Dale Alan Jones, 95, died Friday at his home in Spring Glen, Utah. He long ago asked that his ashes be scattered with those of Lois Wolfe Jones, his wife of 63 years, “so that we can dance again.”
He loved the horses he rode into the wilderness and into his senior years. He loved backpacking, phone calls to old friends, the faithful dogs he out-lived, hunting everything from dove to elk, fly-fishing, rope spinning, golf, examining coyote scat, whitewater rafting, big band music, country music, legs of lamb, green chile, cutting grapefruit for family breakfasts, A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold, Psalms 23, reciting Robert W. Service poetry, the San Francisco Giants, extending the meal table with leaves to get everyone around, and telling the story about the time he turned himself in after mistakenly shooting two identical bighorn sheep in Wyoming. He loved his parents Walter and Mildred and paid that love forward to his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren with big hugs.
Dale had grieved the loss of Lois for nine years. They met at Los Gatos High School in California and were married in 1948, but not until after he had enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps in 1943 at age 17 and two years later stormed the sands of Iwo Jima. Lois and Dale had one date in high school (she invited him) but they exchanged letters during WWII, which he survived only to be bucked from a horse while deer hunting in 1946. He broke his back and spent five months in a full body cast with girlfriend Lois at his side.
“Rather than go out and find someone who could dance, she stuck with me,” Dale wrote in his memoirs.
They honeymooned with a fishing trip and soon moved to Logan, Utah where Dale earned a degree in wildlife and range management at Utah State University. He went to work for the Utah Game and Fish Department in Cedar City where daughter Darlene Ellen was born in 1951. Dale was promoted to Game and Fish headquarters in Salt Lake City where son Derris Russell was born in 1953, followed by Del Leonard in 1955.
The U.S. Forest Service lured Dale to Cody, Wyo. Frequent promotions took the family to Denver and Durango, Colo., and Albuquerque, N.M. After the couple became empty nesters, Dale finished his career in Washington D.C. as Wildlife, Fisheries, and Endangered Species Director. He was elected president of The Wildlife Society (1982-1984).
Upon retirement, they built a home on a small farm (with horses) in Los Chavez, N.M. On their 50th anniversary they took the family on a nine-day Colorado River rafting trip down the Grand Canyon. While on the farm, Dale and Lois welcomed summertime and Christmas visits from granddaughters Dusti, Dena, Ciera and grandson Douglas. Dena’s two daughters, Emma Lois (4) and Ava Bell (2), are Dale’s great-grandchildren. Darlene is married to Ray Rollins. Del is married to Dianna. Dale is survived by his brother, Derrol Walter Jones, 94, who lives in the Santa Cruz Mountains near their boyhood haunts known as Aunt Mae’s in Hepsidam, a rustic cabin embraced by redwoods and bisected by Bean Creek. Dale and Derrol were raised in San Jose, Calif. during the Great Depression. Money was scarce but their parents and many nearby aunts and uncles made sure that they never missed a meal.
Full circle, Dale and Lois moved from the New Mexico farm to Spring Glen, Utah in 2005 to be near son Derris. It proved to be their wisest move of all as they were blessed with granddaughter Mikayla, and Derris became his father’s loving caretaker and dinner partner.
Lois was diabetic and, in lieu of flowers, Dale would have wanted donations to the American Diabetes Association. Arrangements entrusted to Mitchell Funeral Home of Price where friends are welcome to share memories of Dale at www.mitchellfuneralhome.net