Janis Marie Jones

In an ocean of grief, I pray for the strength to be like my incredible mother who left us on October 30, 2022. It is a void that will never be filled. Janis Marie McIntyre Jones was the strongest woman I’ll ever know. She faced much adversity throughout her life but she never lost her heart, compassion and humor. As an example, in the last years of her life she fought a terrible battle with Parkinson’s Disease. Recently, the hospice nurse had been coming to see her frequently. She inquired whether or not my mother was experiencing shortness of breath. “Yes,” my mother replied. Then the nurse asked when she experienced the problem. My mother deadpanned, “Only when I run.” She had been in a wheelchair for years. Classic Mama. She was born in Marianna, Florida to Elon Virginia and Paul McIntyre. They were a loving and close-knit family that always enjoyed one another’s company. She grew up in Dothan, Alabama where she was an excellent student with many friends and developed a great love for blending her clear beautiful soprano voice in the choir. She met the love of her life (and later my father), James Daniel Jones, Jr., while attending Auburn University. Of course, they met in the choir. They were married for sixty-one years until his death in 2020. I believe they sang together on every road trip they ever took. Her marriage began with a trying incident. My father had gotten a new job in Dallas, Texas and had flown ahead to secure housing for them with my mother to follow at a later date. She flew into DFW airport on the day President Kennedy was shot. She wondered what kind of city she had come to but the two of them decided to stay. Dallas, Texas, it turned out, was a far better place than its worst moment in history. The city had fabulous energy and a real love for the arts. They were happy there. I was raised in Dallas and they gave me an idyllic childhood. There was no better mother on Earth than mine. She was patient, kind, loving, funny, supportive and encouraging. I was so very fortunate. Janis was a woman of many talents. She quilted and sewed beautifully and together with her mother made endless beautiful clothes and even costumes for a small trick or treater. She cooked wonderful food, was always trying a new recipe, and she made the best chocolate sauce for ice cream anyone ever tasted. Janis was also a voracious reader and exasperated her husband and daughters no end by reading the end of a book first. She spent her career as a computer analyst for WIC and Nutrition in the State of Florida and later in life earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Social Work from Florida State University. If there was one trait that exemplified my mother’s spirit, it was her desire to help others. Even at the end of her life when she was by necessity in a facility, she still wanted to try and help everyone around her. She was extraordinary and her compassion boundless. She will be forever missed by her daughter, Sharon Jones, the daughter of her heart, Christy Naylor (Jeff), her grandchildren Peyton and Lily, and her best friend and cousin Martha Prescott. I will love and miss you forever, Mama. Wait for me just a little way down the road.

Janis Marie Jones

January 17, 1938 - October 30, 2022