Growing up in the countryside just outside the city of Senatobia in northern Mississippi, a young Ira Jones regularly hopped on his bicycle and pedaled five miles into the city limits to visit his grandmother, Ernestine Jones.
The elder Jones lived in a modest house on Cox Street in Senatobia’s Newtown neighborhood. Jones ran a tight ship in her home, everything inside well kept and always in its proper place. Ira Jones recalls that his grandmother never moved anything inside her home from where she wanted it, not even when children visited. Jones valued the tidy nature of her home not merely out of personal preference, but as a lesson for younger visitors.
“The reason she never moved anything was to teach young children to respect the property of others,” Ira Jones says. “When you visited my grandmother’s house and tried to find something, no matter what it was, she would always direct you to it, and it would be exactly where she said it was, and she expected you to be respectful and keep it that way as well.”
Jones kept her kitchen as orderly as the rest of her house, with one unmoving fixture her grandson remembers being her old-fashioned glass coffee pot. Jones would heat her water on a gas stove, feed fresh grounds into the top and calmly sit at a nearby table and watch it brew.
On one particular visit when he was 15 years old, Jones was sitting with his grandmother at the kitchen table as she watched the pot. She spoke up and offered to let him try coffee for the first time, telling her grandson to do exactly as she did as she poured two mugs and sat one in front of him on the table.
Ira Jones watched his grandmother put her mug up to her face, pause momentarily and then take a sip. What he didn’t notice was that his grandmother had paused to blow on the coffee to cool it before taking a sip. Failing to notice that detail, Jones put his own mug to his lips, took a sip and immediately scalded his tongue.
In response, his grandmother simply looked at him with a raised eye and said, “Little boy, didn’t I say to do as I did?” When Ira explained to her that he hadn’t noticed her blowing on her coffee, she told him to simply make sure to pay attention the next time.
“The point she was trying to make that day was to always be aware and looking out in anything you may be doing in life in order to keep from hurting yourself or others,” Jones says. “That lesson stuck with me so much that after my grandmother passed, I asked my mother and aunt to let me keep her coffee pot so that I could always remember everything she taught me, and I still have it in my home to this day.”
‘Big on Giving Back’
Ernestine Jones was a lifelong Senatobia resident who worked as a cook in the restaurant of a local hotel called The Sandman while raising eight daughters and two sons. Even with as many children of her own as she had, she still had the drive to look out for other children in the area as well, Ira Jones says.
The elder Jones volunteered at New Ford Missionary Baptist Church in Senatobia, where she taught Sunday school classes for primary-school students. She also taught pre-K children at Bridging the Gap, a nonprofit organization based in Tate County that promotes multigenerational communication in local communities.
Jones also remained a constant source of support for her family throughout her life. Ira Jones says his grandmother’s house was always his first stop whenever he came home from college. The two would drink coffee together while the younger Jones told her about his time at school and asked her for advice on life, love, spirituality and more.
“My grandmother was big on giving back to others and emphasized to me the importance of always looking out for those less fortunate,” Jones says. “She told me to always be willing to extend an olive branch and treat others with dignity.”
‘A Heart Bigger Than Her Body’
After Ernestine Jones passed away on July 28, 2015, Ira Jones and other members of his family came together to found a nonprofit in her honor called the Ernestine Jones Legacy Foundation. Jones assumed the position of president for the organization, and the following year he established the Ernestine Jones Memorial Annual 5k Race to fundraise and raise awareness of various nonprofit organizations and causes.
The 5k walking event takes place on the last Saturday of August each year. The walk begins at Gabbert Park in downtown Senatobia and passes through Main Street, Senatobia High School and parts of the downtown area before returning to Gabbert Park.
Each year the proceeds from the 5k event go to two different beneficiaries. The 2024 event benefited Bridging the Gap and Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. The beneficiaries for the 2025 event will be Bridging the Gap and a local youth organization called Save Our Youth.
Save Our Youth is a Senatobia-based organization that aims to spotlight the needs of local children, whether it be kindergarteners in need of shoes or children whose parents need assistance obtaining gifts during the holiday season.
The organization hosts parent and child fishing events at the Barbour Center in Senatobia as well as Back to School supply drives and toy drives.
Save Our Youth President Derrick Johnson established the organization in 2022. He became involved with the Ernestine Jones Legacy Foundation after meeting one of Jones’ daughters, Geraldine Jones, at Paradise Baptist Church in Senatobia.
“Everyone I’ve met from Ernestine Jones’ family are such good people and are just as involved in their community as she was, especially when it comes to caring for the youth,” Johnson says. “Save Our Youth is based on love for children and community alike, and we’re seeking to promote positivity as much as we can just like Ernestine Jones did. That’s what it’s all about.”
In honor of what would have been Ernestine Jones’ 100th birthday, the 2025 incarnation of the Ernestine Jones Memorial Annual 5k Race also featured a banquet at 5:30 p.m. on the night of the race, Aug. 23. The banquet was open to all participants and sponsors and featured catering from Crystal Burton, owner of Crystal Exquisitive Catering Service in Senatobia.
The Ernestine Jones Memorial Annual 5k Race is open to all ages, and runners are grouped into divisions by age, with the first-place winner of each division receiving a trophy and the winners for second and third place receiving medals.
The Ernestine Jones Legacy Foundation also sponsors a Tate County-based program called Seniors on the Move, which Ernestine Jones participated in. The program provides daily exercise routines, healthy living advice and nutritional education for seniors, as well as giving them a local place to meet and socialize.
“My grandmother was a pillar of the Senatobia community, a loving and caring individual with an unwavering air who contributed to the wellbeing of everyone around her,” Jones says. “As president of her foundation, it’s my goal to show our gratitude for every group that’s worked with us to promote what my grandmother stood for and keep her legacy alive. I always said her heart was bigger than her body, and it showed through the unwavering love she passed on to her family and friends and everyone she was responsible for.”
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