Thomas Russell Jones and Maudie May Poteet Jones
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In Remembrance of

Casey and May Jones
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Veteran World War I

Biography

We are gathered here this afternoon to pay our final respects to Thomas Russell (Casey) Jones, who has tilled the soil in this community for seventy years. His body will now return to the earth he loved so much.

Casey was born in Grimes County, Tex., to Major James and Susan Jane Jones, Nov. 8, 1889. He had six sisters and two brothers, all of whom preceded him in death. Russell wasn´t much as young boys go, he´d say, He was tall, too skinny, which he tried to hide by wearing two pair of pants.

He felt he had no particularly talent, average looks, but the one thing that he did have that was uniquely his own was an insatiable thirst for knowledge, a thirst so intense that it burned as brightly at age 95 as the first star that illuminated the heavens of Shinar.

As Russell ran bare-foot through the piney woods of East Texas, his ears being assaulted with the distant ring of cow bells, he dreamed lofty dreams of far away places, great scholars whom he hoped someday to meet. He loved philosophy and even as a child began the endless, hopeless task of seeking to interpret knowledge. His first true love was his mother and she died when he was 12 and his life was never quite the same. Perhaps he felt close to her because she encouraged him in his uniqueness, something that few people were able to do from that time on.

Russell´s first chance for adventure came with World War One when he was invited to serve his country. He often related the story of how he was sleeping in his barracks in San Francisco waiting for deportation to the war zone when he heard echoing through the early morning fog, the faint voice of a paper boy crying out the morning headlines of the daily paper. Over and over he heard "No More War, No More War!" Elated, Russell along with his comrades were immediately dispersed to their respective homes.

Following a series of odd jobs, Casey arrived in the McAdoo community in 1915 where he began what was to be his life-long occupation of farming. While working on the Riley Wooten farm in 1920 he met Maudie Mat Poteet at a singing at the Pansy Baptist Church. Going home with Riley that day he told him that he was going to marry May, the cheerful, pretty, dark haired, dark eyed daughter of Joe and Lete Poteet.

After a two-year courtship, which consisted of Russell sitting in the living room with May, under the watchful eye of Joe Poteet, Russell, age 33, married May, 22, on the front porch of the Poteet home east of McAdoo, Sunday June 3, 1923.

Times were hard for everyone, especially sharecroppers and the young couple learned early on how to play the game of being frugal, but as children came along, five in all, and the depression continued, the game of frugality took on a more serious tone, one of desperate survival, as the nation struggled through some of its blackest days.

In 1941, Russell and May were able to buy the farm they presently own under a Farm and Home program. They daily watched as each nail was pounded into the house which is still the Jones home, affectionately named by Russell and May as their ´Blue Heaven.´

Like all families in this community, Casey and May have had moments of absolute joy and times of deep despair. One of the most traumatic being when their son, Troy Don, died in 1971. After sitting by his bedside for 10 weeks, along with their daughter, Vona, day and night their time with their precious child ended. Daddy, being overwhelmed with gentleness said, "If there is not a heaven, surely God will build one just for Troy."

But, through it all, they have been more fortunate than most because they have never, for one moment, been alone. They have had you, the good people of the community to laugh with them in joy, and your tears have mingled with their own in their sorrow. Casey so often remarked that you could go the world over and you would never find the quality of people who live in and around McAdoo. "They are the salt of the earth, I tell you." he would say, again and again.

One of Casey´s grandsons once penned the following words which we feel so eloquently describe the beautiful comradery in this loving place. It reads as follows:

When one of us is sick, none of us is well
When one of us is cold, each would give his shirt
When one of us hurts, we all hurt.

In these few words, David Aaron Hallam beautifully expresses our sentiment to each of you, the people who have loved and supported us, given us strength, were patient with us as we grew older, have seen to our physical needs and validated our reason for being.

In closing, the family of Casey Jones would like to pay a special tribute to our husband and father in a private way. He took his duty as husband and father seriously and constantly strove to instill in all of his children high ideals of fairness, honesty, respectability, firmness of decision, and seeing commitment through to the end at all cost. He was not critical of his fellowman and when he heard someone being criticized he would firmly say "each person does the best he can with what he has." And, with a smile, he´d say, "Perhaps, from birth, his cup was not as generously filled as yours, so be patient with him, these things come about by no choice our own."

Dad loved politics, philosophy a good debate, especially if he won. He had a romance with books and men whom he considered great scholars.

Poverty grieved him deeply. Inequality of any sort was almost more than he could bear.

Casey furiously loved and protected his bride of 63 years, and his greatest fear was leaving her behind when he could no longer shield her from things that might harm her physically or emotionally. He made a habit of writing her poems of love and gratitude, and continued this until his death. His last words to her were that no woman had ever been loved as completely and deeply as she had been and he gave her his famous charge to be courageous, release the past and embrace the future.

He often remarked in his last days that there were two great tragedies; one was to die too young and the other was to live to be too old.

To all of you here, to Dr. Rhoades, the lovely nurses in the Crosbyton Hospital, to Russell and May´s special angel, their nurse and companion, Elena Garcia, we convey to you all the love a heart can hold and we humbly beg you to forgive us our short comings. Thank each of you for taking time to come to this place, and it was Casey´s request that as you leave these grounds that each of you touch his coffin. Thank you.

The family of T. R. (Casey) Jones

George Cathey, a son-in-law from Austin, read the tribute at the gravesite of Casey Jones.


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Services for May Jones, 92, of Brownwood and formerly of McAdoo were held at 3 p.m. Sunday, July 11, 1993, in McAdoo United Methodist Church with the Revs. J. Waid Griffin, a retired Methodist minister from Lubbock, and Rev. Beth Harrington, pastor, officiating.

Burial was in McAdoo Cemetery under direction of Adams Funeral Home of Crosbyton.

Mrs. Jones died at 1 p.m. Friday, July 9, 1993, in Brownwood Regional Medical Center.

She was born May 27, 1901, in Hico. She married Russell Jones on June 3, 1923, East of McAdoo. He died on Jan. 22, 1985. She was a homemaker and a member of the Methodist church. She moved to Brownwood from McAdoo in 1985. Two sons, Troy Don Jones and Olis Lavoice Jones, preceded her in death.

Survivors include a son, Thomas Hilton Jones of Lubbock; and two daughters, Lila Cathey of Brownwood and Vona Bingham of Big Spring.

Pallbearers were Dale Neff, Bob Ross, Noble Hunsucker, Jr., Clifford Trull, John Spear and Abdalla Hendy.

Honorary pallbearers were J.J. Griffin, Harold Trull, John Burrow and Bill Tidwell.

©The Crosby County News & Chronicle, Thursday, July 15, 1993

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