Adria May Jones
Adria May Jones
b. 21 February 1918 West Pittston, PA
d. 1 September 1959 Kingston, PA
Adria May Jones was my mother's older sister. In my memory Aunt DeeDee was the aunt who brought the really great presents when she came to visit. Adria never married, so we were the kids she never had and she loved to spoil us. We loved her. She was pretty, nice to us, and smelled great, and had a tuneful, full-voiced, singer's laugh.. 
Adria was an accountant for Wyoming National Bank of Wilkes-Barre until about 1953, then moved to Philadelphia and was an accountant for NBC from 1953-1959. She lived at 6625 McCallum Street in Germantown, Pa until she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and became too ill to work. See Sheldon Jones' page for the sad description of this time.
Actress and Singer
She and my mother were both musically talented, and Adria was active in local musical theater and sang in church. She had a beautiful rich contralto voice. She sang in the Trucksville Methodist Church choir and the Germantown Methodist Church choir. While living in Wilkes-Barre, she belonged to the Mozart Club and was active in Little Theatre.
Her Childhood
Adria graduated from Kingston Township High School in the Class of 1937.
Carolyn's Memories
My cousin Carolyn Jones Walsmith remembers spending a lot of time with Adria and was virtually treated as a little sister, as she spent a lot of time living at BopBop and Nannie's in Trucksville. The girls looked very similar, both having that beautiful, red Jones hair, which probably came from the McGuire genes. Carolyn remembers that she often drove Adria crazy, another sisterly attribute! They travelled down to Bloomsburg to see me after I was born in June, 1948.
The Life that Ended too Soon
Adria died of ovarian cancer at a time when there was little treatment available. She came home to Trucksville to be cared for in her final days, but when she soon needed more intensive care. She entered Nesbitt Hospital in Kingston, Pa. on July 28. We were not allowed to visit her room, but could only look in her room's window from the outside, if I'm remembering correctly. She was very, very thin and weak looking. I'm not sure if we realized how serious her situation was. She passed away in the early morning hours of September 1, 1959 at the age of 40 years and 6 months.
The shock and stress of her death caused my grandfather to have a fatal heart attack 3 days later, and Adria's funeral was postponed and father and daughter shared a joint funeral. Both are buried in the Jonestown cemetery.
The Spirit Passes thru
It still gives me shivers to tell this story, but the night that Adria died in Nesbitt Hospital in Kingston was a humid, sweltering end of summer evening with no breeze stirring at all. Our family had come to stay at Nan's to be with Adria in what was expected to be the last days of her life. My mother was sleeping in the front entry porch, trying to catch a breeze from the open door. My sister and I were restlessly sleeping in Adria's bedroom up at the top of the stairs. At about 2 or 3 in the morning my mother saw a long black limo stop out front of the house (there was/is no on-street parking on Carverton Road). A breeze wafted in the front door and passed her on the settee. About 20 minutes later the phone rang to inform us that Adria had passed away at about the time my mother experienced the breeze. The following morning I mentioned that I had seen someone at the top of the stairs in the middle of the night, but the adults knew no one had been up. They all believed that Adria had paid her loving family one last visit that night as she passed into spirit. The black limo has been seen by my mother at other times when people have just died. A spirit limo service at work?
