DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Dr. Samuel J. and Charlotte H. Jones, right there in Bell County.
Now, some stories are about a single shining moment. This one is about a whole life built around a place — and the way that place can lift you up and, well, bring you right back down again. Samuel Jackson Jones was born in 1858.
Charlotte Hallaran, the woman who would become his partner in just about everything, we don't have a birth year for — but we know how her story ends, and we'll get to that. What we know is that in 1884 and 1885, Samuel and Charlotte Jones were both teaching at Salado College. A husband and wife, side by side in the classroom, in a little Central Texas town called Salado.
That right there tells you something about who these two people were. But they weren't content to just pass through. In 1890, the Joneses opened Thomas Arnold High School — and here's the thing — they opened it right there in the former Salado College buildings.
Same walls, new purpose. Whatever that place meant to them, they weren't ready to let it go. Then 1904 arrived, and it arrived hard.
Charlotte died that year, leaving behind five young children. Five. S.
J. Jones, now alone, kept on. He remained as head of that private school — kept those doors open, kept those children learning, kept his own family going — all the way until 1913.
You can draw your own conclusions about what kind of man does that. Now, here's where the story takes a turn nobody quite saw comin'. In 1915, Governor James E.
Ferguson — a former student, as it happens, at that very same Salado College — appointed Jones to the University of Texas Board of Regents. A nod to a fellow son of Salado. An honor, by any measure.
But Governor Ferguson's relationship with the University of Texas Board of Regents did not stay cordial. It got tangled, and it got ugly, early in Ferguson's second term of office. And S.
J. Jones, caught up in that controversy, was removed from his position as a regent in 1917. He died the following year — 1918 — at his daughter's home in Virginia.
Far from Salado. Far from those college buildings where he and Charlotte had once stood together at the front of a classroom. Samuel Jackson Jones gave Salado just about everything he had.
The town gave him back a career, a calling, and one appointment that ended the way it ended. Sometimes a place defines you. Sometimes it just outlasts you.
In Salado's case — both things turned out to be true.
What the marker says
Educators Samuel Jackson (1858-1918) and Charlotte Hallaran (d. 1904) Jones taught at Salado College in 1884-1885. In 1890, the Joneses opened Thomas Arnold High School in the former Salado College buildings. Charlotte died in 1904, leaving five young children, but S. J. Jones remained as head of the private school until 1913. In 1915, Gov. James E. Ferguson, a former student at Salado College, appointed Jones to the University of Texas Board of Regents. Embroiled in the governor's controversy with that board early in Ferguson's second term of office, Jones was removed from his position as a regent in 1917. He died the following year at his daughter's home in Virginia. (2001)