Published in 2018, And Then They Were Gone tells the story of teenagers of Jim Jones’ Peoples Temple. Since then, the book has garnered awards, award nominations, and praise. The book was most recently nominated for a Northern California Book Award in 2019.
Awards & Nominations
The history this book (And Then They Were Gone) recounts is in the public domain. What it adds is humanity, bringing names and statistics to life. The writing is beautiful, passionate, yet objective. Overall, this is an excellent read.
Nonfiction Authors Book Award
Articles & Press Mentions
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, LA Review Of Books
The book started out to honor the students and have people know who they were,” Bebelaar says, “but as it progressed it became a way of healing for me.
Judy Bebelaar, co-author of And Then They Were Gone
In 1976 I taught at a public alternative school in San Francisco, Opportunity High, the brainchild of a group of idealistic young teachers led by Marcia Perlstein. That year, Jim Jones sent all of the high-school age children from Peoples Temple to our small school. These 120 students changed the school and our lives forever, first by their arrival, then by their exodus. Within nine months, all of them were gone, most never to return.
Judy Bebelaar, co-author of And Then They Were Gone
Teachers pay tribute to children they lost in the Jonestown massacre
Judy Bebelaar and Ron Cabral were teachers at San Francisco’s Opportunity 2 High School in the 70s. It’s the school Jim Jones chose for the teenagers of his People’s Temple.
Judy taught English and poetry and Ron was the baseball coach. In 1978, they started noticing students disappearing and some never came back. The teens had gone to Jonestown, Guyana as a part of Jim Jones’ cult and many died in the mass murder-suicide in November of that year.
The tragedy of Jonestown, 40 years later
Forty years ago this week, more than 900 people died at Jonestown, a settlement in Guyana created by the Peoples Temple church. Until 9/11, it was the largest loss of U.S. civilian life in a deliberate act. Victims, many from the Bay Area, were drawn to Jonestown by leader Jim Jones and his promise of a utopian society with racial and gender equality . Forum talks about the Jonestown tragedy, new information about the event from FBI records and the profound impact the mass death had on the Bay Area.
Host Cyrus Webb welcomes author Judy Bebelaar to #ConversationsLIVE
Host Cyrus Webb welcomes author Judy Bebelaar to #ConversationsLIVE to discuss the research that went into the book AND THEN THEY WERE GONE (Teenagers of Peoples Temple from High School to Jonestown).
Bay Area Author Recalls Jonestown Tragedy on Fox KTVU
Gasia Mikaelian sits down with a Bay Area author who once taught the teens who eventually were killed in the Jonestown Massacre.
Judy Bebelaar speaks with the Richard Brendan on the Journey Fire podcast
Judy Bebelaar joins Richard Brendan over 40 years since the tragic murder/suicides in Jonestown, Guyana. Of the 918 Americans who died, one third were under eighteen and one half in their twenties nor younger. What lessons can we learn so that this horror does not repeat? In a new book, “And Then They Were Gone: Teenagers of Peoples Temple from High School to Jonestown” co-author Judy Bebelaar (who was a teacher for these children) will share her story and insights.
Judy Bebelaar speaks with Armando F. Productions on Blog Talk Radio
The book provides the social context for understanding Opportunity High, People’s Temple, and Jonestown as part of the complex decade of turbulent cultural change. The murder-suicides in Jonestown on November 18, 1978 constituted the largest mass death of American civilians until September 11, 2001. One third of those who died in Jonestown were under 18, one half in their twenties or younger.
Mechanics Institute Speaks With And Then They Were Gone Co-Authors Judy Bebelaar and Ron Cabral
And Then They Were Gone: Teenagers of Peoples Temple from High School to Jonestown by Judy Bebelaar and Ron Cabral has now won ten honors and awards, including four first prizes; the most recent a first from Chanticleer International Book Awards, the Nelly Bly journalistic writing contest. The book is available at your local bookstore via Ingram and Amazon.com.
Judy Bebelaar speaks to The Morning Glory Project about And Then They Were Gone
And Then They Were Gone: Teenagers of Peoples Temple from High School to Jonestown is about the Temple students she and Ron Cabral came to know at Opportunity II in 1976. In it, she tells the stories of these young people, sharing their poetry and the stories of who they were, commemorating their tragically too-short lives. The book has won 10 honors and awards including 4 first prizes, the most recent from Chanticleer/the Nelly Bly Award for journalistic writing.
Judy’s award-winning poetry has been published widely in magazines and anthologies, and in a chapbook, Walking Across the Pacific. She currently serves as Teacher Consultant with UC Berkeley’s Bay Area Writing Project.
Art Embraces Words: Featuring Bay Area writers Judy Bebelaar, Jim Gunshinan, and Joni Keim
Enjoy this recording of our first Art Embraces Words online event of 2021! The program, which took place as a live webinar on January 31, 2021, features three emerging writers reading excerpts from their work, two local artists displaying a selection of work in slideshow format, and Q&A with the emcee.