With the rash of the 20th Anniversary articles on the Jim Jones Mass Suicides, Carolyn Eisenhower's thoughts turned back to 1978. She had had a good and bad year. Carolyn Eisenhower was no longer dating television producer Monte Kay. She had a Jewish mother-type landlady that was a wonderful mentor. So she was deeply involved in writing "Inside Black Hollywood," and Record Producer Neil Bogart, who also produced Barry White on Casablanca Records, threw a big record party at his Bel Aire Estate, where she celebrated Donna Summer's "MacArthur Park". Carolyn Eisenhower also partied that year with Charlie Small (his father owned Small's Paradise in Harlem) in his bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel, after a private screening of his musical creation "The Wiz" at a Hollywood Theatre. It was Carolyn Eisenhower's first time eating mushrooms prepared by the Beverly Hills Hotel Chef and they were delicious. She almost ate all of them, so Charlie Small ordered three or four more trays. And that year her extended family members Claude and Lou Dimple Goodspeed took vats of cyanide-laced poison with Jim Jones in the fetid jungle of Guyana.
During the early 1970's, Carolyn Eisenhower enjoyed a lovely dinner with her extended family Claude and Lou Dimple at their home in Los Angeles. Claude Goodspeed was such a sharp dresser, and he loved stylish cars. He had worked on the railroads as a porter. He was well traveled and had impeccable manners. And Claude was incredibly happy about spending time with Carolyn Eisenhower. So he and Lou Dimple went out of their way to impress her. Lou Dimple showered her with gifts that evening.
When Cora Stewart telephoned Carolyn Eisenhower in 1977 about growing concern over Claude and Lou Dimple's religion. Carolyn Eisenhower was shocked. How could this be happening? They had given their Los Angeles income property and their bank acounts to Jim Jones"s Peoples Temple. Carolyn Eisenhower asked Cora Stewart if she should speak with Claude. She said absolutely not, and not to get near those Jim Jones' people. That she wasn't sure if they caused Claude to lose his mind. She felt that they were being given some type of drugs or were under a spell. After all, Cora Stewart stated, it was all Lou Dimples fault. Lou Dimple kept taking Claude to different churches, trying to find one she liked. Finally, Claude and Lou Dimple ended up in the clutches of Jim Jones. Even though, Cora Stewart's sister, Claudia Simon, attempted to take them away from the Jim Jones People's Temple, they told her to mind her own business. That this was the only way for them to get salvation.
Then there was gossip of beatings and forced donations, which Cora Stewart never bothered to have investigated. At that point, they didn't know where or how to located Claude and Lou Dimple Goodspeed. When Carolyn Eisenhower heard that more than a dozen cult members had left the socialist Utipia with California Congressman Leo Ryan, and were all shot dead, within minutes, trying to get on two planes in a remote airstrip at Port Kaituma, she only shuddered at the thought.
Supposedly the United States Government brought their bodies through Washington, D.C. for their love ones and relatives to identitfy. Cora Stewart and Othello Stevens refused to travel to Washington, D.C. or bury Claude and Lou Dimple. After all, what happened to all their property and money? So perhaps Claude and Lou Dimple Goodspeed are buried in the Jim Jones Peoples' Temple's Mass Grave in Oakland, California, along with 900 or more cult members?
Now in 1998, while having breakfast with Cora Stewart, she mentioned that someone told her that they saw Claude Goodspeed's Cadillac in San Francisco. San Francisco was where the Jim Jones Cult Members boarded the ship for Guyana. Carolyn Eisenhower questioned why the Jim Jones Temple sold all of Claude's possessions, but not his favorite car? it was as if Claude Goodspeed's Cadillac appeared in San Francisco as a haunting reminder of two wonderful lives ending in religious confusion.
