Mary Weston-Jones

Mary Weston-Jones was born to Francis and Tressie Sprayberry Jones in the now nearly non-existent town of Fort Lynn, Arkansas near the border of Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas. Reared in Bossier City, Louisiana and Fouke, Arkansas, Mary was fond of telling people that the legendary “Monster of Boggy Creek,” a Bigfoot-type creature that was supposed to live in Fouke, was a family friend. Her irrepressible sense of humor was a key element of her character.
She was committed throughout her life to human rights and love for all people, values that were tested in 1968 when she asked the pastor of her all-white church in Starkville, Mississippi if they could invite black people to worship with them. “No,” he said, “and you may not worship here anymore either.” Forced out of her church, she joined the civil rights movement in Mississippi and marched in support of human rights. Martin Luther King Jr. Sunday, January 16, was chosen as the date of her memorial service because of her work for human rights.
Mary was married for 34 years to the Rev. Dick Weston-Jones, a Unitarian Universalist minister whom she met in 1972 after moving to State College, PA. Prior to their marriage, she was married for 14 years to Dr. Kenneth Wilkinson, a sociology professor who later became the president of the International Rural Sociology Association. When she and Rev. Weston-Jones married in 1976 they combined their birth names to become the “Weston-Jones.” Mary leaves six children, Jeff, Brian and David Wilkinson, and Chris, Alisse and Bruce Weston; five daughters-in-law, Rose, Valerie and Summer Wilkinson, Felicia and Kim Weston; one son-in-law, Alex Fisher; two foster children, Bob Cox and Jesus Herrera Nava; 21 grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
Mary earned her BA degree cum laude in sociology in 1960 from Louisiana College, an M.Ed in counseling and guidance in 1968 from Mississippi State University, and an Educational Specialist Certificate in 1975 from Pennsylvania State University. She did further graduate work in school administration at the University of North Florida. Among her honors were the Illinois State Board of Education Recognition in 1989 for “Those Who Excel” in education, and finalist in the Jacksonville, Florida EVE competition recognizing the city’s outstanding woman in 1980.
After beginning as an elementary school counselor for 14 years in the public schools of Pennsylvania, Florida and Illinois, Mary completed her career in education with 10 years for the Los Angeles County Office of Education as a vocational guidance counselor before retiring in 2000. She then became co-director with her husband from 2000 to 2007 of wUUrld’s WhaleCoast Alaska, a wilderness tour program sponsored by five Alaska Unitarian Universalist churches. She was also co-director from 1976 to 1980 of wUUrld’s La Vida Mexicana, an immersion education program allowing Americans to live and work with Mexican families in several Mexican villages in the states of Guanajuato, Oaxaca, Michoacan and Mexico. In 2007 she and her husband opened the Chapel Hill Forest Medical Homestay in her home, for non-local outpatients receiving treatment at UNC Medical Center.
In 1998 Mary was diagnosed with Stage Three/Four Breast Cancer. She fought the disease for 13 years without a remission. Her primary treatment facility was the University of North Carolina Medical Center and she also had surgery, chemotherapy and radiation at Duke University Medical Center, and at the City of Hope Hospital in Duarte, California, UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles and the John Wayne Cancer Institute Breast Center in Santa Monica. Mary traveled throughout the world in more than a dozen trips after her retirement in 2000. While traveling she obtained chemotherapy infusion at various hospitals. In the last half year of her life the UNC Hospice provided palliative care and ResCare Home Care provided nursing assistance while her husband was her primary care-giver at home.
A memorial service will be held at the Community Church of Chapel Hill, Unitarian Universalist, 106 Purefoy Rd, 27514 on Sunday, January 16 at 2:30pm, with ashes to be interred at the garden of her Chatham County home and in the ocean.
The family suggests that memorial contributions for breast cancer research can be made to UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, CB#7295, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7295.