Updated January 12, 2009
THE PERSONAL HISTORY
OF KENNETH GAGE JONES
1939 -
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Foreword
Brief Summary of My Interaction with My Parents 1
Formative Years
Early Years
My Spectacular Entry into the World 3
Earliest Memories 6
Chickens and Other Creatures 6
Cows 7
Ice Cream 7
Playing in the Pond 8
Catching Crawdads with My Toes 8
Mary=s Love of Snakes 8
Playing With Snakes………………………………………………………….....................9
My Formative Years 9
My First Bicycle..................................................................................................................10
Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts 11
Growing Up in the First Christian Church Religion 12
Learning to Play Table Tennis (Ping Pong) 13
Discovering Tennis 14
Harry Carter, One of My Best Friends 15
Joy and Steve During the Korean War 16
School Years
Elementary School 17
Junior High School 18
Getting a Nickname 18
Boxing 19
My First Job at a Public Library 19
High School Years 20
Gym Class 20
Car Travels 20
A Turnaround in my High School Grades 21
Selling Shoes at Penny=s Department Store During Christmas 22
Choosing a College Major 22
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College Years
Cameron Junior College 22
Introduction and Algebra Class 22
Spilling Sulfuric Acid 23
The Cat in the Lectern Box 24
Experience with Potassium Iodide 24
Fighting Forest Fires in Idaho 24
The Trip North 24
Picking Ribes 25
Me and the Blueberries 26
The Deer Fawn in the Nest 26
Doing Lunch with the Bear 26
The Bear Doing Lunch in My Tent 26
Almost Getting Eaten by the Bear 27
The Bear and the Food in the Trunk of the Car 27
Fighting Forest Fires 27
The Wilderness Vista 28
Oklahoma University 28
Living in the Dormitory 29
Social Life 29
Academics in General 29
Summer Job Selling Bibles in Muncie, Indiana 30
Basic Training in ROTC at Ft. Hood, Texas 32
Post College Years
Linde Corporation of Union Carbide 33
Welcome Received in Buffalo, New York 35
Living and Working in Tonowanda, New York 35
Social Life 36
Enjoying the Wonderful Winter 38
U.S. Army 38
Doing Artillery School in Lawton, Oklahoma 38
Shipping off to Bamberg, Germany 39
Ending up in Bad Kissingen, Germany 40
Returning by Troop Carrier to Fort Dix, New Jersey 41
General Dynamics 42
Doing Work 42
Meeting Mary 43
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Teledyne Ryan 45
SCI Corporation 46
Working for Richard Hartley 48
Northrop Electronics 48
Job Transfer to Utah………………………………………………………………………………………..50
Retirement 51
Do I Really Want to be a Teacher? 51
Selling Life Insurance 52
Religion 52
APPENDICES
Appendix A - Personal History of Leonard Gage Jones by Kenneth Jones 54
Appendix B - Personal History of Hettie Morgan by Kenneth Jones 55
Appendix C - Personal History of Charles Lee Jones by Kenneth Jones 57
Appendix D - Personal History of Alice Adelle Eidson by Kenneth Jones 58
Appendix E - Personal History of John Nathan Morgan by Kenneth Jones 59
Appendix F - Personal History of David Jones by R. L. Jones in 1939 60
Appendix G - Personal History of Jabez Jones by Kenneth Jones 65
Appendix H - Patriarchal Blessing of Kenneth Gage Jones 66
Appendix I - Church Positions Held by Kenneth Gage Jones 67
Appendix J - Family Genealogy 69
Appendix K - Photographs 70
Personal Vignettes…………………………………………………………………………………………..70
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FOREWORD
This is written to my wife, Mary Ellen, and our three children, David, Nicole, and Jason. This is also written to educate, inform, entertain, as well as bear testimony of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I hope the writing of my personal history will inspire each of my children to write their personal histories for the benefit of their children.
Brief Summary of my Interaction With My Family
My parents were both about 41 years old when I was born June 13, 1939. My brother and sister were 11 and 13 years older than I respectively. We lived in my grandmother’s house at 907 C Street, Ardmore, Oklahoma. My grandmother is Alice Adeina (Eidson) Morgan being my mother=s mother.
Picture of Alice Adelle Eidson (Morgan) with children Kirk Morgan and
Hettie Adeina Morgan (my mother)
907 C st North West Ardmore, Oklahoma (about 1907)
That=s right, my parents moved in with grandmother as soon as their honeymoon was over. The story goes that mother refused to live separate from grandmother after they were married. I imagine that dad didn=t object too much since he calculated that living rent and mortgage free for 60 years does have its monetary advantages. I remember very little about my sister (Joy Jones) until she went away to college at Oklahoma College for Women in Chickasaw, Oklahoma. In fact I only remember two instances of my sister before she left home to go to college. The first was when grandmother Morgan was in an old rocking chair and she did something to upset both mom and Joy, my sister. There was a big bowl of peach peelings involved with all of this, but I don=t know what it was and Joy does not remember the incident. It appeared to me that the bowl might have spilt and grandmother made a scene. With Joy on one side of grandmother=s rocking chair and Mom on the other, they picked up grandmother in her chair and very quickly moved her out of the house onto the front porch with grandmother hollering. This was the only instance of contention between grandmother and any member of our family that I know anything about. I also remember grandmother responding with a question put to her with Awhat did you say?” but when she was in the next room and someone would say something quietly about her, she knew exactly what was said! When Fariss had his friends over I would follow them around like a little puppy dog every chance I got. Fariss was always kind and considerate of me and was as much like a father as an older brother. Mom and dad were very caring of me in their own way. Mother was very doting and would make sure that she woke me up with a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice. Many times when I was in a hurry, my breakfast would consist of a raw egg beat up in milk with a liberal amount of chocolate malt added. Of course mother always fixed my breakfast for me, even when I got older. Dad insisted on having three warm meals a day. He would actually leave work and come home for his noon meal, which was just as big a meal as the evening meal. I guess the tradition started in his family when they had a farm and needed three big meals a day because of the heavy physical workload. Unfortunately, mom spoiled me rotten, and I was quite a self-centered brat. After all, I was the center of my own universe. I did not have any siblings that I had to share with. I think that this adversely affected my social skills.
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Dad generally did not pay very much attention to me until I reached my teens. I cannot remember either mom or dad ever taking a book and reading to me. I cannot remember mom or dad ever sitting down and playing with me before I became a teenager. When I became a teenager the relationship between dad and I changed a lot. We became chums of a sort. When dad got home from work he had a fixed routine. He would first eat, read the paper and listen to the radio, and then get out the card table and play a card game called solitaire. He played a lot of solitaire. When I became old enough for him to teach me how to play solitaire, he taught me other card games, like Pitch, as well as how to play dominoes. Dad and I played a lot of dominoes. Interestingly enough, dad never asked me how I ever felt about anything. We simply sat and played games, concentrating on the games without any side conversation. Evidently this was the way that dad was raised with his other brothers and sisters. He was quite close to several of his other brothers and sisters who lived in Madill, Oklahoma with my Uncle Potter living there in Ardmore. I only remember going to Uncle Potter=s when we would get turnip greens from his garden. His daughters were quite a bit older than I. I really think that I was dad=s favorite son. Fariss had given dad quite a few problems. Fariss essentially disliked dad for most of his life and would quite often blame dad for being the cause of his own problems. I could never really understand my older brother=s attitude toward dad. In his own way, I could tell that dad was very loving and caring of me. He just didn=t know how to communicate this to me. He was one of the most honest
men I had ever met. I never saw him and mom have a disagreement or say an unkind word to each other. On the other hand, the only time I ever saw dad kiss mom, or show her any affection, was when she went into the hospital to have an eye operation for glaucoma.
Formative Years
Early Years
My Spectacular Entrance into the World
I arrived on this earth June 13, 1939 at Ardmore, Oklahoma. I was told by my mother and sister that I was a rather puny baby when I was born and not too healthy. In my baby book, my mother entered four items and four items only: she entered my name, date of birth which was Tuesday, June 13, 1939 (thank goodness I wasn=t born on a Friday the 13th), my weight, 7 2 lb., and a good size selection of pretty blond hair that was cut for the first time on my first birthday. My blond hair reminds me of my daughter, Nicole=s, hair at the same age. I will have to compare my hair clippings with hers. Of course, my wife, Mary Ellen Leishman, also had pretty blond hair when she was very young.
Earliest Memories
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My earliest childhood memories are when I was about three or four years old. I slept in a baby crib in the same room as my parents, Leonard Gage Jones and Hettie Adeina Jones. This was not by choice of my parents. It was by necessity. My sister, Joy Jones, and my grandmother, Alice Morgan, slept in single beds in one bedroom, and my brother, John Fariss Jones, slept in the other spare bedroom. So where else could I have slept, in the hallway? One of my first memories was waking up at the break of dawn with the morning rays of sunlight just reaching into our bedroom. I was amazed to notice all of the lint and dust particles floating in the air. The rays of the sun just made them sparkle. Have you ever noticed lint and dust particles suspended in air and illuminated by the morning sun? Maybe after 55 years, this doesn=t happen anymore. Did we live in a very dirty room or what? I hope all of my grandchildren will tell me if they can see dust particles in the early morning sunlight. There is a secret to this adventure. The dust particles are only captured when the first rays of the sun come into the room!
I still vividly remember a very strange vision I had at this young tender age. I awoke one morning, very early, before the sun was shining into our easterly facing bedroom window. I stood up in my crib and grabbed the top railing, which was just about level with my chest. In looking at my sleeping parents, I noticed two personages, a man and a woman, dressed very nicely in light brown tweed. The man had a suit and tie on. The woman was also smartly dressed in the same type fabric. I was quite startled to see them by the side of my parent=s bed. They both appeared to be leaning over my father and gazing at his sleeping body. I was very much alarmed at the sight of these intruders and yelled very loudly for my parents to wake up. As soon as I did this, both visitors calmly turned their heads only to look at me, and then calmly took a step or two forward and just disappeared. I make no claim that I actually saw two spirit beings, even though to this day I think I could recognize them if I saw their pictures. They did not look like any of my relatives that I have pictures of. Neither was large of stature and they appeared to both be about the same height.
A good reason for me to be skeptical of this vision was another one I had at about the same age that was even stranger. I was outside on the front porch at night and saw a lightening bolt strike not too far from our house. In this lightening bolt I thought I saw a very stern, scary-looking man, with a pointed goatee. I immediately bolted for the front door and ran into the house with the wits scared out of me. Was I a strange child or what?
Another memory is when I was taking a bath and got out of the tub to dry off. The only heat in this bathroom was a gas stove in the center of the bathroom. I=m surprised we didn=t all die of affixation from the burning gas fumes. Maybe that is why they built homes with 15-foot ceilings. At any rate, it was wintertime, and the bathroom was cold even with the stove on. So I decided to back up to the stove and warm my bottom. Unfortunately I slipped and fell on top of this very hot stove and burned my buttocks pretty severely. Not a very pleasant experience to recall. My dad had a very unusual method of bathing. I never saw him get into a bathtub while I was growing up. He would fill up the kitchen sink with water and wash himself all over with a wet washrag. I was surprised he didn=t get more water onto the bathroom floor than he did!
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I have fond memories of my grandmother telling me stories of her childhood. She would relate such stories as Indians chasing one of my great uncles as he rode for the Pony Express and how he set the prairie on fire to escape them. When she was only five or six years old, she rode up to a settlement with her father that Geronimo had just attacked and left his grisly remains. She claims that she saw Geronimo as he was riding off in the distance. He had a beautiful horse and a headdress that nearly fell down to the ground while he was mounted on his horse. She related the story of the Oklahoma land rush when she was a little girl and how many settlers had already settled Oklahoma prior to the rush. The settlers were allowed to homestead the amount of property they could circle in a day. You can imagine where the name boomer sooners comes from. These were the people that entered the Oklahoma Indian Territory and marked off their claim before the official opening date of the land rush.