A Glimpse into the Life of Phyllis Tuttle Houston
by Kenneth A. Odell
I was a student at Capuchino High School in San Bruno, California, from 1957 until 1961. Two of my classmates were Robert H. (“Bobby”) Houston and Phyllis Tuttle. Bobby and I became best friends, although I lost touch with him after graduation. I knew Phyllis only casually, and never really had anything other than incidental contact with her. As best I can recall, Bobby and Phyllis were simply friends in high school, and their attachment to each other occurred later, after graduation. Bobby went to Cal to become a music teacher and later went to San Francisco State. He and Phyllis married while he was a student at Cal and had two daughters, Patty and Judy, whom I never met.
Phyllis was a tall, quiet, rather introspective person, and did not project a very happy personality. I seem to recall she was in the Capuchino marching band, as were Bobby and I for the full four years.
Capuchino was a typical suburban California high school in the 1950’s. The student body was very middle class, with few poor or wealthy students. It was predominantly Caucasian, with a few Asians and Latinos, and even fewer African American students. I believe that Phyllis came from one of those middle class families, which – in retrospect – were very conventional and rather boring. I perceived that Phyllis’s relationship with her parents and siblings (if any) was all right, and I don’t ever remember hearing any complaints from her about how she was treated.
In his book Raven, Tim Reiterman relates that Phyllis and Bobby eventually experienced marital difficulties, which led to their divorce. Phyllis apparently became very involved in Peoples Temple, and she strongly rejected her parents’ attempt to talk to her about leaving. Since Phyllis had always been rather moody, this behavior came as no surprise to me.
After Bobby’s death, his parents – the grandparents of Patty and Judy – also tried to intervene, to prevent Phyllis from sending the children to Jonestown. Since she was their mother and sole surviving parent, and had no inclination to take their advice, they had little recourse but to observe what happened.
L to R: Patty Houston, Phyllis Houston, Carol Boyd, Rep. Leo Ryan, Judy Houston; Jonestown, November 18, 1978
Phyllis’ final trip to Jonestown came in November 1978, when she flew to Guyana a few days ahead of Congressman Leo Ryan’s entourage. We know that Ryan’s interest in the Temple began when Sam Houston – Phyllis’ former father-in-law and a constituent of Ryan’s – met with the congressman over his concern about his granddaughters. While there is no proof of this, it is almost certain that Phyllis was summoned to Jonestown to stand alongside her daughters when they spoke with Ryan and were interviewed by the NBC News crew.
Phyllis, Patty and Judy all died in Jonestown.
(Kenneth A. Odell is a retired attorney. His other two stories in this edition of the jonestown report are Memories of My Best Friend, Robert Houston, Jr. and The Death of Robert H. Houston, Jr. He may be reached at kodell1729@yahoo.com.)2
The Death of Robert H. Houston, Jr
by Kenneth A. Odell
from website https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=70570
Bob Houston was born October 13, 1943, and died in San Francisco on October 5, 1976. Though his death was legally ruled an accident, there is reason for substantial doubt about this conclusion.
Bobby had several part-time jobs during his life in order to support his family and make substantial contributions to Peoples Temple. One of those jobs was as a night maintenance worker in the Southern Pacific train yard adjacent to the Potrero Hill neighborhood of San Francisco. On the night in question, Bobby’s body was discovered after it had been run over by a train, apparently resulting in his instant death. Given the few night workers in a large train yard, there were no eyewitnesses as to what had actually happened.
Although his death was ruled an accident, there were several pieces of evidence which did not corroborate such a finding. For one thing, his body was discovered in a part of the train yard which his duties would not normally take him to. In addition, his protective work gloves were found folded up separate from his body, and apparently unused that night.
Since I was one of Bobby’s best friends during our four years together at Capuchino High School in San Bruno (1957-1961), I think I knew him very well. Bobby always had an upbeat and energetic personality. He was a hard worker, an excellent musician, and an Eagle Scout. He did very well academically and socially. Both of us were on the “nerd” end of the spectrum, in that we didn’t play organized sports, and we were both interested in science. Bobby was never a quitter, and worked hard and diligently in his many roles – husband, father, Temple member, railroad worker, teacher – until the day he died.
As Tim Reiterman pointed out in his book Raven, Jim Jones took an active role in criticizing Bobby, holding him up to ridicule by the entire community, and even literally making Bobby his punching bag in the “boxing matches” which Jones staged for his enjoyment, during which a victim was forced to fight a much more physically imposing opponent.
What could cause Jones’ enmity? In my view, one reason was that Bobby was clearly more intelligent than Jones, and could make him look like a fool in any kind of intellectual debate. My friend was not shy about interrupting any speaker’s argument when he found a logical flaw, and I am sure that Jones felt that his authority, and his very validity as a leader, was being attacked and potentially destroyed by Bobby’s persistent questions.
There is no question that Bobby was smart. I myself have a B.A., a J.D., and an M.B.A. from some very prestigious universities, and Bobby was just as smart as I am. Bobby also loved to argue and debate, and early in his life he got the nickname of “The Little Professor” because of his intelligence, which – to be honest – had a bit of intellectual superiority to it. Bobby was always questioning our teachers – including a series of debates with a very capable teacher of Euclidean geometry – and was quite adept at picking up the other person’s logical errors and inconsistencies. Nor was he shy about such confrontations.
In addition, he was not in any way disadvantaged, unlike many members of the Temple. He came from a stable and supportive middle class family, lived in a nice house, and wore nice clothes. He was educated, too, having received his degree in music from the University of California at Berkeley, with advanced academic work at San Francisco State University. In terms of intelligence, education, and background, then, he had it all over Jim Jones. Combined with his combativeness, Bobby represented a threat to Jones’ authority.
We know that Jim Jones had the capacity to kill several hundred people, many of whom he didn’t even know or harbor any resentments against. How much more likely would it be that, unable to prevail logically or rhetorically over Bobby’s questions and criticisms, Jones simply took the easy step – at least for him – of eliminating Bobby entirely.
(Kenneth A. Odell is a retired attorney. His other two stories in this edition of the jonestown report are A Glimpse into the Life of Phyllis Tuttle Houston and Memories of My Best Friend, Robert Houston, Jr.. He may be reached at kodell1729@yahoo.com.)
Originally posted on October 24th, 2017.2
Memories of My Best Friend, Robert Houston, Jr.
by Kenneth A. Odell
I knew Bob Houston (“Bobby”) from 1957 to 1961, when we were both students at Capuchino High School in San Bruno, California. We were active in the high school marching band – although Bobby was a much better musician than I was – and were on the “academic track,” as it was then called, so we took all the advanced courses in the sciences and humanities. Although I got slightly better grades, Bobby was just as smart as I was. He was also an Eagle Scout and, as I recall, worked part-time jobs during the school year, as I did.
Capuchino was a typical middle class suburban high school in the 1950’s, with very few poor or rich students, predominantly white, with a few Asian and Latino students, and even fewer African Americans. Bobby came from a very stable middle class family, the father Bob, Sr. (or “Sammy” as we called him) was a photographer for the San Francisco Chronicle newpaper, his mother a homemaker, and his younger sister a few years behind him in school.
After graduation I went away to college, and Bobby went to Cal Berkeley where he majored in music, en route to a career as a high school music teacher. While at Cal, Bobby married Phyllis Tuttle,, a high school classmate of ours, and they had two daughters, Patty and Judy. After 1961 I lost track of Bobby, and next heard about him due to his death on October 5, 1976, ostensibly due to a railroad accident. Now that I have investigated Bobby’s history with Peoples Temple, there is no doubt in my mind that his death was ordered by Jim Jones.
Up until 1961, there was nothing that hinted at his future involvement with the Temple. Though Bobby always had an empathetic streak in his personality, nothing I knew could explain his fanatical devotion to the Jim Jones cult. I don’t recall that Bobby had much interest in civil rights, but that may well have developed as a result of attending Cal Berkeley in the 1960’s.
* * * * *
Although it may not have seemed so at the time, Bobby did not die in vain, due to a series of random coincidences. As mentioned, Bobby and I were in the high school band. Every year there was a competition for high school bands in Long Beach, California, and in 1960 we were selected as the best band in the State. As a result, we represented California at the John F. Kennedy inauguration in 1961. I still remember marching down Pennsylvania Avenue on a very cold day.
One of the chaperones on our trip to Washington was our high school government teacher, a man named Leo Ryan. In addition, Bob’s father Sammy Houston came along as the official band photographer. Leo Ryan and Sammy lodged together during that trip and formed a friendship that became important after Bob’s mysterious death 15 years later.
Following the “accident,” Sammy contacted Ryan with his misgivings about Peoples Temple and its recently-established agricultural project known as Jonestown. The more Ryan learned about Jonestown, the more interested he became. His interest led to contacts with other former members and ultimately to his fatal trip to Guyana. It is my opinion that the investigation sparked by Bobby’s death set in motion the decision by Jones to leave the country, with the final result being the mass destruction of the cult in 1978. Had Bobby not been killed, it is of course unknowable as to how and in what sequence this whole catastrophe would have played out.
On a personal basis, I find myself at a total loss in understanding how an intelligent, well-adjusted, grounded person like Bobby could be caught up in a cult like the Temple to begin with, let alone after he was subjected to widespread group criticism and even physical punishment at the hands of Jim Jones. I suppose that since my life was, if anything, more chaotic than Bobby’s, my real fear or concern might be for myself. I have had a few tangential contacts with organizations which in some ways resembled Peoples Temple, but apparently my “cult radar” is pretty sensitive, as all I ever felt – despite the feelings of some of my peers – was a sense of mingled disbelief and revulsion.
At age 73, I think that I am pretty well immunized from this grotesque portion of the human spirit.
(Kenneth A. Odell is a retired attorney. His other two stories in this edition of the jonestown report are A Glimpse into the Life of Phyllis Tuttle Houston and The Death of Robert H. Houston, Jr. He may be reached at kodell1729@yahoo.com.)2