Betty Faye Jones

January 24, 2021

Betty Faye Jones

Service Details

Betty Faye Jones
Feb. 11, 1925 – January 24,2021
If you knew Betty Jones, you loved her. The one thing you might remember best---Her smile!
Born Betty Faye Thomas to Elbert and Bessie Faye Thomas on a farm between Thurman and Sydney, Iowa known as the Sitton farm where her Father worked. The family spent the next 20 years in several homes around Sydney and Farragut. Betty loved school and would excel throughout her childhood and into adulthood always seeking out education, taking Adult Education classes of Iowa Native Americans, Spanish and Auto Repair for Women.
Music was a huge part of her life beginning as a child sitting next to her Mother on the piano bench. The family would listen to live music on the radio and Betty would travel to Shenandoah to see live shows often.
Just out of high school in 1942, Betty took a job at a service station pumping gas and servicing cars for $14.00 a week as all of the boys had joined the service. She was asked by the manager of Continental Railways to come to work for them as a night travel agent and was offered $40.00 a week! It was here she met Morrie Jones who would travel often to jobs where he played music.
Morrie and Betty married September 1, 1944 and lived in Shenandoah with her parents until they "Went where the music called them". Starting in Saginaw, Michigan and also living in Indiana, Waterloo, Iowa, Little Rock, Arkansas and Abilene, Texas all while Morrie was playing music with Homer and Jethro, Jimmie Dickens, Ernest Tubb, The Everly Brothers (who worked for a while in Shenandoah) and Chet and Lowell Atkins to name a few.
Marvin was born in 1952 and the family settled in Shenandoah for the next few years, then moved to Des Moines in 1954, where they found the home which would remain home for over 50 years.
Early on, Betty was a stay at home Mom. She was a den mother and active supporter of scouting. She always made sure music and dance were a large part of our lives. To help pay for that, she did hand carved leatherwork. She became so good at that, the Iowa State Fair asked her to judge the entries for the fair. In the 60's, she went to work at Bankers Life Insurance Company working her way up to a supervisor position. She loved the work and especially all the special people she became friends with while there. Many remained friends through all the years after her retirement in the 80's.
Music, of course, continued to be one of the most important things in her life going with Morrie to his jobs for years until his death in 2005. She would still seek out live music and made several trips to Branson, Missouri.
Betty loved her many, many friends and stayed busy with weekly Scrabble outings, several different groups that would meet for dinner. She was always so happy to hear from those who would reach out to her from the past. It meant so much to her.
Waiting to be with her again are her son Marvin Jones and his wife Janet; her daughter Marcie Jones; her grandson Spencer Jones, his wife Jill and their children Garrett and Lindsay; her grandson Danny Jones and his daughter Kamrin.

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