"Boz": The Life of Ralph Boswell Jones (1897 - 1976)
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Chapter 4
Embalming, Marriage and Aurora
Return to Lafayette
When Ralph returned to Lafayette, Indiana, his options were limited. His father’s sudden death left the family with little money, and the cost of medical school was now beyond the family’s reach. His dream of becoming a physician was fast fading.[1] So instead of returning to Purdue, Ralph opted to pursue an occupation with a certain future: embalming. The logic was irrefutable—people died, someone had to dispose of the body. Embalming also required relatively few hours of study. In the 1920s one could obtain an embalmer’s license in six to eight weeks. [2] Ralph might have been encouraged as well by the growth of mortician schools in the United States. At least twelve schools of mortuary education were founded between 1900 and 1920, including the Indiana School of Embalming in 1905. [3]
Sometime during 1920 or early 1921, Ralph bid farewell to his mother, brother, and Aunt Maude and moved to Indianapolis, where he resided at Flanner and Buchanan Mortuary while attending mortician school.[4] Thereafter he moved to Toledo, where he lived at and worked for Boyer-Kruse Mortuary at 2230 Monroe Street. [5] There he honed his skills under the able tutelage of Beryl L. Boyer, an innovator in the funeral home business. [6]
Ralph B. Jones, young businessmanMarriage to Dorothy Dorner
While residing in Toledo, Ralph married his girlfriend, Dorothy Dorner. The Lafayette newspaper described the wedding on November 9, 1921, as follows:
“Simple, though very impressive, was the wedding of Miss Dorothy Dorner, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Fred Dorner, Jr., and Ralph B. Jones of Toledo, O., son of Mr. and Mrs. Walter Jones of this city, which occurred at the Central Presbyterian church, Wednesday afternoon at 4:30 o’clock. The guests, who numbered relatives and friends of the young couple, were ushered to their seats by Fred N. Prass, Fred R. Dorner, Holbart Byram, Warren Meyer, Arthur Benton and William Harter. Rev. A.C. Dudley, of Chicago, former pastor of the Central Presbyterian Church, assisted by Rev. T.F. Williams, pastor of Trinity M.E. church, read the single ring ceremony. Prior to the services a short program of bridal airs was delightfully given by Miss Clara Louise Thurston, of Chicago, harpist, and Mrs. H.B. Dorner, of Urbana, vocalist.Photo of the wedding party, Dorothy Dorner and Ralph Boswell Jones“The bride appeared on the arm of her father. Gracefully she wore a … crepe gown with over dress of net, iridescent trimmed. Her tulle veil was caught with orange blossoms. She carried a shower of sweetheart roses and valley lilies. Miss Catherine Dorner, cousin of the bride, was maid of honor and Misses Mabel Keller, Margaret Brown, Bertha Lane and Maurine Mitchell acted as bridesmaids. Little Mary Ann Dorner, cousin of the bride, was flower girl and Charles W. Jones, brother of the bridegroom, acted as best man. Miss Dorner wore faun colored canton crepe, flame trimmed, with hat to match and carried Aaron Ward roses. The bridesmaids also wore the faun colored gowns trimmed in the flame and green, with hats to match and carried chrysanthemums in the autumn tints. Little Miss Dorner wore a frock of pink organdie.
“The bride is a charming and refined young woman. She is a graduate of the Lafayette high school and Northwestern University. She attended Purdue University and is a member of the Chi Omega sorority. The bridegroom attended Purdue University and is a member of the Delta Upsilon fraternity. During the late war he saw active service overseas and was a commissioned a lieutenant at Ft. Benjamin Harrison. He was a member of the infantry. At present he is connected with the Boyer Kruse Mortuary company of Toledo, O., where he and his bride will reside. They will be at home to their friends after Dec. 1. Guests from out of town included Miss Katherine Fraher, of Dounter’s Grove, Ill., and Mr. And Mrs. David B. Long, of Dudley, Ill.”[7]
Aurora, Illinois
In Toledo, the young couple bought a home at 565 Oakwood Street, behind the Toledo Museum of Art. [8] At the museum Dorothy and Ralph met a salesman who informed them that Johnny Downs of Aurora, Illinois, was searching for someone to operate his mortuary at 180 Fox Street in Aurora.[9] To Ralph the news must have seemed prescient. With funeral director’s license in hand, he moved the family, which now included their first child, Ralph Dorner Jones,[10] 280 miles west to Aurora. By 1924 the business marquee read “Downs-Jones Funeral Home”.[11]
The family resided in that city for about six years (1923-1929), long enough to see the birth of their second child, JoAnne, and third child, Barbara (in February 1926 and May 1929 respectively).[12] The Jones family lived in two homes—the first at 450 Concord Street, the second at 97 South Fordham Avenue (described as a gray bungalow with a sunlight exposure off the dining room and a two-level backyard).[13]
Even in these modest homes in Aurora, Ralph’s love of music and art and “the finer things” was evident. The couple owned a piano.[14] An oil painting by Sidney Lawrence, purchased from friends who owned an art gallery, graced their walls. [15] And a maid, considered essential for helping with domestic chores, was in the family’s employ.[16]
The
move to Cleveland Heights, Ohio
By 1930 the beginnings of the Great Depression were being felt. As one historian notes:
“Like many other similar ventures in occupational self-education, this one [funeral directing] became a casualty to the depression of the thirties. It was reported by a representative of the burial goods industry…that between 1929 and 1932 funeral directing had dropped one hundred million dollars in volume of business. During these difficult times, in which shrinkage characterized all phases of professional and economic life, the minds of many funeral directors were taken up with the all-absorbing question of survival, to the exclusion of less urgent matters. The fact that a number went out of business is in itself eloquent of the crisis the group was facing. … Whatever the total cost of the depression of the 1930’s, one of its effects was to squeeze out a number of funeral directors. Thus by 1940 some 23,000 established funeral homes averaged almost 62 funerals per year.” [17]
Perhaps like many firms, Downs-Jones Funeral Home was simply squeezed out of business. Or maybe Ralph grew tired of Johnny Downs. Whatever the reason, by April 1930 Ralph had abandoned Aurora and the Downs-Jones business and moved the family east to Cleveland Heights, Ohio.[18]
[1] As Dorothy Dorner Jones noted: “His mother didn’t have money to send him to… medical school…so he shortened his course, and took a course in embalming.” (Interview, Dorothy Jones).
[2] Robert W. Habenstein and William M. Lambers, The History of American Funeral Directing (Milwaukee: 1962), Bulfin Printers, Inc., p. 512 (Hereinafter cited as Habenstein).
[3] Ibid., p. 512.
[4] Ralph was listed in the 1920 census, taken in January 1920, at his mother’s residence in Lafayette. By the time he was married in November 1921, he was living in Toledo. In the interim, he attended mortician’s school in Indianapolis, per Interview, Dorothy Jones.
[5] 1921 City Directory of Toledo, Ohio, FHL #1760107.
[6] Habenstein., p. 536-7. Mr. Boyer founded the National Selected Morticians, a limited membership organization that by 1935 boasted a membership of 325 firms. Both Dorothy Jones (above interview) and the description of Ralph and Dorothy’s wedding in the Lafayette newspaper (Lafayette Journal and Courier, 9 Nov. 1921, p. 5) note that Ralph was working for Boyer-Kruse in Toledo, OH, as of November 1921.
[7] Lafayette Journal and Courier, 9 Nov. 1921, p. 5.
[8] Interview, Dorothy Jones; 1922-23 City Directory of Toledo, Ohio, FHL #1760108 and 1760109.
[9] Ibid. McCoy’s Aurora City Directory, 1920-1921, the McCoy Directory Company (Rockford, IL: 1921), p. 185. Fox Street was later renamed Downer Place, per an email from Dennis Buck, Aurora Historical Society (aurorahistoricalsociety.org) to the author, 28 Aug. 2002.
[10] Hereinafter called “Ralph D.”
[11] McCoy’s Aurora City Directory, 1924, p. 236.
[12] Based on the first listing of Ralph Jones in the Aurora City Directory in 1924 and JoAnne’s recollection that she left Aurora at age 3.
[13] The Aurora City Directory lists RB Jones at 119 South Fordham in 1929; however, according to the Aurora Historical Society, the streets in that area were renumbered in 1929 so that 119 South Fordham was the same house as 97 South Fordham. See McCoy’s Aurora City Directory, 1926, 1927, 1929, and email from Dennis Buck, Aurora Historical Society (aurorahistoricalsociety.org )to the author, 28 Aug. 2002.
[14] Questionnaire, Ralph Dorner Jones, May 2002, c/o author. Hereinafter cited as Ralph D.
[15] Interview, Dorothy Jones.
[16] JoAnne. The home she remembers must have been the second residence in Aurora, which the family occupied by 1926, the year JoAnne was born. She recalls that her father was upstairs “with the maid” in that house.
[17] Habenstein, p. 523.