have photos -- hundreds of them in two white vinyl albums, showing smiling sons, daughters, cousins and more, at birthdays, in school group shots or playing around the house. The albums stay in a cupboard downstairs with the news clippings.

 

He got the entire pile out recently and began to smile through the sadness writ deep in his eyes.

 

"These are my two oldest sons. They could kick a football almost goal to goal," he said, jabbing a finger on an album page at two strapping teenagers grinning widely. He flipped to a portrait of a little girl, around 10, beaming under billowing black curls tied back with a pink ribbon.

 

"This was Lisia, as cute as anything in this world, so full of fun," Lewis said. Others flicked by as the pages turned: "This was a birthday cake I made for them one year. . . . This is the whole bunch at Halloween -- look at them laughing. . . . This was us hanging around."

 

The memories of the cousins and uncles and nieces come slower, layered over by pain and decades. "The names are hard to bring to mind after all these years, and there were so many," Lewis said, the smile leaving his lips. He snapped the album shut.

 

"Anyway, most everyone in these albums is gone, all gone," he said, voice dropping to a whisper.

 

There is a separate stone marker for Lewis' family at the mass grave at Evergreen Cemetery in Oakland, where 406 of the 913 Jonestown victims are buried. The names of the secondary relatives may be fuzzy for Lewis, but he can call off the eight in his immediate circle: wife, Doris, 46 when she died; and children Lisia, 16; Karen, 15; Freddie Jr., 13; Barry, 11; Adrian, 9; Cassandra, 8; and Alisa, 7.

 

"I miss them," he said quietly. "I have a fine life now. But I miss them."

 

A big man with smile crinkles on his cheeks, Lewis does not come off as a sad fellow. He is quiet, polite, and the house he keeps with his girlfriend is pin-neat down to the shiny plastic on the living room furniture.

 

If the subject of Jonestown does not come up, he is fine. That's why he usually doesn't mention it.

 

Except at anniversary times.

 

The long nightmare began one Saturday night in August 1978, when Lewis came home from his job as a butcher at Petrini's grocery to find the family apartment in the Fillmore District cleaned out and everyone gone.

 

On November 18, 1978, gunmen from the Peoples Temple opened fire at a jungle airstrip in Guyana. Five people, including Rep. Leo Ryan, were killed. Within hours, another 914 people had been murdered or committed suicide at Jonestown, including temple founder Jim Jones.

 

Jones had built his ministry into a force in San Francisco with a program of helping the young, elderly and destitute. Supporters, including powerful officials, defended him against allegations that he was abusing followers.

 

The probes drove Jones to Guyana. When a visiting delegation led by Ryan tried to leave with defectors, Jones turned to murder and "revolutionary suicide."There are no pictures of Fred Lewis' wife or seven children on the walls of his tidy San Francisco duplex. He wants no such reminders of the horror.

 

Twenty years ago next Wednesday, Lewis' entire immediate family and 19 other relatives died in the mass murder-suicide at the Rev. Jim Jones' cult compound in Guyana. He lost more family than anyone else in Jonestown that day.

 

The bitterness and grief, the memories of the poisonings and shootings that left him so totally alone, are never more than the blink of an eye away.

 

"It is always with me, always," said Lewis, 69, sitting at his kitchen table and leafing through clippings he usually pulls out only on the Jonestown anniversary day.

 

"That . . ." he struggled with his words, "that . . . man Jones took my family."

 

Lewis does have photos -- hundreds of them in two white vinyl albums, showing smiling sons, daughters, cousins and more, at birthdays, in school group shots or playing around the house. The albums stay in a cupboard downstairs with the news clippings.

 

He got the entire pile out recently and began to smile through the sadness writ deep in his eyes.

 

"These are my two oldest sons. They could kick a football almost goal to goal," he said, jabbing a finger on an album page at two strapping teenagers grinning widely. He flipped to a portrait of a little girl, around 10, beaming under billowing black curls tied back with a pink ribbon.

 

"This was Lisia, as cute as anything in this world, so full of fun," Lewis said. Others flicked by as the pages turned: "This was a birthday cake I made for them one year. . . . This is the whole bunch at Halloween -- look at them laughing. . . . This was us hanging around."

 

The memories of the cousins and uncles and nieces come slower, layered over by pain and decades. "The names are hard to bring to mind after all these years, and there were so many," Lewis said, the smile leaving his lips. He snapped the album shut.

 

"Anyway, most everyone in these albums is gone, all gone," he said, voice dropping to a whisper.

 

There is a separate stone marker for Lewis' family at the mass grave at Evergreen Cemetery in Oakland, where 406 of the 913 Jonestown victims are buried. The names of the secondary relatives may be fuzzy for Lewis, but he can call off the eight in his immediate circle: wife, Doris, 46 when she died; and children Lisia, 16; Karen, 15; Freddie Jr., 13; Barry, 11; Adrian, 9; Cassandra, 8; and Alisa, 7.

 

"I miss them," he said quietly. "I have a fine life now. But I miss them."

 

A big man with smile crinkles on his cheeks, Lewis does not come off as a sad fellow. He is quiet, polite, and the house he keeps with his girlfriend is pin-neat down to the shiny plastic on the living room furniture.

 

If the subject of Jonestown does not come up, he is fine. That's why he usually doesn't mention it.

 

Except at anniversary times.

 

The long nightmare began one Saturday night in August 1978, when Lewis came home from his job as a butcher at Petrini's grocery to find the family apartment in the Fillmore District cleaned out and everyone gone.