Eugene Jones 1916-1979
Eugene Lawrence Jones, son of William Lawrence & Estella (Shoulders) Jones, died April 11, 1979 of a heart attack at age 62. He was born July 31, 1916 almost on the Pike-Warrick county line. He was buried in Oak Grove Cemetery in Washington, Indiana.
As a boy he lived in Boonville and Oakland City. He was active in the Boy Scouts and sports. He graduated from Oakland City High School during the height of the Great Depression. He worked in the coal mines and finished two years at Oakland City College before being one of the first 6 called up from Warrick County in the first draft in 1940. His one year enlistment was almost up when Pearl Harbor was bombed. He trained with an anti-tank company before transfering to the Army Air Corp. He trained as a pilot in Miami, Florida where he met his future wife. He was washed out of pilot training because he was over 25.
He became a navigator on a B-17. On one mission his B-17 took heavy flack near Brux Czechoslovakia on a mission to bomb a Daimler-Benz tank factory in Berlin. A total of 6 planes were lost on the mission. The pilot of his plane flew the crippled plane back towards home but it finally went down in Allied Territory in Czechoslovakia. Mr. Jones took a piece of flack during the mission in his left thigh and received a Purple Heart for it. He was missing in action for months.
He was discharged in 1946 and married Elizabeth Smith on May 31, 1946. They lived in Tin Town, a converted Army Barracks in Terre Haute, Indiana while he finished his college and got his teaching license.
His first child, Jim Eugene, was born May 5, 1947, and Mr. Jones graduated in 1948 and took his first teaching job in Corydon, Indiana and taught there three years until he came to W.H.S. in the Fall of 1951. He taught Industrial Arts and was head of that department for many years, until his retirement in 1978. He coached 7th & 8th grade basketball in his early years.
Mr. Jones and Elizabeth had four children: Jim, Richard Allan, Janet Susan, and Barbara Ann. Barbara died Jun. 27, 1975 from kidney failure.
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From the 1970 & 1971 WHS Yearbooks: Eugene Jones; Shop & Machine Drawing, Engineering Drafting, Electricity, Electronics, Radio Club Sponsor.
Indiana State University B.S. & M.S.
