Charles A. Jones Family Community Endowment

Charles A. Jones in WW II

Year Founded
2010

Purpose of Fund
Grants are awarded from the Charles A. Jones Family Community Endowment by the Board of Directors of the Putnam County Community Foundation to support the changing needs and aspirations of the people in Putnam County as the years go by.

History of Fund
In 1975 Charles A. Jones (Charlie) and his wife of thirty years, Ann M. Jones, gave twenty-five acres of prime US 231 road frontage for the construction of the new Putnam County Hospital.  It was at that time Charlie voiced his wish that someday there would be a conduit through which other donations might flow.  From this gift of land was borne the earliest idea of what a community foundation could be.

Charlie was born at the family homestead, The Brick, (the columned, white brick house immediately north of the hospital) on January 16, 1921.  His father, Thad Jones, was a respected farmer and a member of the Greencastle School Board.  Mother Clara Sharp Jones was a business woman appointed by the Governor to run the BMV.  Later she would serve as Putnam County Auditor, the first woman elected to county office.

Charlie loved the family farm and even during the Great Depression, The Brick was the scene for many Greencastle school and social events.  He was president of his 1938 GHS graduating class and entered DePauw University that fall.  He met Ann Montgomery of Celina, Ohio at DePauw in 1940 and they were married on April 29, 1944.

Upon his DePauw graduation in 1942, Charlie entered the US Navy Officer’s Training Program in which he learned to fly both fixed-wing airplanes as well as helicopters.  He entered the US Marine Corps as a Captain and for the duration of the war was a helicopter flight instructor.

After thirty years in business, Charlie retired from his Columbus, Ohio book publishing company to return to his beloved Greencastle farm, upon which he and Ann built a new house down a winding lane south from Jones Road.  Ann died in 1981.  Charlie died unexpectedly that next summer, only 61 years old.

Through his children and grandchildren and now their children, Charlie’s love for Greencastle and the farm lives on.  And so does his dream of a Putnam County Community Foundation.

Emily (Jones) Knuth, her husband, Dennis, children Eleanor and Charles, Olivia (Jones) Query, her husband, Cory, and their son Beau Charles, and, Kathryn and Stephen Jones are pleased to establish the Charles A. Jones Family Endowment in his memory and it is our hope that for Greencastle and Putnam County, the best is yet to come.