November 27, 1978, New York Daily News, page 19, Promised land was the jungle; And for 6 kin, the savior was a devil, by John Hamill,

November 27, 1978, New York Daily News, page 19, Promised land was the jungle; And for 6 kin, the savior was a devil, by John Hamill,

Timothy Washington,

He had never expected that Jones would be the one responsible for putting the 83-year-old matriarch, Mary Cottingham, and five other family members spanning four generations, into coffins after a twitching death in a Guyanese jungle. 
[...]
My sister Florence...

Washington said that Florence Heath, 53, was so taken that she sold her house and lost her husband to please Jones.
[...]
Her son Michael, 14, was found in the jungle purgatory called Jonestown. So was her daughter, Mary Morton, 33, whose own daughter Vickie, 8, also swallowed the fatal poison. Grover Washington, 50, another brother, who was mentally retarded, and Mrs. Cottingham made the total from the family returning from Jones' promised land in caskeys an even half dozen.
[...]
"Momma asked for seeds for corn and peas and things. She asked for a raincoat once, and said she was happy there," he said.

Roosevelt Washington, 38, a nephew raised by Mrs. Cottingham, said the farm itself was the strangest part of all.

"Most of the people there was from the sticks themselves. Chicanos and Southern blacks and what not. Then after all these years they go full circle, they end up back in the sticks. It seems too crazy," he said.