DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, friends — let me pass it along to you. Now, Springtown, Texas has its share of stories, but few of them are rooted quite as deep as the one that lives inside the house on the corner — the one with those tall ionic columns holding up a full gallery porch, dormer windows peeking out from the roofline, and a front door framed by a swan neck pediment and sidelights that practically beg you to stop and look twice. That house went up in 1915, and it belonged to Dr.
George Martin Jones and his wife Ruth. Let me tell you how they got there. George was born in 1867, the third of six children of Joseph M. and Sarah Elizabeth Jones — she was a Gibbs before she married.
The family came to Springtown in 1876 and settled on a farm about a mile south of town. Young George grew up in Parker County, attended College Hill Institute right there in Springtown, and you get the sense he was the kind of fellow who intended to stay put and make something of the place. Ruth Peterson came along a little later.
Born in 1870, the second of three children of Dr. Owen G. and Elizabeth Peterson — she was a Dubois before the marriage — Ruth arrived in Springtown in 1889 to join her father and attend that same College Hill Institute. You might say Springtown had a way of bringing the right people together.
George and Ruth married in 1891, at Springtown Methodist Church — and here's a detail worth savoring — they were the second couple ever to marry in that newly constructed frame church. A church, the marker will tell you, that George himself had helped to build. Before medicine ever entered the picture, both George and Ruth were teachers out at Clear Fork.
Then George made his way to Louisville, Kentucky, to attend medical school, and when he came back, his practice in Springtown flourished. Dr. Jones became a member of both the county and state medical societies.
The man had built a church, taught school, crossed into Kentucky for his degree, and come home to heal his neighbors. Not a wasted year in the lot. And the church — he wasn't done with it.
Dr. Jones helped finance and build the rock-faced sanctuary right across the street from their house. Ruth was no bystander in any of this.
She taught Sunday School and was a charter member of the Women's Missionary Society. The two of them were woven into that community like load-bearing timber. They had two sons.
And in 1915, Dr. and Mrs. Jones had their house built — the two-story frame building designed as a variation of the American Foursquare style, with a Neoclassical façade. That modified square floor plan, that pyramidal roof, those ionic columns on the full gallery porch — it was built to mean something.
The south side porch, though, that was practical as anything: it was the entrance to Dr. Jones' medical office. Folks came to that side door with their troubles, and Dr.
Jones was there to meet them. George Jones died in 1943. Ruth lived on until 1958, a long life by any measure.
The house stayed in the Jones family until 1956. And it still stands today in Springtown — a prominent example of a historic architectural residence, the marker says — holding its ground on that corner the way George and Ruth held their ground in this community. Built well.
Stayed standing. That's not nothing.
What the marker says
Dr. George Martin Jones (1867 – 1943), the third of six children of Joseph M. and Sarah Elizabeth (Gibbs) Jones, came to Springtown with his family in 1876. They settled on a farm about a mile south of town. George attended College Hill Institute in Springtown. Ruth Peterson (1870 – 1958), the second of three children of Dr. Owen G. and Elizabeth (Dubois) Peterson, came to Springtown in 1889 to join her father and attend College Hill Institute. George and Ruth married at Springtown Methodist Church in 1891, the second couple to marry in the newly-constructed frame church which George helped to build. Ruth and George were both teachers at Clear Fork before he entered medical school in Louisville, Kentucky. His practice in Springtown flourished, and Dr. Jones was a member of the county and state medical societies. He and Ruth were both active in the Methodist Church; Dr. Jones helped finance and build the church’s rock-faced sanctuary across the street from their house, and Ruth was a Sunday School teacher and charter member of the Women’s Missionary Society. They had two sons. Dr. and Mrs. Jones had this house built in 1915. The two-story frame building is designed as a variation of the American Foursquare style with a Neoclassical façade. Notable features include a modified square floor plan with pyramidal roof, full gallery porch with ionic columns, dormer windows, and offset front door with swan neck pediment and sidelights. The porch on the south side of the house was the entrance leading to Dr. Jones’ medical office. The house remained in the Jones family until 1956. It remains a prominent example of a historic architectural residence in Springtown.