Friday, October 30, 2009
Memories of a family member.
Lexie Smith Davis
Born: Sep 22, 1909
Died: Nov 18, 1978 FBI document 89-4286-1302 (prepared 12/78)
Los Angeles, California 90018
Lexie Davis’ life story is like a white wall with a number of vibrant splashes of color. Some of the splashes are large and colorful. You see the imprint. Others are small, almost undetectable. But there are many, many areas with no color. These are the areas containing things that I did not and may never know about my aunt and about my mother, her only living sister. Aunt Lexie left no children. We have few pictures. Her inheritance was given to the family of the man to whom she was still married, but from whom she had been separated for over 20 years. There are few outward signs that my aunt ever lived. I feel cheated. Because of my Aunt’s involvement and subsequent death in Jonestown, her legacy has been destroyed and the original purpose of her life aborted.
Lexie Smith Davis was the closest relative that I knew from my mother’s side. My daughter and my sister are named after her. They had one brother, Charles, whom I met once. When Aunt Lexie left for Guyana, Uncle Charles stopped all contact with my mother although she sought diligently to find him. My Aunt is missed, and was particularly missed by my mother until the day she died. I feel the emotion of “missing” her because I know that NOT knowing her means that there are things about my background and about myself that are forever lost.
My mom and her sister, Aunt Lexie, were physically quite different. They probably had different fathers and their childhoods are shrouded in mystery. From what I can gather, there were 6 children, including mom, Aunt Lexie and Uncle Charles. Aunt Lizie (Elizabeth) died at an early age. She was accidentally hit in the head while playing with several teenage friends. Uncle Jim or perhaps it was Uncle Robert, died in a fight. I joined Ancestry.com to see if I could discover the names of these relatives, but the trail was cold. I saw 2 or possibly 3 Uncles: Jim, Robert and Charles. Robert and Jim showed up on one census record, but were not listed 10 years later with other family members. Charles, the youngest brother, was wounded in WW II - losing a leg and lived with my aunt until she left for Guyana. I have no idea when or if he has died.
Here are some splashes of color (things that I remember about my aunt). The first splash is a memory of the fruit cake that she had delivered to the house for Christmas. It was my first time tasting such a delicacy, and even now is the reason I like fruit cake. It opened my world up a bit. You see, I grew up in the south,
without TV for some of the childhood, no fast food restaurants...mom always cooked. A fruit cake seemed like a real delicacy. I also remember a trip she made to Beaumont wearing a mink stole and having a suitcase that became an obsession with me. I had to look inside it. I did and got in trouble as a result. But I remember feeling that she belonged to a world that was so much more glamorous that the one that I lived in.
Another splash was a memory of a trip to California and overnight stay at her apartment when I was a teenager. I visited Aunt Lexie when she stayed in a small apartment in Los Angeles with Uncle Charles and perhaps a man friend whom I never met. Uncle Charles was friendlier and reached out to me. Charles and I rode the bus to downtown Los Angeles and he bought me a little puppy with a radio inside. Aunt Lexie was private, and I did not feel as comfortable around her as much as I felt with Uncle Charles.
My brother John wrote in an email a few years ago that he remembered coats that Aunt Lexie sent to him and our brother Carter. He said, “She bought Carter and I matching coats -- Carter was about 9 I was about 5 at the time.”
In the early 70’s Aunt Lexie became heavily involved with Jim Jones but still maintained telephone contact with my mother. In the middle 70’s, my sister Lexie says that Aunt Lexie sent for her to come to California to live. At that time, Aunt Lexie was assigned patrol duty by Jim Jones that required that she walk the perimeter of the property beginning late at night. One night my aunt woke Lexie up to go with her. Sensing danger or perhaps just an uneasiness, Lexie refused and made arrangements to leave Los Angeles right away to stay with our brother in San Diego. Now, she attributes her uneasiness to our mother’s prayers.
In many ways I am ashamed of my Aunt’s involvement in Jonestown and I sense the question that many people want to ask: “Why didn’t you persuade your aunt not to go?” The simple answer is that we tried but couldn’t. At what point do you remove the power of choice from an adult even if you sense danger or imminent death? I have tried to commit individuals who can be judged insane by most. The courts still have a process that must be followed. Unfortunately, that process and stretch of time can be dangerous for all involved. I have sensed issues with decisions made by loved ones that have hurt or could eventually hurt them. But my Aunt was not insane. She rejected our values, but she had the power to make that choice although it led to her death. Mother tried to entice Aunt Lexie to return to Texas and leave the movement. Mother was instinctual and saw future problems with Jones and his movement but all of our efforts to get Aunt Lexie to leave Jim Jones ended in failure.
I don’t know how old my Aunt was when she died. I know the records show that she was born on Sep 22, 1909 and died on Nov 18, 1978 (the day that will live in “infamy”). But even her birth is shrouded in mystery. We always believed that she was at least five years older than dad (who was born June 28, 1907). But Aunt Lexie never really showed (or talked about) her true age. Her mother, (my grandmother who died before I was born),was married to Richard Smith in 1910. Grandmother Rosie (or Rosa) was 15 at the time. We believed that Aunt Lexie was born earlier than 1900. It is also possible that she was the stepdaughter of Rosie, daughter of Richard Smith. It is another one of those “white spots”. Aunt Lexie probably first got married in the 1920s and divorced shortly thereafter in Jasper. She was married at least twice, but the husband whose last name was “Davis” was her last spouse.
I DO know that Lexie Davis was a "seeker" who wanted to experience more of life that what our mundane life in Texas offered. It could have been the dullness of our lives that started the friction between my aunt and my father. She was beautiful, slim (most of her life), colorful and sophisticated. Her dress, speech and manners were devoid of the influence of Jasper, Texas. My mom was overweight, dark and rather plain. Now, I would describe our family life as conservative and boring. I could tell the clock from my father’s habits. He rose at 5AM and was out of the door at 7. He came home at 5 and wanted a cup of coffee to drink while he read the newspaper, then sat down to see the evening news with Walter Cronkite. During the week he went to union meetings, the NAACP, lodge meetings or church. On Saturdays, he prepared for Sunday school. On Sundays we went to Sunday school, church, and BTU (Baptist Training Union) and evening service. Between church and BTU, we ate a large Sunday dinner. During the week, my mom came home at the same time and cooked either spaghetti, fried chicken, beans, and on rare occasions ribs. We had desserts two or three times a week and cleaned on Saturdays. Our lives revolved around church, school activities, community groups, and each other. But while our lives had a rhythm, the world was changing.
The end of World War II marked a change in what was acceptable. Daddy was content to talk about the issues of the day and to join the union and NAACP. Young people my age were being prepared to die for freedom. We joined organization like the Beaumont United Freedom Fighters and the Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee. We practiced “going limp” during the inevitable arrests as the result of sit-ins. We could not see life worth living if we were forced to maintain the status quo of separate water fountains, inadequate schools and separate but unequal facilities and neighborhoods. “Hip” and progressive people of all colors smelled “blood” and the chance to change the system.
The change started out in the context of non violence and what God would do (as we knew him from traditional theology). Something happened along the way and I cannot identify the catalyst. The result however, was that traditional values and thinking about family, God and Jesus gave way to “seeking” a society that did not rely on a Saviour outside of ourselves. We sought to construct our own sex lives, family commitment, and community using our sense of right and wrong or neutral. For example, Aunt Lexie talked of God and appeared much “holier” or rather “spiritual”than my mom, the President of the traditional Baptist Ladies Missionary Society and a very good woman. She talked of a man who was not only charismatic but who performed miracles. Later, she talked of the creation of a society, though devoid of the traditions of Christian doctrine”, practiced what we could not achieve in the outside world. Outside of Jim Jones, Black people WERE judged by their color. We WERE judged inferior and we were not accepted as “beautifully and wonderfully made” too. But outside of Jim Jones, the world was ALSO adapting a plan to divorce itself from the restrictions of plain, traditional families like my birth family with my traditional and “boring” mom and dad.
Since Jonestown, we have seen further erosions of “family values”. The refrain of “We shall overcome” has died. In its place we hear rap lyrics that demean Black women, calling us “hos”. Standard morality now seems to be that it is perfectly acceptable to live together, and if you aren’t pregnant or had children prior to the ceremony (if any such ceremony is planned), then you’ve been smart and wise. My Aunt died quickly because she chose to move to Guyana “seeking” to create a utopian, classless, society that carved out its own set of moral standards, but not limited or constrained by Christian values. Her quest ended in a tragedy. The rest of us stayed on the mainland, but I am not sure if we have not done the same thing. We must wait to see what the end will be.
My Aunt died in Jonestown. I hardly ever think about it. I guess I have been ashamed and couldn’t really assign an emotion to it before I read about your writing. I am ashamed that we didn’t speak out enough to somehow persuade Aunt Lexie to not become involved. I am ashamed that when I did speak out that I was not persuasive enough to explain why my belief in Jesus Christ of the Bible was more beneficial than her relationship with the cult and the false prophet who led her, drained her then killed her. I am ashamed of my family’s involvement in cults and false religions that bring physical and emotional death. I am ashamed that we so easily use these differences in beliefs to separate us and kill our sense of family. I am ashamed that I received her earthly goods that she gave away but didn’t fully realize what she was doing until I learned of her suicide. I remember taking her shadow box and other items that I brought back to my mother ….not really understanding that she was saying goodbye. I am ashamed that she rejected our family and particularly my father and tried to persuade my mom to join her. I am angry that my father was not accepted by my Aunt because he was steady, predictable, and old fashion in every way. I am ashamed that I was so intrigued by her fox stole and more sophisticated ways that I felt that my own, simple mom was not quite up to her. She was prettier and slimmer and more sophisticated. My mom was plain and fat and totally stable. She loved her sister, although she knew how much my aunt undervalued her steady, boring life. But I feel ashamed that I ever undervalued my wonderful mother and the tremendous value she placed on family. I feel ashamed that my Aunt, who never had children, never loved us enough to WANT to know us and ACCEPT us and live for us instead of Jim Jones. I feel ashamed that my own brothers reminded me of this feeling of rejection a number of times. I feel ashamed that I fiercely resent the fact that after my Aunt committed suicide that the relatives from her EX husband received her death benefits and not my mom, her only living relative. Even in her death, she didn’t make things right. My simple, but complex mom, could have used the money to make her life easier. But instead ….people who never knew my Aunt received thousands of dollars from her death. I don’t talk about this, but it somehow feels better to write about it. After 30 years, it still hurts…..the rejection, the pain of hearing about her death, the shame. But I am thankful for the reminder so I can continue to fight to keep my own family together.
Born: Sep 22, 1909
Died: Nov 18, 1978 FBI document 89-4286-1302 (prepared 12/78)
Los Angeles, California 90018
Lexie Davis’ life story is like a white wall with a number of vibrant splashes of color. Some of the splashes are large and colorful. You see the imprint. Others are small, almost undetectable. But there are many, many areas with no color. These are the areas containing things that I did not and may never know about my aunt and about my mother, her only living sister. Aunt Lexie left no children. We have few pictures. Her inheritance was given to the family of the man to whom she was still married, but from whom she had been separated for over 20 years. There are few outward signs that my aunt ever lived. I feel cheated. Because of my Aunt’s involvement and subsequent death in Jonestown, her legacy has been destroyed and the original purpose of her life aborted.
Lexie Smith Davis was the closest relative that I knew from my mother’s side. My daughter and my sister are named after her. They had one brother, Charles, whom I met once. When Aunt Lexie left for Guyana, Uncle Charles stopped all contact with my mother although she sought diligently to find him. My Aunt is missed, and was particularly missed by my mother until the day she died. I feel the emotion of “missing” her because I know that NOT knowing her means that there are things about my background and about myself that are forever lost.
My mom and her sister, Aunt Lexie, were physically quite different. They probably had different fathers and their childhoods are shrouded in mystery. From what I can gather, there were 6 children, including mom, Aunt Lexie and Uncle Charles. Aunt Lizie (Elizabeth) died at an early age. She was accidentally hit in the head while playing with several teenage friends. Uncle Jim or perhaps it was Uncle Robert, died in a fight. I joined Ancestry.com to see if I could discover the names of these relatives, but the trail was cold. I saw 2 or possibly 3 Uncles: Jim, Robert and Charles. Robert and Jim showed up on one census record, but were not listed 10 years later with other family members. Charles, the youngest brother, was wounded in WW II - losing a leg and lived with my aunt until she left for Guyana. I have no idea when or if he has died.
Here are some splashes of color (things that I remember about my aunt). The first splash is a memory of the fruit cake that she had delivered to the house for Christmas. It was my first time tasting such a delicacy, and even now is the reason I like fruit cake. It opened my world up a bit. You see, I grew up in the south,
without TV for some of the childhood, no fast food restaurants...mom always cooked. A fruit cake seemed like a real delicacy. I also remember a trip she made to Beaumont wearing a mink stole and having a suitcase that became an obsession with me. I had to look inside it. I did and got in trouble as a result. But I remember feeling that she belonged to a world that was so much more glamorous that the one that I lived in.
Another splash was a memory of a trip to California and overnight stay at her apartment when I was a teenager. I visited Aunt Lexie when she stayed in a small apartment in Los Angeles with Uncle Charles and perhaps a man friend whom I never met. Uncle Charles was friendlier and reached out to me. Charles and I rode the bus to downtown Los Angeles and he bought me a little puppy with a radio inside. Aunt Lexie was private, and I did not feel as comfortable around her as much as I felt with Uncle Charles.
My brother John wrote in an email a few years ago that he remembered coats that Aunt Lexie sent to him and our brother Carter. He said, “She bought Carter and I matching coats -- Carter was about 9 I was about 5 at the time.”
In the early 70’s Aunt Lexie became heavily involved with Jim Jones but still maintained telephone contact with my mother. In the middle 70’s, my sister Lexie says that Aunt Lexie sent for her to come to California to live. At that time, Aunt Lexie was assigned patrol duty by Jim Jones that required that she walk the perimeter of the property beginning late at night. One night my aunt woke Lexie up to go with her. Sensing danger or perhaps just an uneasiness, Lexie refused and made arrangements to leave Los Angeles right away to stay with our brother in San Diego. Now, she attributes her uneasiness to our mother’s prayers.
In many ways I am ashamed of my Aunt’s involvement in Jonestown and I sense the question that many people want to ask: “Why didn’t you persuade your aunt not to go?” The simple answer is that we tried but couldn’t. At what point do you remove the power of choice from an adult even if you sense danger or imminent death? I have tried to commit individuals who can be judged insane by most. The courts still have a process that must be followed. Unfortunately, that process and stretch of time can be dangerous for all involved. I have sensed issues with decisions made by loved ones that have hurt or could eventually hurt them. But my Aunt was not insane. She rejected our values, but she had the power to make that choice although it led to her death. Mother tried to entice Aunt Lexie to return to Texas and leave the movement. Mother was instinctual and saw future problems with Jones and his movement but all of our efforts to get Aunt Lexie to leave Jim Jones ended in failure.
I don’t know how old my Aunt was when she died. I know the records show that she was born on Sep 22, 1909 and died on Nov 18, 1978 (the day that will live in “infamy”). But even her birth is shrouded in mystery. We always believed that she was at least five years older than dad (who was born June 28, 1907). But Aunt Lexie never really showed (or talked about) her true age. Her mother, (my grandmother who died before I was born),was married to Richard Smith in 1910. Grandmother Rosie (or Rosa) was 15 at the time. We believed that Aunt Lexie was born earlier than 1900. It is also possible that she was the stepdaughter of Rosie, daughter of Richard Smith. It is another one of those “white spots”. Aunt Lexie probably first got married in the 1920s and divorced shortly thereafter in Jasper. She was married at least twice, but the husband whose last name was “Davis” was her last spouse.
I DO know that Lexie Davis was a "seeker" who wanted to experience more of life that what our mundane life in Texas offered. It could have been the dullness of our lives that started the friction between my aunt and my father. She was beautiful, slim (most of her life), colorful and sophisticated. Her dress, speech and manners were devoid of the influence of Jasper, Texas. My mom was overweight, dark and rather plain. Now, I would describe our family life as conservative and boring. I could tell the clock from my father’s habits. He rose at 5AM and was out of the door at 7. He came home at 5 and wanted a cup of coffee to drink while he read the newspaper, then sat down to see the evening news with Walter Cronkite. During the week he went to union meetings, the NAACP, lodge meetings or church. On Saturdays, he prepared for Sunday school. On Sundays we went to Sunday school, church, and BTU (Baptist Training Union) and evening service. Between church and BTU, we ate a large Sunday dinner. During the week, my mom came home at the same time and cooked either spaghetti, fried chicken, beans, and on rare occasions ribs. We had desserts two or three times a week and cleaned on Saturdays. Our lives revolved around church, school activities, community groups, and each other. But while our lives had a rhythm, the world was changing.
The end of World War II marked a change in what was acceptable. Daddy was content to talk about the issues of the day and to join the union and NAACP. Young people my age were being prepared to die for freedom. We joined organization like the Beaumont United Freedom Fighters and the Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee. We practiced “going limp” during the inevitable arrests as the result of sit-ins. We could not see life worth living if we were forced to maintain the status quo of separate water fountains, inadequate schools and separate but unequal facilities and neighborhoods. “Hip” and progressive people of all colors smelled “blood” and the chance to change the system.
The change started out in the context of non violence and what God would do (as we knew him from traditional theology). Something happened along the way and I cannot identify the catalyst. The result however, was that traditional values and thinking about family, God and Jesus gave way to “seeking” a society that did not rely on a Saviour outside of ourselves. We sought to construct our own sex lives, family commitment, and community using our sense of right and wrong or neutral. For example, Aunt Lexie talked of God and appeared much “holier” or rather “spiritual”than my mom, the President of the traditional Baptist Ladies Missionary Society and a very good woman. She talked of a man who was not only charismatic but who performed miracles. Later, she talked of the creation of a society, though devoid of the traditions of Christian doctrine”, practiced what we could not achieve in the outside world. Outside of Jim Jones, Black people WERE judged by their color. We WERE judged inferior and we were not accepted as “beautifully and wonderfully made” too. But outside of Jim Jones, the world was ALSO adapting a plan to divorce itself from the restrictions of plain, traditional families like my birth family with my traditional and “boring” mom and dad.
Since Jonestown, we have seen further erosions of “family values”. The refrain of “We shall overcome” has died. In its place we hear rap lyrics that demean Black women, calling us “hos”. Standard morality now seems to be that it is perfectly acceptable to live together, and if you aren’t pregnant or had children prior to the ceremony (if any such ceremony is planned), then you’ve been smart and wise. My Aunt died quickly because she chose to move to Guyana “seeking” to create a utopian, classless, society that carved out its own set of moral standards, but not limited or constrained by Christian values. Her quest ended in a tragedy. The rest of us stayed on the mainland, but I am not sure if we have not done the same thing. We must wait to see what the end will be.
My Aunt died in Jonestown. I hardly ever think about it. I guess I have been ashamed and couldn’t really assign an emotion to it before I read about your writing. I am ashamed that we didn’t speak out enough to somehow persuade Aunt Lexie to not become involved. I am ashamed that when I did speak out that I was not persuasive enough to explain why my belief in Jesus Christ of the Bible was more beneficial than her relationship with the cult and the false prophet who led her, drained her then killed her. I am ashamed of my family’s involvement in cults and false religions that bring physical and emotional death. I am ashamed that we so easily use these differences in beliefs to separate us and kill our sense of family. I am ashamed that I received her earthly goods that she gave away but didn’t fully realize what she was doing until I learned of her suicide. I remember taking her shadow box and other items that I brought back to my mother ….not really understanding that she was saying goodbye. I am ashamed that she rejected our family and particularly my father and tried to persuade my mom to join her. I am angry that my father was not accepted by my Aunt because he was steady, predictable, and old fashion in every way. I am ashamed that I was so intrigued by her fox stole and more sophisticated ways that I felt that my own, simple mom was not quite up to her. She was prettier and slimmer and more sophisticated. My mom was plain and fat and totally stable. She loved her sister, although she knew how much my aunt undervalued her steady, boring life. But I feel ashamed that I ever undervalued my wonderful mother and the tremendous value she placed on family. I feel ashamed that my Aunt, who never had children, never loved us enough to WANT to know us and ACCEPT us and live for us instead of Jim Jones. I feel ashamed that my own brothers reminded me of this feeling of rejection a number of times. I feel ashamed that I fiercely resent the fact that after my Aunt committed suicide that the relatives from her EX husband received her death benefits and not my mom, her only living relative. Even in her death, she didn’t make things right. My simple, but complex mom, could have used the money to make her life easier. But instead ….people who never knew my Aunt received thousands of dollars from her death. I don’t talk about this, but it somehow feels better to write about it. After 30 years, it still hurts…..the rejection, the pain of hearing about her death, the shame. But I am thankful for the reminder so I can continue to fight to keep my own family together.
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