9 June 1895 – 13 September 1918
Lt. Jones was shot down over France when his squadron (the 103rd led by Major William Thaw) was attacked by eight German chase planes. The combat was fierce, and Gene and his comrades shot down four enemy planes; Gene was the only allied casualty of that battle. Though Gene died on September 13, his parents didn’t receive word of his death until early November of the same year, just a few days before the Armistice was signed on November 11th.
Gene’s parents were not born in Chicago. His mother Josephine was born elsewhere in Illinois, but his father Ira was born in Indiana, his parents married there, and Gene and his one-year-older sister and only sibling Janet were also born there. Between 1900 and 1910, however, the little family moved to Chicago, and that’s where his parents were living when Gene was killed in action in France.
Ira and Josephine stayed in Cook County into the 1920s but by 1930, they had moved to Alabama where they would live out the rest of their lives.
Upon their deaths, however, they returned to Illinois to rest beside their only son whom they’d lost to war decades before.
RIP Joneses
Please visit my Instagram for any questions or comments on this post!