Mary Elizabeth Crites Jones
13 May 1919 – 22 Sep 2013
Mary Elizabeth Crites Jones, died on September 22 in Riverside Methodist Hospital after a long and full life of devoted marriage, friendship and loving motherhood. She was 94.
Mary was born on a sunny but unusually chilly May 13 in the year 1919. The high temperature was only 54. The moment Mary arrived, so did spring; the temperature immediately jumped into the 60s-90s for the duration of the warm season.
She loved flowers, plants and all creatures and so was perfectly at home on the small farm of her father Edson O. Crites and mother Emma Dreisbach Crites outside of Circleville. But the Great Depression hit when Mary was 10 and her older brother Franklin was 14. The farm at least gave them food when many others had none. She told stories of desperate nomads walking the farm's dirt road offering to work for her father in exchange for food. Edson always did what he could.
But soon, the farm was lost, too, and the family had to move into Circleville proper. Mary's father took a job as a travelling salesman attempting to sell headstone monuments. He later was caretaker of Forest Cemetery. Living the frugality so many did during those times instilled in Mary an empathy for others that she never lost.
Fully 3½ decades before Title IX, Mary was team captain of the first Circleville High School girls' basketball team in 1936-37. Because neighboring schools had no such squad, the team usually could play only intrasquad scrimmages. Mary was simply born too soon; she later loved to have a baseball catch in the backyard with her sons or follow the Cincinnati Reds on television and radio.
On June 18, 1942, months after America's entrance into World War II, she married Hildeburn "Burn" Jones Jr., grandson of a well-known Circleville physician. She soon after embarked with Burn on his Army Air Corps training for the new B-29 bomber. The trek took them through officer's training school in Fort Knox, Kentucky; navigation training at Smoky Hill Airfield in Salina, Kansas; advanced navigator and bombardier training at Randolph Field in San Antonio, Texas; and eventually San Francisco where Burn would fly to his active B-29 base on Saipan in the Marianas Islands.
Mother loved to tell a story of she and Burn in his dress uniform arriving at the luxurious Palace Hotel with their beloved and regal white German shepherd Simbacarrying her purse in his mouth. When the desk clerks said they were sorry but the hotel did not accept dogs, Burn informed them that he was flying out to serve his country the next day and that Simba was no ordinary dog. The hotel made an exception.
After the war, Mother and Burn settled for a time in Circleville as boarders while he got a job as a draftsman at Curtiss-Wright Corporation, later to become North American Aviation. For a time, Mother took a secretarial position at Corrugated Container Corporation on Court Street before giving birth to Barb in 1947. Burn designed and built the family's first house where they moved in 1950. Bob was born in 1951 and Dave in 1957.
While being a wonderful and caring mom, she always managed to teach her kids humanity through her own actions. In the spring of 1960, Mother took in a baby robin that had been blown from its nest by a thunderstorm. She named him Pete. Unwilling to let the bird die, she nurtured it to health by searching in the backyard for nightcrawlers and feeding him with a pair of tweezers. Pete slept on a perch made of toddler David's Tinkertoys above spread newspaper in the living room. Every dawn of that spring and early summer, he awoke and flew into the master bedroom to wake his "mother" and demand breakfast.
Pete grew healthy and strong and left with his adopted aviary friends that fall to migrate south. Mother could be heard every spring thereafter in Circleville calling out "Pe-ete! Good boy? Good boy!" to various robins, many of whom certainly thought her daft. But she swore that in the spring of '61, one robin chirped on the roof gutter until she came outside, then allowed her to climb within a few inches before hopping away.
The family moved to the Columbus suburb of Worthington in 1964 to get closer to Burn's job at North American. During the late '60s and '70s, Mother was a patient and devoted first teacher for 3-5-year-olds at Jane Chabria's pioneering Early Learning Center Montessori school, the first such in Columbus.
After the kids' departure and their retirement, Mary and Burn moved to Palm Coast, Fla. in 1984. But, missing their old friends and family, they returned to Columbus in 1987. Widowed by Burn's death from cancer in 1991, Mother traveled with her childhood friend Jane Jackson. Together, they drove U.S. Route 6 across Pennsylvania and New York State to see the autumn foliage in New England, went whale watching in Alaska and toured Scandinavia.
Mary remained vibrant throughout her 80s, drove until age 90 and was active in the PEO women's organization into the new millennium. Shewas the Columbus chapter's recording secretary 1996-97, on the nominating committee for three years and on the telephone chain for eight. In addition, she was a regular co-hostess for most of her time in the chapter.
The Columbus chapter will make a contribution in her memory to the PEO Program for Continuing Education, a scholarship fund that assists women whose higher education was interrupted.
Mary spent her last two years in the assisted care wing of the Mill Run Gardens and Care Center in Hilliard where she made many new friends. She died on the first day of fall.
She is survived by daughter Barbara Jones Roth of Dallas, Texas and sons Robert Morris Jones of Columbus and David McCoy Jones of Downingtown, Pa.; grandchildren Evan Roth of Dallas; Avery Elander of Fort Worth, Texas; Rob Jones and Christopher Jones of Columbus; and Nicholas Jones of Downingtown.
The ashes of Mary Jones and her husband of 48 years Hildeburn Jones Jr. will be interred at Forest Cemetery in Circleville on Oct. 25 in a family memorial at gravesite.
In lieu of flowers, friends are asked to donate to Mother's favorite charities, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (aspca.org/donate) and Habitat For Humanity habitat.org
13 May 1919 – 22 Sep 2013
Mary Elizabeth Crites Jones, died on September 22 in Riverside Methodist Hospital after a long and full life of devoted marriage, friendship and loving motherhood. She was 94.
Mary was born on a sunny but unusually chilly May 13 in the year 1919. The high temperature was only 54. The moment Mary arrived, so did spring; the temperature immediately jumped into the 60s-90s for the duration of the warm season.
She loved flowers, plants and all creatures and so was perfectly at home on the small farm of her father Edson O. Crites and mother Emma Dreisbach Crites outside of Circleville. But the Great Depression hit when Mary was 10 and her older brother Franklin was 14. The farm at least gave them food when many others had none. She told stories of desperate nomads walking the farm's dirt road offering to work for her father in exchange for food. Edson always did what he could.
But soon, the farm was lost, too, and the family had to move into Circleville proper. Mary's father took a job as a travelling salesman attempting to sell headstone monuments. He later was caretaker of Forest Cemetery. Living the frugality so many did during those times instilled in Mary an empathy for others that she never lost.
Fully 3½ decades before Title IX, Mary was team captain of the first Circleville High School girls' basketball team in 1936-37. Because neighboring schools had no such squad, the team usually could play only intrasquad scrimmages. Mary was simply born too soon; she later loved to have a baseball catch in the backyard with her sons or follow the Cincinnati Reds on television and radio.
On June 18, 1942, months after America's entrance into World War II, she married Hildeburn "Burn" Jones Jr., grandson of a well-known Circleville physician. She soon after embarked with Burn on his Army Air Corps training for the new B-29 bomber. The trek took them through officer's training school in Fort Knox, Kentucky; navigation training at Smoky Hill Airfield in Salina, Kansas; advanced navigator and bombardier training at Randolph Field in San Antonio, Texas; and eventually San Francisco where Burn would fly to his active B-29 base on Saipan in the Marianas Islands.
Mother loved to tell a story of she and Burn in his dress uniform arriving at the luxurious Palace Hotel with their beloved and regal white German shepherd Simbacarrying her purse in his mouth. When the desk clerks said they were sorry but the hotel did not accept dogs, Burn informed them that he was flying out to serve his country the next day and that Simba was no ordinary dog. The hotel made an exception.
After the war, Mother and Burn settled for a time in Circleville as boarders while he got a job as a draftsman at Curtiss-Wright Corporation, later to become North American Aviation. For a time, Mother took a secretarial position at Corrugated Container Corporation on Court Street before giving birth to Barb in 1947. Burn designed and built the family's first house where they moved in 1950. Bob was born in 1951 and Dave in 1957.
While being a wonderful and caring mom, she always managed to teach her kids humanity through her own actions. In the spring of 1960, Mother took in a baby robin that had been blown from its nest by a thunderstorm. She named him Pete. Unwilling to let the bird die, she nurtured it to health by searching in the backyard for nightcrawlers and feeding him with a pair of tweezers. Pete slept on a perch made of toddler David's Tinkertoys above spread newspaper in the living room. Every dawn of that spring and early summer, he awoke and flew into the master bedroom to wake his "mother" and demand breakfast.
Pete grew healthy and strong and left with his adopted aviary friends that fall to migrate south. Mother could be heard every spring thereafter in Circleville calling out "Pe-ete! Good boy? Good boy!" to various robins, many of whom certainly thought her daft. But she swore that in the spring of '61, one robin chirped on the roof gutter until she came outside, then allowed her to climb within a few inches before hopping away.
The family moved to the Columbus suburb of Worthington in 1964 to get closer to Burn's job at North American. During the late '60s and '70s, Mother was a patient and devoted first teacher for 3-5-year-olds at Jane Chabria's pioneering Early Learning Center Montessori school, the first such in Columbus.
After the kids' departure and their retirement, Mary and Burn moved to Palm Coast, Fla. in 1984. But, missing their old friends and family, they returned to Columbus in 1987. Widowed by Burn's death from cancer in 1991, Mother traveled with her childhood friend Jane Jackson. Together, they drove U.S. Route 6 across Pennsylvania and New York State to see the autumn foliage in New England, went whale watching in Alaska and toured Scandinavia.
Mary remained vibrant throughout her 80s, drove until age 90 and was active in the PEO women's organization into the new millennium. Shewas the Columbus chapter's recording secretary 1996-97, on the nominating committee for three years and on the telephone chain for eight. In addition, she was a regular co-hostess for most of her time in the chapter.
The Columbus chapter will make a contribution in her memory to the PEO Program for Continuing Education, a scholarship fund that assists women whose higher education was interrupted.
Mary spent her last two years in the assisted care wing of the Mill Run Gardens and Care Center in Hilliard where she made many new friends. She died on the first day of fall.
She is survived by daughter Barbara Jones Roth of Dallas, Texas and sons Robert Morris Jones of Columbus and David McCoy Jones of Downingtown, Pa.; grandchildren Evan Roth of Dallas; Avery Elander of Fort Worth, Texas; Rob Jones and Christopher Jones of Columbus; and Nicholas Jones of Downingtown.
The ashes of Mary Jones and her husband of 48 years Hildeburn Jones Jr. will be interred at Forest Cemetery in Circleville on Oct. 25 in a family memorial at gravesite.
In lieu of flowers, friends are asked to donate to Mother's favorite charities, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (aspca.org/donate) and Habitat For Humanity habitat.org
Mary Elizabeth Crites Jones
13 May 1919 – 22 Sep 2013
Mary Elizabeth Crites Jones, died on September 22 in Riverside Methodist Hospital after a long and full life of devoted marriage, friendship and loving motherhood. She was 94.
Mary was born on a sunny but unusually chilly May 13 in the year 1919. The high temperature was only 54. The moment Mary arrived, so did spring; the temperature immediately jumped into the 60s-90s for the duration of the warm season.
She loved flowers, plants and all creatures and so was perfectly at home on the small farm of her father Edson O. Crites and mother Emma Dreisbach Crites outside of Circleville. But the Great Depression hit when Mary was 10 and her older brother Franklin was 14. The farm at least gave them food when many others had none. She told stories of desperate nomads walking the farm's dirt road offering to work for her father in exchange for food. Edson always did what he could.
But soon, the farm was lost, too, and the family had to move into Circleville proper. Mary's father took a job as a travelling salesman attempting to sell headstone monuments. He later was caretaker of Forest Cemetery. Living the frugality so many did during those times instilled in Mary an empathy for others that she never lost.
Fully 3½ decades before Title IX, Mary was team captain of the first Circleville High School girls' basketball team in 1936-37. Because neighboring schools had no such squad, the team usually could play only intrasquad scrimmages. Mary was simply born too soon; she later loved to have a baseball catch in the backyard with her sons or follow the Cincinnati Reds on television and radio.
On June 18, 1942, months after America's entrance into World War II, she married Hildeburn "Burn" Jones Jr., grandson of a well-known Circleville physician. She soon after embarked with Burn on his Army Air Corps training for the new B-29 bomber. The trek took them through officer's training school in Fort Knox, Kentucky; navigation training at Smoky Hill Airfield in Salina, Kansas; advanced navigator and bombardier training at Randolph Field in San Antonio, Texas; and eventually San Francisco where Burn would fly to his active B-29 base on Saipan in the Marianas Islands.
Mother loved to tell a story of she and Burn in his dress uniform arriving at the luxurious Palace Hotel with their beloved and regal white German shepherd Simbacarrying her purse in his mouth. When the desk clerks said they were sorry but the hotel did not accept dogs, Burn informed them that he was flying out to serve his country the next day and that Simba was no ordinary dog. The hotel made an exception.
After the war, Mother and Burn settled for a time in Circleville as boarders while he got a job as a draftsman at Curtiss-Wright Corporation, later to become North American Aviation. For a time, Mother took a secretarial position at Corrugated Container Corporation on Court Street before giving birth to Barb in 1947. Burn designed and built the family's first house where they moved in 1950. Bob was born in 1951 and Dave in 1957.
While being a wonderful and caring mom, she always managed to teach her kids humanity through her own actions. In the spring of 1960, Mother took in a baby robin that had been blown from its nest by a thunderstorm. She named him Pete. Unwilling to let the bird die, she nurtured it to health by searching in the backyard for nightcrawlers and feeding him with a pair of tweezers. Pete slept on a perch made of toddler David's Tinkertoys above spread newspaper in the living room. Every dawn of that spring and early summer, he awoke and flew into the master bedroom to wake his "mother" and demand breakfast.
Pete grew healthy and strong and left with his adopted aviary friends that fall to migrate south. Mother could be heard every spring thereafter in Circleville calling out "Pe-ete! Good boy? Good boy!" to various robins, many of whom certainly thought her daft. But she swore that in the spring of '61, one robin chirped on the roof gutter until she came outside, then allowed her to climb within a few inches before hopping away.
The family moved to the Columbus suburb of Worthington in 1964 to get closer to Burn's job at North American. During the late '60s and '70s, Mother was a patient and devoted first teacher for 3-5-year-olds at Jane Chabria's pioneering Early Learning Center Montessori school, the first such in Columbus.
After the kids' departure and their retirement, Mary and Burn moved to Palm Coast, Fla. in 1984. But, missing their old friends and family, they returned to Columbus in 1987. Widowed by Burn's death from cancer in 1991, Mother traveled with her childhood friend Jane Jackson. Together, they drove U.S. Route 6 across Pennsylvania and New York State to see the autumn foliage in New England, went whale watching in Alaska and toured Scandinavia.
Mary remained vibrant throughout her 80s, drove until age 90 and was active in the PEO women's organization into the new millennium. Shewas the Columbus chapter's recording secretary 1996-97, on the nominating committee for three years and on the telephone chain for eight. In addition, she was a regular co-hostess for most of her time in the chapter.
The Columbus chapter will make a contribution in her memory to the PEO Program for Continuing Education, a scholarship fund that assists women whose higher education was interrupted.
Mary spent her last two years in the assisted care wing of the Mill Run Gardens and Care Center in Hilliard where she made many new friends. She died on the first day of fall.
She is survived by daughter Barbara Jones Roth of Dallas, Texas and sons Robert Morris Jones of Columbus and David McCoy Jones of Downingtown, Pa.; grandchildren Evan Roth of Dallas; Avery Elander of Fort Worth, Texas; Rob Jones and Christopher Jones of Columbus; and Nicholas Jones of Downingtown.
The ashes of Mary Jones and her husband of 48 years Hildeburn Jones Jr. will be interred at Forest Cemetery in Circleville on Oct. 25 in a family memorial at gravesite.
In lieu of flowers, friends are asked to donate to Mother's favorite charities, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (aspca.org/donate) and Habitat For Humanity habitat.org
13 May 1919 – 22 Sep 2013
Mary Elizabeth Crites Jones, died on September 22 in Riverside Methodist Hospital after a long and full life of devoted marriage, friendship and loving motherhood. She was 94.
Mary was born on a sunny but unusually chilly May 13 in the year 1919. The high temperature was only 54. The moment Mary arrived, so did spring; the temperature immediately jumped into the 60s-90s for the duration of the warm season.
She loved flowers, plants and all creatures and so was perfectly at home on the small farm of her father Edson O. Crites and mother Emma Dreisbach Crites outside of Circleville. But the Great Depression hit when Mary was 10 and her older brother Franklin was 14. The farm at least gave them food when many others had none. She told stories of desperate nomads walking the farm's dirt road offering to work for her father in exchange for food. Edson always did what he could.
But soon, the farm was lost, too, and the family had to move into Circleville proper. Mary's father took a job as a travelling salesman attempting to sell headstone monuments. He later was caretaker of Forest Cemetery. Living the frugality so many did during those times instilled in Mary an empathy for others that she never lost.
Fully 3½ decades before Title IX, Mary was team captain of the first Circleville High School girls' basketball team in 1936-37. Because neighboring schools had no such squad, the team usually could play only intrasquad scrimmages. Mary was simply born too soon; she later loved to have a baseball catch in the backyard with her sons or follow the Cincinnati Reds on television and radio.
On June 18, 1942, months after America's entrance into World War II, she married Hildeburn "Burn" Jones Jr., grandson of a well-known Circleville physician. She soon after embarked with Burn on his Army Air Corps training for the new B-29 bomber. The trek took them through officer's training school in Fort Knox, Kentucky; navigation training at Smoky Hill Airfield in Salina, Kansas; advanced navigator and bombardier training at Randolph Field in San Antonio, Texas; and eventually San Francisco where Burn would fly to his active B-29 base on Saipan in the Marianas Islands.
Mother loved to tell a story of she and Burn in his dress uniform arriving at the luxurious Palace Hotel with their beloved and regal white German shepherd Simbacarrying her purse in his mouth. When the desk clerks said they were sorry but the hotel did not accept dogs, Burn informed them that he was flying out to serve his country the next day and that Simba was no ordinary dog. The hotel made an exception.
After the war, Mother and Burn settled for a time in Circleville as boarders while he got a job as a draftsman at Curtiss-Wright Corporation, later to become North American Aviation. For a time, Mother took a secretarial position at Corrugated Container Corporation on Court Street before giving birth to Barb in 1947. Burn designed and built the family's first house where they moved in 1950. Bob was born in 1951 and Dave in 1957.
While being a wonderful and caring mom, she always managed to teach her kids humanity through her own actions. In the spring of 1960, Mother took in a baby robin that had been blown from its nest by a thunderstorm. She named him Pete. Unwilling to let the bird die, she nurtured it to health by searching in the backyard for nightcrawlers and feeding him with a pair of tweezers. Pete slept on a perch made of toddler David's Tinkertoys above spread newspaper in the living room. Every dawn of that spring and early summer, he awoke and flew into the master bedroom to wake his "mother" and demand breakfast.
Pete grew healthy and strong and left with his adopted aviary friends that fall to migrate south. Mother could be heard every spring thereafter in Circleville calling out "Pe-ete! Good boy? Good boy!" to various robins, many of whom certainly thought her daft. But she swore that in the spring of '61, one robin chirped on the roof gutter until she came outside, then allowed her to climb within a few inches before hopping away.
The family moved to the Columbus suburb of Worthington in 1964 to get closer to Burn's job at North American. During the late '60s and '70s, Mother was a patient and devoted first teacher for 3-5-year-olds at Jane Chabria's pioneering Early Learning Center Montessori school, the first such in Columbus.
After the kids' departure and their retirement, Mary and Burn moved to Palm Coast, Fla. in 1984. But, missing their old friends and family, they returned to Columbus in 1987. Widowed by Burn's death from cancer in 1991, Mother traveled with her childhood friend Jane Jackson. Together, they drove U.S. Route 6 across Pennsylvania and New York State to see the autumn foliage in New England, went whale watching in Alaska and toured Scandinavia.
Mary remained vibrant throughout her 80s, drove until age 90 and was active in the PEO women's organization into the new millennium. Shewas the Columbus chapter's recording secretary 1996-97, on the nominating committee for three years and on the telephone chain for eight. In addition, she was a regular co-hostess for most of her time in the chapter.
The Columbus chapter will make a contribution in her memory to the PEO Program for Continuing Education, a scholarship fund that assists women whose higher education was interrupted.
Mary spent her last two years in the assisted care wing of the Mill Run Gardens and Care Center in Hilliard where she made many new friends. She died on the first day of fall.
She is survived by daughter Barbara Jones Roth of Dallas, Texas and sons Robert Morris Jones of Columbus and David McCoy Jones of Downingtown, Pa.; grandchildren Evan Roth of Dallas; Avery Elander of Fort Worth, Texas; Rob Jones and Christopher Jones of Columbus; and Nicholas Jones of Downingtown.
The ashes of Mary Jones and her husband of 48 years Hildeburn Jones Jr. will be interred at Forest Cemetery in Circleville on Oct. 25 in a family memorial at gravesite.
In lieu of flowers, friends are asked to donate to Mother's favorite charities, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (aspca.org/donate) and Habitat For Humanity habitat.org
Family Members
Siblings
Sponsored by Ancestry
Advertisement
Explore more
Sponsored by Ancestry
Advertisement
