Wilmette Public Library Local History Digital Collection

C. Herbert Jones (1889-1987) oral history

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Track 3, Transcript p. 5-8: Track 3, Transcript p. 5-8
Transcription: [Track 3] And they had one mausoleum down in Mattoon, Illinois. And I was there from the beginning, laying out the building. I did concrete work, pile work, set marble tile, granite stone work, so I was with that building until it finished. 'And then I was an engineer at a job up in Madison, Wisconsin, so he sent me up there to have charge of that job. Well, things were getting a little touch then. But in the meantime, my wife had graduated from Northwestern in 1915. A: Was she your wife? C. Herbert Jones, cont. 6 CHJ: No, she wasn't my wife. A: Who was? CHJ: This beautiful gal, anyway, she was beautiful to me. A: Would you like to name her? CHJ: Her name was Ferne Storm. And she had .a job teaching chemistry in a little school out near Madison. So Northwestern University and the University of Wisconsiin were going to have a football game and so I invited her to this football game. And I was making big plans to get a big chrysanthemum and spent 500 for a chrysanthemum and that was pretty big. Anyhow, we had big plans but in the meantime she was trying to put a glass tube through a rubber stopper and the glass broke and she cut her hand badly and she got a doctor and the doctor used some instruments that hadn't been sterilized so she got blood poisoning and she nearly passed out. She result was we never did see that game. But that year when Northwestern played Wisconsin at Randall Stadium the wooden bleachers all collapsed with the crowd, so it may have been, if we had gone to the game, we might have both been killed. I don't know. It might have been a different story. Anyhow, my wife had a stiff finger the rest of her life. But, so then in 1917 things got pretty tough, anyhow - A: That was during the War? (C. Herbert Jones, Transcript cont. p7) CHJ: They were talking about war and so I got a job in the second semester, well, in February of 1917 at Miami Military Institute. Miami Military Institute was in Germantown, Ohio. And this was a school for boys who wouldn't study at home and So a lot of their teachers were -retired Army officers and a lot of those had gone back into the service. I lived at the school and had to go around to the rooms and see that the boys were all in their beds. I was Captain Adjutant and had to keep track of their scholarship records and the discipline records and I never saw a daily paper. I never had listened to the radio, I didn't know what was going on in the world. And the school there wasn't very anxious for me to know what was going on. So I was never under any pressure to enlist. They took charge of registering for the Draft and my feeling was that I would go when I was called. A: And what the Draft did was - CHJ: It was there and I was registered there for it and when I got through there in June. Well, it was a question - shall I enlist? or shall I wait to be called? or shall I get married? and then if I was called, O.K. So I asked this Ferne Storm's brother (she had a brother out in Montana) on a claim. Out near Great Falls. Montana. A: It was still unclaimed in 1917? (C. Herbert Jones, Transcript cont. p8) CHJ: Oh, yeah. This July the third we were married and we went up to Minneapolis and then out to -- on the train to --Helena, Montana and I got a Model T 1917 Ford and I wish I had that now! But I don't. A: Indeed.
Creators: Jones, C. Herbert, 1889-1987, Interviewee; Rhea Adler
, Interviewer
Media Type: Audio; Image; Text
Item Type: Audiocassettes
Description: Interview with C. Herbert Jones by Rhea Adler in Wilmette, Illinois, on June 25, 1977.
ABSTRACT: Early life in Philadelphia Move to Evanston High school and college years Graduate school Half century of engineering school Northwestern University Chattaqua Romance Miami Military Institute World War I years Marriage Homesteading in Montana 1917-1922 Northwestern Tech building Return to Illinois Teaching in Joliet New Trier - Faculty Jones family Church and community Work with Hadley School's ham operators
Notes: This interview was conducted as part of the Wilmette Public Library District's Oral History program, started in 1975 by a committee of the Friends of the Wilmette Public Library chaired by Rhea Adler, a resident of the Village of Wilmette since 1932.
Date of Original: 15 June 1977
Subject(s): Baptist churches
Oral histories
Wilmette (Ill.) -- Residents
Personal Name(s): Jones, C. Herbert
Local identifier: R977.31 JO
Language of Item: English
Copyright Statement: Protected by copyright: Uses other than research or private study require the permission of the rightsholder(s). Responsibility for obtaining permissions and for any use rests exclusively with the user.
Copyright Date: 1977
Copyright Holder: Wilmette Public Library
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