I spent the good part of yesterday working on this. Here’s the finished product. I had a little help from Daddy.

Who was she, really?

Lethonee Jones, born 10 June 1938, in Bluefield, West Virginia. Her parents were Elbert and Alma Hendricks. Lethonee had a happy childhood until her father met his early death when she was only 10. Enough of these vital statistics as they don’t get at who she was. Lethonee was very dedicated to education. She came from an educated family. They all spoke the King’s English, even when they were at home. This later fascinated Leander, an English major in college, who had never heard real people speak this way in the privacy of their own home.

Her father had wanted to be a doctor, but he had received college tuition from a pharmacist, whose only stipulation was that he go into pharmacy. Mommy thought she’d become a doctor in his place. Instead, she studied people. Her degree in Intercultural Studies from Western College for Women gave her a taste for world travel. She thought she might want to join the foreign service. A highlight of her undergraduate years was a trip to the Middle East. She met King Hussein of Jordan, and was always telling everyone, “I’ve been there!” whenever that region was mentioned in the news.

After she married Leander C. Jones in 1962, she still had a taste for travel. An adventuresome young man, Leander thought it would be interesting to travel as well. The two joined the Peace Corps in 1964 and boldly headed off to Somalia. They lived in Mogadishu, the capital city of Somalia for two years, and traveled to Kenya, and various places in Europe as well.

They started their family life upon their return, and also immediately plunged into Graduate School. After staying home with her daughter Angela for two years, Lethonee went to work as a Professor at Kennedy King Community College in Chicago. She paused briefly to give birth to a son, Leander, who is called Zeke. ( the nickname was coined by Lethonee’s stepbrother, Dick) Then she returned to her career in academia.

The family moved to Nashville Tennessee, and Lethonee taught at the University of Tennessee Nashville, while Leander was a grant writer at Meharry Medical College. During this time, Lethonee was also active as a Girl Scout Leader, something she’d also done in Chicago. She started her Ph.D. program with a solo trip to Greece during this time as well.

After two years in Nashville, the family moved to Kalamazoo in 1975 and has been there ever since. They enjoyed a happy neighborhood life in the alley behind their home on Westnedge. (see the alleykid series) Both Leander and Lethonee secured positions at Western Michigan University, Lethonee in the Social Work department, and Leander in Black Studies. Lethonee was teaching and pursuing her Ph.D. from Union Graduate School. She was fascinated with family history and did some genealogical research. She was able to trace her husband’s family back to Africa. Her dissertation, Roots to Trees, details this research.

The Lewis-Fitcheard family reunion was born out of Lethonee’s questions to the older family members. The reunion is some thirty years strong now. Lethonee received her Ph.D. in 1977. She continued to teach at WMU until her retirement in 1994.

After retirement, she was able to pursue in earnest her many creative hobbies. She loved every kind of needlecraft and was constantly taking classes to learn newer, more interesting techniques. She learned everything from embroidery, to ribbon embroidery to bead embroidery. She learned increasingly complicated basket-making techniques. She would always send Len or one of the children out to find sticks, or straw, or milkweed pods to make some sort of woven thing.

Hers was a creativity gone wild: Lethonee would even save ham bones, pork chop bones and peach pits for making jewelry. She revolutionized local quilting groups with her bold use of color. She would often muse at how she’d enter a quilting group where the women were contemplating shades of beige, and she’d introduce some vivid jewel tone. The next year, everyone’s quilt had rich, bold colors in it.

Lethonee was fascinated with sea tones. She loved aqua, sea green, any shade of green, really, and she made everything in these colors: sweaters, sweat suits, dresses, afghans, you name it. She even had a car that aqua color—a Volkswagen bug—and our first house was painted that aqua color, too!

Throughout her adult life, Lethonee had various health issues. She had several surgeries on her thyroid gland which was eventually removed. She had large fibroid tumors which ultimately required a hysterectomy. She had her gall bladder removed, and later in life, she had various respiratory problems which resulted in her needing oxygen, especially at night. Diabetes and hypertension, and a previous hospitalization for an irregular heart beat were various issues she contended with during her last hospital stay.

Her knees had no cartilage left in them, making walking very painful. With her mobility impaired, Lethonee was not able to enjoy traveling as she had her whole life. She and Leander still took a trip to Hawaii three years ago, and earlier had traveled together throughout Canada with Florence, Leander’s sister, but she needed canes and wheelchairs. Finally, with the oxygen needs, she was forced to stay at home most of the time.

With this diminished quality of life, Lethonee was determined to lose weight and then have knee surgery. She had gastric bypass surgery on October 6, 2005, and was unable to fully recover. She breathed her last labored breath on February 22, 2006. She leaves behind her devoted husband of 43 years, Leander, an Aunt, Mollye Williams of Cleveland, a brother, Elbert Hendricks, two step-brothers, Steve and Richard Andrews, a brother-in-law, Lonnie Jones; four sisters-in-law, Florence Calhoun, Elizabeth Jones, Eva Hendricks and Anita Howard; three former sisters-in-law: Bobbie Jones, Henrietta Andrews, and Rosalyn Taylor; a daughter, Angela, son-in-law, Curtis, son, Zeke, daughter-in-law, Kim, step-daughter, Jerrilyn; six grandchildren, four step-grandchildren, and one step great-grandchild. She also leaves behind a host of cousins, nephews, nieces, and friends. Her closest friend, Delores Myers, also shared her passion for crafts. Lethonee will be greatly missed.