Appreciating
Brown County

Ada Jones Interview

We catch archivist Ada Jones in a lighthearted mood at the Brown County Historical Society headquarters high atop Bean Blossom Ridge north of Nashville. It's one of those first hot days of late spring that reminds of Indiana summers. Fortunately the archive room is climate controlled preserving both its invaluable collection and your reporter. I ask Ada the essential opening question: Were you born in Brown County?

"No," she replies. "But I married a native, William Jones. He was the son of James Jones who was an attorney here for 50 years. When my husband graduated from I.U. his father said, `Go, north, son, that's where the money is.'

"Brown County was poor and also, I think, Grandpa Jones was on the wrong side of politics and he did not think his son would be hired here. So his son came to Benton County, north of Lafayette about 35 miles. This is where I lived and went to school."

After their marriage the young couple moved to San Diego so that William could finish his tour in the Navy. Afterwards they returned to Indiana where he taught history and social studies in Kokomo. "We raised two boys and when the older son went to Purdue and the other son was just entering high school I thought, `Oh goodness, what will I do?'

"Somebody said, `If you want to make money go down to Delco and work on the line.'

"And I thought, `I don't want to make money that bad!'"

Instead Ada enrolled in a math course at I.U. Kokomo "because I love math. In 5 years I had my license to teach."

She taught kindergarten for the next ten years while completing her Masters degree. "I loved it! It was great but very exhausting work because you get a fresh batch of children in the afternoon," she laughs. "It was a great challenge."

In 1981 William retired from teaching, bringing Ada back to his home in Nashville.

"The reason we came here was that Grandpa Jones had left his home downtown to my husband and his brother and sister." Today the property is known as Honeysuckle Place, across the street from the old Ferguson House.

"It looked as if we had no alternative but to commercialize the old homestead. My husband was not very enthusiastic about it. He didn't have much business desire to do anything like that but once he got here he took a lot of pride in it. Learned to hammer a nail in straight. Did a little repair work. And of course he did a lot of Chamber of Commerce work. He helped them and he was very happy here, coming back home.

"He named it Honeysuckle Place because his mother loved to have flowers. He said, `Oh, she wore me out every spring by moving this one and that one.'

"In the back there was an old barn and an out shed. He hired a carpenter to make the barn more sturdy because we thought we could put an art studio back there. Well, we got back about a month later and the barn was completely gone!" The carpenter told them that they had been trying to brace it when it "Just fell down!" and somehow "all that lovely old barnwood just disappeared!" She laughs at the memory.

"But we do have a picture of the barn and it was quite overgrown with a lot of flowers and vines and a wire fence in front with a moon gate. That's the way I remember it."

Soon after they rented part of their property to someone who built a small shop there. Later they bought the structure and began building their own. "We wanted it to look like Brown County. That's been my pride because I've been able to keep lawn and flowers and not build on every inch. I'm down there every day for about an hour or so to sort of look it over and pull a few weeds."

Her role at the Historical Society began when friends invited them to a meeting. Eventually William became a board member.

"Dorothy Bailey called one day, she said, `Ada, I need help to index what I have on these shelves.' Of course, I hardly knew what an archive was. I went to French Lick with her to a workshop and later to I.U. She passed on all her materials so I could educate myself.

"I learned to appreciate the archives, how valuable it is to the county. It's amazing how much wonderful material there is here. Dorothy loved to collect but there were boxes and boxes of things here that had never been filed. I'm busy filing and indexing and cataloging. Grabbing anybody who'll help me along."

The collection continues to grow. A recent addition was donated by Wilma Pittman of sixteen volumes, bound by year, of letters written by county students to former school superintendent Grover Brown. "This was a requirement to pass onto the high school. This letter had to be hand written. The spelling had to be right. Margins had to be just so. What wonderful history for grandchildren to come see what their grandparents wrote.

"All of these things are accessible to the public to copy and to come and read about it. It's sort of like a library but you tell me what you want and I take it off the shelf and sit you down someplace comfortable.

"A lady and her mother came in from Australia last summer. They had rented a cabin at Lake Lemon and they stayed a whole month to do genealogy. They listened to grandpa's tapes. (One of Dorothy Bailey's projects was to collect audio tapes of the recollections of many Brown County citizens). They sat there and they giggled and laughed. Oh, they had so much fun. They went back to Australia with I don't know how much information. They were just delighted.

"Through that I see the appreciation of us. We're very fortunate because I don't think many counties have this kind of an archive."

Ada is looking forward to the return of Bailey's incomplete work on the second volume of Brown County Remembers. "She called me many a time after she had moved (to Atlanta) and she'd say, `I'm working on it but it's slow.' Her goal was to put Grover Brown's articles that he had written for the Democrat and (Lester) Nagley's articles, put those in bound book form then add, I think she had asked, Fred King to write and also Marianne and Pods Miller."

Dorothy Bailey passed away recently at her Atlanta home. "She always said that she didn't know if she would ever get it done."

While I'm at the Historical Society's headquarters Ada shows me the Reeve Room where the genealogical information is stored. "We have all the county probate court records and civil cases. They're all in the courthouse boxes and the Reeves have catalogued them." Soon, with equipment obtained by the public library, they intend to compile the information onto CD ROM.

"I've been over to the Lilly Library to see how they do it. That's in the future."

The Brown County Historical Society is "constantly getting new members. Our membership is staying around 200. There is always tremendous interest in our monthly meetings and programs. We have a carry-in dinner. People love to come and eat. They join for that reason but gradually get interested in the history of Brown County."

Ada, who has a wonderful sense of humor, and who is always looking for assistance, likes to kid Steve Arnold of the Brown County Democrat when he drops by to research an article he's writing.

"I say, `Steve you ought to help me.' And he says, `Ada, I wouldn't be any help. I wouldn't get a darn thing done but to read.'"

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