Norma Jean Jones' Obituary
Norma Jean Jones, of Broken Arrow, Okla., left this life — one defined by a deep, enduring love for and from her family, her faith, and the city she always called home — on April 12, 2024.
She was 95 years old.
Norma Jean was born, in Broken Arrow, to Alta Kathryn and Luster James Lowery on Jan. 24, 1929, on the cusp of the Great Depression.
“Daddy was a city boy and Mother was a country girl,” she wrote in a 2017 family history. “They both worked together at making a good life for their family.”
Norma Jean was the eldest of six children eventually born to Alta and Luster: Her siblings included Joyce, Kathryn, Jim, Judy, and Roy Lowery. For the first 13 years of her life, Norma Jean and her family resided on a 40-acre farm in Leonard (an unincorporated community in southeastern Tulsa County), where cattle were kept for a brief time, and pecan and corn crops were harvested.
“We were back in the hills high enough that the Arkansas River, which flooded our farming area and where the pecan trees were, never got near our house,” Norma Jean recalled in 2017. “[We] just had to go around the mountain by foot to get to ... Highway 64 from the flooded area.”
In 1942, Norma Jean and her family moved from Leonard to Broken Arrow, where she would live for the rest of her life. The shift from country to city living was unpleasant at first — “It was really an adjustment ... I did not like it,” she recalled in 2017 — but eventually, Norma Jean settled in and thrived, being selected as the 9th grade attendant to the Broken Arrow High School’s annual queen (whom, that year, just so happened to be Norma Jean’s cousin, Edna Lee Lowery).
Broken Arrow High School, from which she graduated in the spring of 1947, was also where Norma Jean met the love of her life, Ray Daniel Jones, whom she married on Oct. 16, 1949 at the First Christian Church in Broken Arrow. The Joneses would live in Broken Arrow for the entirety of their 66-year marriage, before Ray’s death in 2016.
In the course of building a family, Ray and Norma Jean initially met with tragedy. Complications threatened Norma Jean’s life, resulting in their daughter, Kathryn Nell, being born prematurely on May 22, 1953, and passing away shortly thereafter.
But on Sept. 30, 1954, Ray and Norma Jean welcomed their son, Scott Allen Jones, whom Norma Jean described in 2017 as “our most precious gift that God had provided for us. ... We could not have been happier.”
Indeed, Norma Jean often said, “All I ever wanted to be was a wife and a mother,” which is how she would spend the bulk of her life. She worked for a time for Broken Arrow Public Schools and the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, and also pursued hobbies such as gardening, sewing, participating in the Beta Sigma Phi sorority and the Boy Scouts of America with both her son and grandsons.
Norma Jean, along with Ray, was a passionate traveler, venturing to Hawaii, Europe and across the United States, when she wasn’t attending Broken Arrow High School football games, or regular Sunday services at Northside Christian Church.
The most profound joy of Norma Jean’s life was her family, whether it was her beloved husband, Ray, her son, Scott, her daughter-in-law, Julie, her two grandchildren, Preston and Nathan, their wives, Carla and Rebecca, her great-grandchildren, Julianne and Kathryn, or her many beloved nieces and nephews, with whom she spent countless wonderful hours.
Her pride in all of their accomplishments, however large or small, was enormous — no one who knew Norma Jean, even for the briefest moment, was unfamiliar with what her family meant to her.
Norma Jean enjoyed this life — her life: one rich in family, friends, faith, and a ceaseless desire to learn — to its fullest, and was adored by all who met her, who knew her and who were lucky enough to call her wife, mother, grandmother, GG, aunt, or friend.
“I know that I was loved,” Norma Jean would often say toward the end of her life. “I know that not many people can say that, but I know I have been loved.”
The enormity of Norma Jean Jones and her selfless, abiding love for her family is surpassed only by the overwhelming magnitude of how deeply she was loved in return, and by how profoundly she will be missed.
Norma is survived by her son, Scott Allen Jones, and Scott’s wife, Julie, both of Broken Arrow; her two grandsons, Preston Daniel Jones, and wife Carla, of Plano, Texas, and Nathan Allen Jones, wife Rebecca, and great-granddaughters Julianne and Kathryn, of Bixby; and numerous nieces, nephews, and cousins, all of whom loved her very much.
Norma was preceded in death by her husband, Ray Daniel Jones; her daughter, Kathryn Nell; her parents, Alta and Luster Lowery, and her siblings, Joyce Parnell and Jim Lowery.
A visitation will be held from 5-7 p.m. Wednesday, April 17 at Floral Haven Funeral Home in Broken Arrow. Services will be held at 10 a.m. Thursday, April 18 at Floral Haven Funeral Home Chapel in Broken Arrow, followed by internment in Floral Haven Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, please make donations to the charity of your choice.
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