Elaine Robinson Jones

Elaine Robinson Jones, born August 27, 1943, died at home in Murfreesboro, Tennessee on June 1, 2024 after a brief illness. She is survived by her husband, John Hodge Jones; two sons by previous marriages, Mark Barnes of Boston, Massachusetts and Michael Willers of Northampton, Massachusetts; sisters Miley and Susan Robinson, and brother Oscar Robinson, all of Alabama; two grandchildren, Jonah and Talia Willers; and the three children of her husband, Bart Jones, Greg Jones and Bonnie Jones, who were as dear to her as her family by blood. She was preceded in death by her beloved brother, James Lee Robinson.

Descended from early settlers of Alabama, Elaine was born in Wetumpka, Alabama, daughter of Miley Manson Robinson, a logger and timber broker, and Mary Helen Boone, a businesswoman. She attended a one-room elementary school in Jackson’s Gap, Alabama and graduated from Dadeville High School. She studied at Auburn University, earning a B.A. and M.A. in education, and later earned a doctorate at Peabody College of Vanderbilt University. She began her career as an elementary school teacher in Montgomery public schools, later becoming principal of the lower school at Montgomery Academy in Montgomery and then at Franklin Road Academy in Nashville. In the Metro Nashville Public Schools, she served in the Reading Task Force and as Director of Staff Development for the entire system. She taught at universities in the Nashville area, including Peabody, Belmont and Trevecca Nazarene and toward the end of her career, consulted for various school systems in 35 states. In the 1970s, she was a consultant to the U.S. embassy schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. In those and other roles, she was a strong leader, profoundly influencing students and teachers over her decades of service. She almost never had a student in whom she could not see great promise, continuously challenged them to study harder and act better, and was widely adored by students and parents.