In concert

Last Saturday night, my sister, Allison and I caught the second show of Beyoncé and Jay-Z's On The Run II tour at Fedex Field. We were in good company as it appears Barack and Michelle Obama were also there. Our seats were near the top of the stadium but we had a good, unobstructed view of the screens above the stage. For a large stadium show (and Fedex is a huge stadium), the sound was good, and the video show accompanying the concert really helped our viewing.

Photo by Patrick Jones. View from section 444, 28 Jul 2018.

It was an impressive show. The two alternated blocks of songs and performed together on many. We had a great time and even managed to avoid a long delay escaping parking at the end.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Beyoncé and Jay-Z.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Jay-Z at Fedex Field, 28 Jul 2018.

Churchill Downs

Photo by K. D. Jones. Undated photo of Churchill Downs.

Photo by K. D. Jones. Undated photo of Churchill Downs.

Among the old photos taken by my grandfather were two with the unmistakable Twin Spires of Churchill Downs. I do not know the date the photos were taken, likely sometime in the late 1930s to early 1940s. I don't know the story behind the photos, if it was at the Kentucky Derby or another race held at the track. Either way I thought these were cool photos of the day. The track has undergone quite a bit of renovation over the years.

Flatt's Distillery

In my last post, I covered the pardon for Robert Foster Flatt in 1886. Here is an advertisement for his distillery that was published in the Arkansas Herald in 1885. As suspected, he had a sizable distillery operation, producing corn and rye whisky, and different flavored brandies.

Arkansas Herald, 9 Jul 1885.

Pardoned by the Governor

Back in October 2015, I wrote about Robert Foster Flatt (formerly Reamus Foster Flatt), older half-brother of my 3rd-great-grandmother Nancy Jane Flatt. I missed these articles at the time, showing Robert was pardoned in 1886 by Arkansas Governor Simon Pollard Hughes Jr. for selling liquor without a license. The $200 fine was remitted back to Flatt.

Arkansas Sentinel, 12 Oct 1886

Daily Arkansas Gazette, 19 Apr 1888

In 1896, Robert was involved in another case against the State. This was appealed from Benton County Circuit Court to the Arkansas Supreme Court. The decision was affirmed on 6 February 1897. I do not know what the case was about.

Daily Arkansas Gazette, 24 Nov 1896.

Armed with a cleaver

The news clipping below mentions my 3rd-great-grandfather Guilford Dudley Read and his brother "Eke", who were involved in a fight with a local judge in their butcher shop in February 1904. You can't make this stuff up.

Louisville Courier-Journal, 28 Feb 1904

Autograph from a champ

Back in June & July 1960, my grandfather was completing a training program for his new job with Oakite Products in New York. While there, he had dinner at Jack Dempsey's restaurant and met the former Heavyweight Champion. This postcard was among the photos and ephemera passed down from my grandfather to my Dad and then moved into our place after my Mom moved in with us in March.

The autograph reads, "To Keith lots of luck pal, Jack Dempsey" and was signed 22 July 1960.

Autograph from Jack Dempsey to my grandfather Keith D. Jones, 1960.

 The image on the front of the card depicts the championship fight won by Dempsey on 4 July 1919.

Park Attendants

Photo by J. Jones. Keith D. Jones, Twin Lakes, SC. 

At least one summer during the 1980s, my Nana and Gumpy worked as park attendants at Twin Lakes, South Carolina. This is a campground and recreation area on Hartwell Lake, located on the South Carolina-Georgia border. Twin Lakes is very close to Clemson, South Carolina.

Photo by Keith Jones. Jeanne at Twin Lakes, SC.

Photo by J. Jones. Keith at Twin Lakes, SC.

They were really quite active in their later years, traveling around the country in an RV, camping, fishing and working in various parks from Minnesota to South Carolina to Texas.

More Fish

Back in April 2015, I posted a couple of photos of my grandfather, Keith D. Jones, following a successful catch of fish. Here are a few more. That's a pretty fun shirt my Gumpy is wearing in the first photo too.

Keith D. Jones, 1943.

A big catch. Likely 1943.

Shark Week

Photo by Patrick Jones. License Plate Shark, Los Angeles. 19 May 2018.

Our kids are hooked on the Discovery Channel's Shark Week, which is currently celebrating its 30th anniversary. In honor of Shark Week, I'm posting a photo of a great white shark made out of the license plates, on display at Beyond the Streets in Los Angeles.

My frequent traveling sister also swam with whale sharks on Saturday off the coast of Cancun, Mexico. Sadly she missed out on photos, but tells us it was an amazing experience. That is one up on me, I missed out on the whale sharks while I was in Mafia Island, Tanzania back in July 2017. It was the wrong season for the whale sharks. 

Brownsville, 1983

Keith Jones, Brownsville, Texas, 1983

The photo above shows my Gumpy with orange trees, taken in Brownsville, Texas in 1983. The one below is Gumpy's brother Bob and his wife Marjorie while visiting in Brownsville.

Robert P. Jones & Marjorie Johnson Jones. Brownsville, Texas, 1983.

Trip to Minnesota

K. D. Jones on his boat in Minnesota. Aug 1995.

Another postcard among the photos passed down from my Nana and Gumpy provided some context to a visit my Dad made to the US-Canada border in August 1995. Nana and Gumpy were staying in Tower, Minnesota in their mobile home, and my Dad drove up to visit them with a boat that he had built (see the photo above). We still have the boat.

It is interesting to see that my Dad wrote the date wrong as November, but clearly it was mailed from Indianapolis to Minnesota in August 1995.

Dad camping in Minnesota, Aug 1995.

Tower is located on Lake Vermillion, north of Duluth, and not far from the US-Canada border.

Butterfly

Photo by K. D. Jones. Swimming the Fly.

Here is another throwback action shot in my high school swimming days. I was either swimming the 100 Fly or 200 Individual Medley. I am not certain of the date, but likely this was during the 1991/92 season.

I feel like I may have posted a zoomed & color-enhanced version of this photo on the blog previously but I can't find it. In any case, this is a copy of unedited photo that I used to make the color-enhanced one so many years ago. It was in a photo album belonging to my Nana, Betty Jeanne Reynolds Jones.

Mom and I took advantage of the rainy day yesterday to go through a large box of old photos. I'm pleased to be able to resurface these in digital form. More to come.

Postcard from Dad, 1994

Photo by Patrick Jones. Postcard from K. D. Jones, June 1994.

It is a rainy day here in Northern VA, so we tackled an old box of photos, postcards and other stuff passed down from my grandfather to my Dad. In the set was this postcard mailed by my Dad on a stopover in Hong Kong to Jakarta, Indonesia in June 1994. The note is the kind of thing that people would put in an email or text today. Dad flew from Indianapolis to Japan, then Hong Kong to Jakarta.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Postcard dated 9 Jun 1994, Hong Kong.

The line at the end about the Rockets refers to the Houston Rockets, who were in the NBA Playoffs at the time. They ended up winning the NBA title in 1994.

My Nana and Gumpy were living in Fulton, Texas at the time. This is near Rockport & Corpus Christi on the Texas Gulf Coast.

Below is another postcard from the same trip, mailed from Indonesia back to Nana and Gumpy in Texas. My Dad was teaching a class in aircraft engine maintenance in a mountainous area near Bandung, Indonesia.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Postcard from K. D. Jones, Jun 1994.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Postcard from K. D. Jones, Jun 1994.

His note mentions wanting to visit Mt. Tangkuban National Park, this is a volcano on West Java north of Bandung.

Announcing a new job in 1960

Indianapolis Star, 7 Aug 1960.

The clipping above announced a new job for my grandfather, Keith D. Jones, as a technical representative for Oakite Products in August 1960. He had previously worked as a supervisor at the US Naval Avionics Center in Indianapolis. I knew this from the postcard I posted back in 2012. My Gumpy's brother, Robert P. Jones was a senior executive with Oakite in 1960, which may have had something to do with him taking on this new role.

The job with Oakite would later take Gumpy to Texas. I will have more on his time in Texas in a future post.

At the beach

Alma Oyler Jones. Galveston, Texas. Feb 1971.

Here's another one of my great-grandmother Alma Oyler Jones, taken at the beach at Galveston, Texas in February 1971. 

Alma, 1976

Alma Oyler Jones, photo taken 30 June 1976

This photo is of my great-grandmother Alma Oyler Jones, taken on 30 June 1976 in Indianapolis. I'm currently going through a set of old photos passed down to my Dad from various members of his side of the family.

Retirement for Uncle Bob

Bridgewater (NJ) Courier-News, 8 Jun 1972

This article announces the retirement of Robert P. Jones (brother of my grandfather Keith D. Jones) as CEO of Oakite Products in June 1972. I previously posted a photo of the two of them in the 1920s. Robert, who I knew as Uncle Bob, became President and CEO of Oakite in March 1963. He started out as a field representative in Indianapolis in 1949.

In the news

Maryville Times, 19 Aug 1891.

While looking through articles on Newspapers.com, I stumbled onto this clipping mentioning the marriage of my 3rd-great-grandfather Joseph Jones and his second wife, Amanda Cooper Irwin in Maryville, Blount County, Tennessee. I previously posted a copy of their marriage license in December 2013. They later divorced on 30 April 1897.

Another clipping shows Joseph, my 2nd-great-grandfather Thomas Robert Jones and Robert O. Snoddy (husband of Nancy Cornelia Jones, Joseph's daughter) in Maryville, Tennessee feeding 35 hogs for the spring market in 1886. By the next year, Thomas returned to Boone County, Indiana and married my 2nd-great-grandmother Sarah Ellen Armstrong. Robert and Nancy eventually moved to Oklahoma.

Maryville Times, 17 Feb 1886.

The clipping below mentions "Lum Jones' father" - Joseph Jones. In 1894, Joseph renewed the subscription to the Maryville Times for his son Marion Columbus Jones, although "Lum" had moved to Oklahoma.

Maryville Times, 3 Jan 1894.

Maryville is located south of Knoxville. After his divorce from Amanda Irwin, Joseph returned to Jefferson County, Tennessee and married Martha Cordelia Hart.

Lake Day

Photo by Patrick Jones. Lake Murray, SC. 15 Jul 2018.

We spent the past weekend visiting family in Columbia, South Carolina. On Sunday, we took a much deserved break to relax on my brother-in-law's boat on nearby Lake Murray. The photo above is a view from the back of the boat as we motored to several islands during the day.

Source: Google Maps. Lake Murray, SC.

Dreamers

Photo by Patrick Jones. Art by Patrick Martinez, Los Angeles. 19 May 2018.

The art above by Patrick Martinez is from the Beyond the Streets exhibition in Los Angeles. I took this photo while at the exhibition in May. The work is a powerful reflection of the current times, full of negativity.

There is a bit of hope in this too. I am hopeful things in this country will change for the better, starting in November.

The orchard

Source: Kent Archives. Deed dated 26 March 1835.

I am continuing to go through the documents sent by the Kent Archives on my 5th-great-grandfather Samuel Oyler. As with yesterday's 1000 year lease, the document above shows a deed from the Governors of Queen Anne's Bounty to Samuel, for six acres and a property called the House on the Hill in Cranbrook, Kent. The six acres (actually one 3.5 acre field and a separate 2.5 acre field adjoining the house) were used by Samuel for an orchard of fruit trees. Samuel had negotiated the lease on the land from several area clergy, including William Clark. A whole copy of the deed is below:

Source: Kent Archives.

Source: British Museum. Etching by Francis Haden. Cranbrook, 1863.

The 1000 Year Lease

A second document in the set provided by the Kent Archives shows that Samuel Oyler was assigned a 1000 year lease for a garden, stable, barn and orchard in Cranbrook, Kent. This was connected to the other document I shared yesterday transferring land to Samuel Oyler from the estate of William Clark.

Source: Kent Archives. 6 April 1834.

Source: Kent Archives. Assignment of lease.

Source: Kent Archives. Signature page.

Signature of Samuel Oyler

Source: Kent Archives. Signature on document from 6 April 1834.

Yesterday the Kent Archives sent me a set of documents on my 5th-great-grandfather Samuel Oyler. The signature above comes from a release on a plot of land in Cranbrook, Kent on 6 April 1834.

Source: Kent Archives.

According to the documents, Samuel had rights to a property with a garden in a town called Saint Davids Bridge in Cranbrook, Kent. From the Kent Photo Archive, Samuel may have seen a view that looked like this:

Source: Kent Photo Archive. Saint Davids Bridge.

There is more to sort through on these documents, which shed light on Samuel's descendants in Kent.

Happy 4th

Source: Library of Congress. 4th of July over DC. 2008.

New find on Uriah Lamon

While digging around on Newspapers.com I found an obituary I had missed for my 2nd-great-grandfather, Uriah Allen Lamon. I had not thought to look in Iowa, so this was a surprise.

Quad-City Times, 20 June 1945.

According to the obituary, Uriah had moved to the Royal Neighbor home in Davenport, Iowa in January 1943. This was less than three years after the date of the letter he wrote in May 1940 to the daughter of his niece, Daisy Lamon. It appears the Royal Neighbor home was an assisted living facility. Davenport is right across the river from Rock Island, Illinois, about 110 miles from Fort Branch, Indiana and 100 miles from Indianapolis, Indiana. It is not clear to me why he would have gone to Davenport but maybe other family was in the area. It is also odd that the clipping does not mention his other son George, who was living in Huntingburg, Indiana at the time.

The obituary says he was born in Tennessee, but I know this is incorrect, he was born in Harrison County, Indiana. It does provide a birth date (9 June 1854), which I did not have before. Just like the article mentions, I found a Findagrave entry for a Uriah Allen Lamon buried in Fairmount Cemetery in Davenport, Iowa. A photo of the headstone is below:

Source: Findagrave.

This shows that headstone for him and wife Anna Smith Lamon in Clark Cemetery in Gibson County, Indiana is not where he was actually buried.