Obituary of Francis "Eddie" Jones

F. Edward (Eddie) Jones (84) was born in Washington, D.C. on August 21, 1939. He died on January 4, 2024. He is survived by his wife of 53+ years, JoAnne, and, by his first marriage, a son Edward Lee Jones (Penny) and a daughter Angela Dawn Bassette (Paul); and also by a granddaughter (Lindsey Jones) and a grandson (Jake Bassette). He was raised by relatives after his mother’s passing. From a young age until his late 50’s he enjoyed participating in sports: track and field (high school), softball, basketball, and football and, later, umpiring softball. He had a natural athleticism that let him excel at almost every sport he played. He was a life-long Tennessee Vols fan. He held a variety of jobs—an Assistant Manager for a local grocery store chain, a driver for FritoLay, a computer programmer for a large local company, and finally a plumber, working his way up to plumbing inspector for a private company until his retirement. He loved traveling and over the years he and his wife visited Rio de Janeiro, the Bahamas, St. Martin, London, Punta Cana, Niagara Falls, Ireland and more, in addition to yearly trips to Las Vegas and Hawaii. For years he frequently worked for a business that provided casino equipment for any event and enjoyed running the craps table, and especially doing magic tricks for the guests prior to the games opening up.  He took flying lessons and flew World War II-era planes several times; for a number of years, on trips to Las Vegas, he drove retired original race cars on the Las Vegas Speedway; and, most of all, he loved riding this Harley for hours on end.  He was a dedicated collector of sports memorabilia (primarily football) on which he obtained players’ signatures; and he also had a DVD library of serials from the ‘40s and ‘50s, B Westerns, old and current TV shows, movies, football and other genres. A Celebration of Life gathering will be held at a later date. The family requests that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to either the American Diabetes Association or the National Kidney Foundation.