Katy-  Can you describe some of your experiences during the World War 2, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War?

 

Mr. Jones-  Of course I was in highschool and I finished in 1944.  World War 2 was still going off and my dad was the commanding officer of the Oxford National Guard.  So, when the national guard was called up in 1941, he was called back in to service.  He was in World War 1 and was wounded in there.  But, after World War 1 he came back and joined the National Guard, and moved his way up in the company, and was the commanding officer, and so when they left his real heart on us, and we moved up to the Jones home place on Enon road.  We were trying to make a goal up there by raisin tobacco and home stead was a growth and we had a uncle named Huperd, and he was my mom’s brother, and him and his wife came and lived with us.  Once year who headed south when my dad was in the military again.  Of course we grew tobacco, sugar, beans, and gasoline, and we had to have stamps for just about everything, shoes, clothes, gas, sugar.  We had stamps for everything and a certain amount of stamps, and during that time in high school I drove the school bus, and I drove the school bus from my house.  I finished high school and went to work for the imperial tobacco company and I went to Lake City, South Carolina and worked on the tobacco market, and we had work down on King Street, and many other places down there, and once the season was over there we came back to South Boston Virginia, and we worked at a marker there until it closed, and when that closed I was almost 18, and my dad came home from the war because of his age.  My mother was an amputee, and lost her leg from cancer in about 1930.  So, my dad came home and I decided I didn’t want to be drafted, so I was going to join the navy.  So then I went back to Raleigh to join the regular navy and in 30 days I got a letter saying to report back to Raleigh for a meeting.  So, when I went they told me they had great news and they told me I had a wonderful score, and they told me I had to go to boot camp and at that time if you went you wouldn’t be able to come back and get back in the program.  So, I didn’t get to join the Naval Airforce.  So, I seved in the navy as a cordermaster, which is a navigation, signals, and steering the ship.  After I got out of the nave I came back to Oxford and there wasn’t  any room on the farm for another person, so I thought about going back to the tobacco company and the season was over.  So, I ended up in Lons Drug Store, getting some medicince for my mother, and Mr. Lon’s asked me what I was doing and he was glad to see me and he asked me what was I doing in the Christmas season, and he gave me a job there do do little stuff around the store.  So, I stayed there for a while, then Mr. Lons asked me if I was interested in working in the pharmacy, and he told me he was going to Chapel Hill to see if I can get you a job in there.  So, I decided to try it, and I enrolled in, and I went to pharmacy school there.  It was the end of World War 2, and the Korean War was coming up.  When this was going on, my brother served with the Navy and was over there fighting for about town and a half years.  Vietnam, I don’t have much memory on except  that my close friends were killed in it and it was a six year war that was never won.

 

Katy- What about your experiences of the involvement in the Civil Rights Movement?

 

Mr. Jones-  I came back to Oxford in 1952.  After I finished the pharmacy school, I went to Wilson and worked there for about a year and a half.  Then, I came back to Oxford and I went back to to work at Lons Drug Sore and I worker there till 55, and I decided to open my own store on Hillsboro, and we opened there.  At this time blacks were to drink from different fountains and couldn’t eat with white people or nothing.  I felt that this wasn’t right and I decided to open my own policy and I made it where everyone could come to my store and I got a lot of complaints, but I was the first person to do this and some other people did the same.  But ever since then we tried to serve everyone the same and people have been thankful for me.

 

Katy-  What was your impact of electricity on you and your family, and do you remember when you first got electricity?

 

Mr. Jones-  Well, back then we lived at my grandfathers, we had kerosene lamps and my dad brought a landing lamp and it was a brighter