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Mr. Jones is now devoting his time to looking after the real estate holdings of himself and his father and is the representative of the Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Company of Newark, New Jersey, in the City of Bartlesville, Oklahoma. He claims the Lone Star State as the place of his nativity and was about two years old when he accompanied his parents on the overland journey from Texas to Indian Territory, his medium of transportation having been one of the old-time "prairie schooners," and his mother having driven the team attached to the same, the while his father drove another team and gave careful supervision to the primitive caravan and the care of the live stock which was driven through by men hired for the purpose. He whose name initiates this article has imbibed deeply of the progressive spirit of the state in which he was reared and has witnessed its development and upbuilding with satisfaction, his loyalty to Oklahoma being of the most insistent type and being marked by distinctive public spirit. Mr. Jones was born in Fannin County, Texas, in the year 1883, and is a son of John W. S. and Martha T. (STOWE) Jones, the former of whom was born and reared in Illinois and the latter of whom was born in Indiana but reared to maturity in Illinois, where her marriage was solemnized. In 1878 the parents removed to Texas, and there the father was identified with the cattle and farming industries until 1885, when he came with his family to Indian Territory, under conditions that have already been described. They arrived in what is now Washington County in July of that year and location was made on a pioneer farm two miles east of Bartlesville. John W. S. Jones here developed a valuable landed estate and achieved marked success as a farmer and stock-grower. He continued his residence on this place until about the year 1900, since which time he has lived virtually retired in the City of Bartlesville. He still owns a valuable landed estate of 300 acres in Washington County and the same is devoted to diversified agriculture and the raising of live stock. Mr. Jones is one of the sterling pioneer citizens of Washington County, has done well his part in the development of this section of the state, and is held in high esteem by all who know him, his wife, who had been his devoted helpmeet, having been called to the life eternal in January, 1901, at the age of forty-four years, and she is survived by four children- Francis A., who is one of the prosperous agriculturists of Washington County, his farm being situated a few miles south of Bartlesville; William W., who is the immediate subject of this review; and Ora Dessie and Ola Bessie, twins, the former being the wife of Charles B. SKINNER, who resides on a farm two miles south of Bartlesville, and the latter being the wife of Roy E. SPEAR, assistant city engineer of Bartlesville. William W. Jones has been a resident of Washington County from his virtual infancy and his childhood was passed under the conditions and influences of the pioneer period in the history of this section. He acquired his early education in the somewhat primitive local schools of the period, and the first which he attended was in the old Missionary Baptist Church building, four miles southeast of Bartlesville. Thereafter his studies were continued in a schoolhouse that was built by his father and a few other men for the purpose and that was supported by him and other settlers in the vicinity, the teacher receiving $1 a month for each child to whom he imparted instruction. Mr. Jones continued to attend school about four months each year until he had attained to the age of sixteen years, and in the meanwhile he learned the lessons of practical industry under the careful direction of his father, the latter having earnestly encouraged the children in the developing of self-reliance, ambition and a determination to achieve worthy success. After leaving the rural school Mr. Jones attended the public schools of Bartlesville for two terms-one of seven and the other of nine months' duration. At the age of eighteen years he felt his ambition to acquire a more liberal education so definitely quickened that he made the desire one of action. Through his own resources largely, he defrayed the expenses of a three years' course in school at Independence, Kansas, where he pursued high school studies and also completed a regular business course, so that he won and received diplomas in each department, in 1904, at which time he was about twenty years of age. The ambition of the young student and worker was not yet satisfied, as shown by the fact that in the same year he realized his heart's desire and took unto himself a wife. The year 1904 recorded, at Independence, Kansas, his marriage to Miss Grace MCCREERY, who is a daughter of John L. McCreery, now a resident of Bartlesville. Mr. and Mrs. Jones have five children, namely: Ray Winfield, Elsie Genevieve, Charles Francis, Helen Laurie, and Robert Lincoln. After the completion of his educational work at Independence Mr. Jones returned to Oklahoma and engaged in the insurance business at Bartlesville. On the 1st of January, 1905, he removed to Shawnee, Pottawatomie County, where he continued in the same line of enterprise until the spring of the following year, when he returned to Bartlesville and assumed the position of bookkeeper in the Bartlesville National Bank, a position of which he continued the incumbent two years. For the ensuing two years he was retained as an auditor and bookkeeper in the service of the Sachem & Mid-West Oil Company and in 1920, when Bartlesville adopted the commission system of municipal government, he was appointed secretary of the board of city commissioners, in which capacity he served, besides holding simultaneously the office of city treasurer, until the spring of 1912, when further municipal honors were conferred upon him, in his election to the responsible office of commissioner of finance and supplies. His administration has been characterized by efficiency and a loyal effort to do all in his power to further the civic and industrial welfare of his home city, and he was one of the popular and valued municipal executives of Bartlesville. Mr. Jones is aligned as a staunch supporter of the cause of the republican party, and is affiliated with the Masonic fraternity, the Knights of Pythias, the Woodmen of the World, and the Fraternal Aid Association. He is a stockholder and director of the Fish Creek Oil & Gas Company, of which he is serving as secretary, and he is the owner of his residence property in Bartlesville. For the first three months after their marriage he and his wife lived in the home of his parents, and since that time they have maintained an independent home, their first child having been born at Shawnee and the other in the City of Bartlesville. Mr. and Mrs. Jones are popular in the representative social activities of their home city and are zealous members of the First Methodist Episcopal Church, in which he served six years as superintendent of the Sunday school and of whose board of trustees he is a member at the present time. He was treasurer of the building committee at the time when the present beautiful church edifice was erected, and he has stated in a facetious way that he has held practically every lay office in the church save that of president of the Ladies' Aid Society. Typed for OKGenWeb by: Earline Sparks Barger, December 8, 1998.