ESTHER JONES

DEXTER, Mo. -- Funeral for Esther P. Jones of Caseyville, Ill., will be held at 2 p.m. today at Watkins and Sons Funeral Home in Dexter. The Rev. Mark Kennedy will officiate. Burial will be in Walker Cemetery near Bloomfield, Mo.

Jones, 84, died Sunday, Sept. 3, 2000, at Magnolia Regional Hospital in Corinth, Miss.

She was born April 30, 1916, in Advance, Mo., daughter of Archibald and Mary Jane Millstead Hobgood. She and Hubert Lee Jones were married May 8, 1944. He died Oct. 24, 1984.

Formerly of Dexter, she had lived in Caseyville since 1957. She was a member of Bethany General Baptist Church in Caseyville.

Survivors include two sons, Melvin Jones of Edwardsville, Ill., Darrell Johnson of St. Louis; two stepsons, Jimmy Jones of Arizona, Hubert Jones Jr. of Belleville, Ill., four daughters, Sharon Edwards of Michie, Tenn., Pauline Keegan of San Diego, Calif., Mary Edwards of Collinsville, Ill., Betty Jarman of Worden, Ill.; a stepdaughter, Patricia Russett of Joliet, Ill.; a sister, Velma Kennedy of Crossville, Tenn.; several grandchildren; and numerous great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren.

She was preceded in death by three brothers and two sisters.