With this feature series, The Cullman Tribune is highlighting everyday individuals all around Cullman County who make our community a great place. #IAmCullman
Although Jay Jones isn’t originally from Cullman, he now calls it home and says he would not want to live anywhere else. Jones was instrumental in creating Grace Place, a ministry at Grace Episcopal Church in Cullman that helps individuals with memory loss as well as their caregivers.
Jones is originally from Little Rock, Arkansas and years later moved to Cullman when, he smiled, “a group of friends threw a beautiful woman at me and I decided I fell in love with her and had to marry her. I thought it would be a good idea to live with her if I was going to marry her.”
Jones’ background is in theater, and was extremely active in the arts while still in Arkansas.
He explained, “I was in something called Sigma Delta Chi. It’s the honorary literary fraternity newspaper, copywriters and people who write for a living are in. We did something in Little Rock every two years called the Farkleberry Follies. It was a show designed to spoof our seriousness about ourselves.”
The show raised money for scholarships for journalism students. Many high-ranking elected officials and leaders participated in the Farkleberry Follies, Jones said.
It was through a relationship made during this time that Jones found himself in the health care industry. This put him on a journey to South Carolina and several other stops before he landed in Vestavia Hills in 1994. The company he was with was absorbed by HealthSouth. He left to start his own business prior to HealthSouth’s legal troubles.
He said, “My business was basically association management and worked with a group of large individual physical therapy groups in Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee.”
Several years later he was given an opportunity to work for Home Instead Senior Care in Birmingham, where he still works today.
So how did Jones find himself in Cullman? It began with his close friendship with Grady Smith, former CEO of the Cullman Electric Cooperative.
“One particular Easter he had invited me to come up here and go to church with him and have lunch,” said Jones. “At the exact same moment, I had invited myself to come up here and take them out to lunch. We literally traded texts back and forth.”
That Easter Sunday at Grace Episcopal Church, Kathryn Callaway was sitting just a few feet away from Jones and a love story soon followed.
He said, “That following Tuesday she popped up on my Facebook feed as somebody you might know and she is just a drop-dead gorgeous woman. I clicked on it and sure enough, she had all the same friends that I have. I thought, ‘How come I don’t know this woman?’”
Jones planned a date with Callaway just three days later. He picked her up at the church, where she does flowers, and they eventually headed to Sweet Peppers for lunch.
“The date essentially lasted 13 hours!” Jones said. “She was having something she called game night at her house and she would love for me to stick around and see some of the people we know from church.”
Their first date finally ended at 11 p.m. that Friday night. Jones and Callaway continued dating.
“We had so many mutual friends and once the friends started talking about it they thought it would be a good idea for us to get to know each other,” he smiled. “So. six months later, we were married.”
Jones and Callaway were married in 2010 and in 2011 the tornado hit and they moved to their new home near Cullman Middle School. They are very active at Grace Episcopal Church. It was through his business that the idea for Grace Place came to be.
He explained, “The business I am in is non-medical home care and about half of the clients that we have are individuals with memory care issues. At a certain point when an individual is able to come and go as much as they want, their short-term memory is compromised. So, getting lost is easy and not remembering where they’ve been. Home Instead Senior Care has been around for almost 25 years in Birmingham doing this. It’s one of the things we specialize in and my job is more of a community educator.”
Jones said he knew Cullman needed a program to help people with memory loss and cognitive decline.
“It took us about a year and a half to pull it all together, but we decided this would be a ministry we would get involved in,” he said. “The purpose of the program is to provide creative engagement which is a different approach than a lot of places have that just basically babysit.”
Grace Place opened its ministry in January of 2018.
When not volunteering with Grace Place or commuting back and forth to work in Birmingham, Jones enjoys participating with the Cullman Community Theater. He and Kathryn both performed in the recent production of the dinner theater “Rumors.” They also have a program at their church called Cursillo that he and Kathryn are active in. He is also a member of the Arnold Street Band.
“I play the guitar poorly,” he laughed, “but love it and they are willing to tolerate me so we do the music together and it’s a lot of fun.”
Jay and Kathryn Jones have not had a game night recently, but he says they hope to get that started back up later in the year, perhaps after the COVID-19 pandemic. They enjoy spending time with their three dogs and cat: Bourbon the elderly Boykin Spaniel, total opposite siblings Buck and Penny and the “hair salon cat” named Sidney (named after the psychiatrist on MASH).
Jones said, “Kathryn got a haircut and a cat.”
Jay Jones fell not only fell in love with Kathryn, but also the city of Cullman.
“This is one of the safest places that I have ever lived,” he said. “I have never ever felt any perceived threat the entire time I have lived here. I have watched this town come together through the tornado and I have watched people support and help one another. When I had a tree fall through my house, I had a whole group of folks show up with tarps, chainsaws and all sorts of stuff. I’m not sure I would have found that in Vestavia Hills.”
He joked, “I believe the number 25 is on our car tags simply because that’s the average speed that most people drive. I find that comforting sometimes because nobody is in that big of a hurry, and when we get there, we get there.”
Copyright 2020 Humble Roots, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
