Hiram Jones 1934-2018
Services for Hiram A. Jones, 84, of Canton, were held on Saturday, Sept. 15, 2018, at the Eubank Funeral Home in Canton. He was laid to rest next to his wife, Klara, in the Haven of Memories.
He passed away Sept. 7, 2018, in Wills Point. He was born Jan. 21, 1934, in Booneville, Miss. to Hiram Anslem Jones and Myrtle Rae Davis Jones.
A Mississippian by birth and a Texan by choice, he had a consuming interest in the world around him. After two hitches in the US Air Force, Staff Sergeant Jones determined to make his way in the civilian world with his loving wife, Klara, and his children, Mary and Suzanne.
With the steadfast help and support of Klara, he graduated from the University of Texas, Arlington, in 1968, with a Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics and went to work for the Western Electric Defense Activities Division at the Bell Telephone Laboratories in Whippany, NJ.
As part of the Safeguard antiballistic missile test team, he spent 18 months at Kwajalein at the Marshall Islands Pacific test site.
During this time, he and Klara were blessed by a third daughter, Patricia. Shortly after returning to the United States, he and his family returned to Texas, again to pursue his studies, where he obtained another degree, this time a Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting, also at the University of Texas, Arlington.
After his 1974 graduation, he became a member of the Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO) Oil and Gas Corporation where he ultimately became an accounting systems programmer. He retired from ARCO in 1985.
From the time of his Air Force service until his passing, travel was his consuming interest. While in the service, he was fortunate enough to have been stationed in Germany from 1954-1958, during which time he met, fell in love with, and married his lovely wife, Klara.
Before his marriage, he used his free time from his European service to travel extensively in mainland Western Europe and Scandinavia, Spain, Italy, and the British Isles and Ireland.
Still in the Air Force until 1961, he was stationed at Otis Air Force Base on Cape Cod, Mass. Here he and his family were able to absorb the culture and traditions of New England while traveling to the famous sights of this historic area and also visiting Canada.
Just before returning to the States from Germany, he became a Master Mason, raised at the Hunsrueck Lodge #839, Hahn Air Base, Germany.
After his transfer to Otis Air Force Base, he affiliated with the DeWitt Clinton Lodge, A.F. & A.M., Sandwich, Mass. He was a life member of the lodge.
After hiring on at ARCO in 1974, he pursued his quest to learn more about the Pre-Columbian Indian civilizations of Mexico and Central America.
These ventures were too isolated and dangerous for his family, so with Klara’s blessing, he would take journeys alone in his Volkswagen camper into the wilds of southern Mexico and central America to explore the ceremonial sites of the Aztec, Mixtec, Zapotec and Maya ruins scattered from Teotihuacan north of Mexico City to Copan in Honduras and even further south into Nicaragua.
Viewing these ceremonial centers and their pyramids and taking pictures of them made for a greater appreciation of these ancient vanished civilizations and whetted his appetite for more exploration, so one summer in the 1980’s, he drove down the Pan American Highway from Canton to the Panama Canal, some 8,500 miles, taking pictures all the way there and back.
He also had a consuming interest in the military history of World War II since he was a youngster when this calamity occurred. In 2002, he, again with Klara’s blessing, took a 15-day tour of four of the major World War II battlefields in Soviet Russia against the Nazis—the siege of Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), the battle for Moscow, Stalingrad (now Volgograd), and finally at Kursk, one of the largest tank battles ever fought.
On the flight to Russia and back, he stopped in Poland, touring Warsaw and taking a day trip to Cracow and to the horror of Auschwitz.
After his visit, he said he would never forget this monstrous crime against mankind and finally, he and his youngest daughter, Patty, took an eight-day tour to the East coast of Australia in 2004 to see the unique animals and swim the Great Barrier Reef. He said it was fun but it sure was a long flight.
He is preceded in death by his parents; wife, Klara; and two daughters, Patricia Jones and Mary Johnson. He is survived by his daughter, Suzanne Sant of Canton and brother, Emory D. Jones and wife, Glenda, of Iuka, Mississippi.
