Mother
Jessie Milton Jones was born August 6, 1889.  She told me that she was born at Stubenville, Wayne County KY.  The family later lived on a large farm over looking the Cumberland River also in Wayne County where mother lived until she was ready for high school.

She had always been a favorite of her Grandfather, Granville Milton Jones, a successful business man and a widower,  who lived at Monticello. KY.  So she went to live with him to go to high school.  He had a sister Sarah, known by mother as "Aunt Gosh".  Aunt Gosh taught mother  to sew and helped supervise some of her activities. 

Mother attended Kentucky State College now the University of Kentucky.  She graduated in 1912.  Her first teaching job was at Pineville City High School where Gene and I  lived for over twenty years.  On one or more occasions when she visited us in Pineville, she tried to find the location of the school.  I finally discovered that it was on Cedar Street.  She was there for one year and then went to teach at Morehead, KY.  That was where she met the VanSant family and especially Vernon. They were married January 10, 1918.

Mother taught me so much as she went about her daily chores of taking care of a large family.
There was no barber close by, but none needed. I watched many times as mother cut Daddy's hair with a comb and her sewing scissors, always giving his neck a neat trim with shaving cream and a straight razor.  Of course she was the skillful hair cutter for all the seven boys in the family as well as for me, Frances and Joyce.  My first Biology  lessons occurred as I watched her dress a frying chicken or a hen for the dumpling pot.  She would point out the gizzard and craw, the heart , liver and the developing eggs etc. She often sharpened her butcher knife on the edge of the big cast iron skillet.

I still am impressed with her skill using those very important tools; a pair of sewing scissors and a kitchen knife.

Mother told me a story about when I was a very little girl.  I wanted to help her with the dishes.  She allowed me to dry a teaspoon, but I wanted to dry the saucers!  I said to her , " When I get big and you get little you can dry the spoons and I will dry the saucers"