Walter Royal Jones, Jr.

Reverend Walter Royal Roy Jones, Jr., D.D. died April 30, 2010 peacefully at home. He was born in Brooklyn, New York to Walter R. Jones and Anita Dunker Jones in 1920. Walter Royal Jones Jr. received his B.A. from Brooklyn College in 1941. Reverend Jones then began his career in the ministry, serving Unitarian and Universalist congregations in Barnstable and Yarmouth Port MA 1945-1949; Brooklyn NY 1949-1951; Floral Park NY 1951-1957; Gloucester and Essex MA 1957-1963 and Charlottesville VA 1963-1972. He accepted the position as Minister of the Foothills Unitarian Church in Fort Collins in 1972 and retired as Minister Emeritus in 1990. He served on the Business Committee of the Unitarian Universalist Association UUA, was vice chair of the Study Commission on the Free Church in a Changing World and co-author of the section on Ethics and Social Action 1963 and chair of the UUA Commission on Religion and Race 1963-1967. He participated in the civil rights March on Washington and in Birmingham and Selma AL, and McComb MS. From 1983-1985 Reverend Jones chaired the UUA's Committee on Purposes and Principles, which conducted a wide-ranging dialogue from which the UUA's present statement of ethical, theological and social principles developed. Reverend Jones was awarded an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from Meadville/Lombard Theological School in 1986, where he served as Minister-in-residence in 1990 after his retirement from Foothills Unitarian Church. He was a guest lecturer at Colorado State University from 1990 to 1992, and taught a course on Unitarian Universalist History and Polity at the Iliff School of Theology in 1994. He was given the Award for Distinguished Service to the Cause of Unitarian Universalism in 1990. Roy's community service in Fort Collins included volunteering in a variety of capacities with the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, the Community Crisis and Information Center, United Campus Ministry, Larimer County Community Corrections, and Chaplain at the Larimer County Detention Center. In 1945, Roy married Mary Elizabeth Lyons with whom he had six children. Two, Catherine Elizabeth and Thomas Philip, preceded him in death. His surviving children include Walter Royal Jones III, Christine Elizabeth Jones, and Carol Ann Jones Conley married to Ernest Conley, all of Charlottesville VA, and Linda Susan Jones Bothe married to Dieter Bothe of Fort Collins.
Following the death of his first wife, Roy married Eliza Craddock East in Charlottesville in 1970, thereby adding three grown sons to his family, John Samuel Fitch of Boulder, Peter Warner Fitch of Charlottesville, and Julian Robert Fitch now living in Thailand. It was a joyous marriage for them both. His children and step-sons and their spouses gave Roy and Eliza 10 grandchildren William Henry Conley is deceased, and six great-grandchildren. Eliza Jones died in 2004. Roy's passions were people, ideas, music and trains. He was a great collector of classical music recordings and recently returned to studying the piano. He turned of the basement of his home into a railroad model exhibit linking the hills of Virginia to the Rockies in Colorado. Thanks to the generosity of model railroad buffs from Fort Collins and Loveland, Roy and his neighbors, family and friends were treated to one final run of the trains to celebrate his 90th birthday. A Memorial Service will be held on Saturday, at 1:00 p.m. at the Foothills Unitarian Church, 1815 Yorktown Avenue. In lieu of flowers memorial contributions may be made to the Foothills Unitarian Church, in care of Bohlender Funeral Chapel, 121 W. Olive St., Fort Collins, Colorado 80524.