Jones Family

A chance for a better life brought Charlie and Ethel Lee Jones to Chandler from Fredrick, Oklahoma. Charlie, son of Dennis and Ella Jones, hailed from Tyler, Texas. Ethel Lee, daughter of Robert and Aurelia Pullins, came to Oklahoma via Louisiana. The Joneses settled on Saragosa Street in the 1930s; Charlie worked as a contractor for the Ellsworths, bringing families out to Chandler to chop and pick cotton. He was also mechanically inclined, which was important when he drove families to and from Chandler. Ethel Lee operated the Blue Front Café on Saragosa Street until 1956 and a chuck wagon for field workers. At the café, Ethel Lee served soul food for breakfast. In the afternoon, she drove the chuck wagon, a modified truck, to the cotton fields to serve hot dogs and hamburgers to the families her husband recruited to come to Chandler. When it wasn’t cotton picking season, she worked at the Maricopa Inn in Mesa, a hotel specifically for African American guests when public places were still segregated.

Charletta (Jones) Jackson, born on Saragosa Street in June of 1940, was the first of two daughters. The Jones Family returned to Oklahoma in 1943, but moved back to Southside in 1948. Later, Charletta’s grandmother, Aurelia (Cooper) Pullins, moved to Chandler to join her daughter.

Charletta’s favorite meal was chicken and dumplings or noodles that her mother made. No matter if it was just a typical day or a special occasion; the Joneses would all sit down and eat together. Charletta recalls  “There was only two of us and my mother did the cooking…I only cooked when I went to Chandler High and made some muffins. My mother said ‘I’m not going to help you do anything, you’re going to have to do it all by yourself.’”

In 1948, Charlie Jones passed away. Ethel Lee continued to work at the café. She remarried twice and had four more children. Charletta married another Southside resident, Obadiah Jackson, in 1957. She earned her GED and graduated from South Mountain Community College, and has worked at Motorola and for her husband. They had five children: Junior, Charles, David, Wade, and Carla.

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