Rev. Kenneth S. Jones
(Posthumous recognition and induction)
Kenneth S. Jones was born in Glen Rock, N.J., and reared in Baltimore's Mount Washington neighborhood. He was a 1937 graduate of Baltimore City College, and he attended the University of Baltimore School of Law.
He was drafted into the Army in 1942 and served in Europe with the 16th Armored Division. His unit liberated the town of Pilsen in Czechoslovakia. After the war, he served four months as the military mayor of Wurtzburg in Germany.
After leaving military service, Kenneth earned a bachelor's degree at American University and became an assistant pastor at Metropolitan Methodist Church. Later, he earned a master's degree at the Yale Divinity School. He was assigned to St. Luke Methodist Church in Woodlawn. While at the church, he oversaw completion of a new fellowship hall. He also founded an ecumenical nursery school and kindergarten for Protestant, Catholic and Jewish students.
Kenneth and his wife Edlea served for a period of time as missionaries in the former Belgian Congo. During the civil war in the newly named country of Zaire, the Joneses had to be evacuated by the U. S. government. Upon their return to the United States, Kenneth served as director of public relations for Bishop John Wesley Lord in Washington, D.C. In 1967, he was named pastor of Faith United Methodist Church in Rockville. In 1977, he returned to Baltimore as pastor of Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church. While pastoring at Mount Vernon Place, he authored two books, Twelve Came Riding and Angels Up Ahead.
In 1984, he was appointed superintendent of the Annapolis District of the United Methodist Church. He retired in 1986 and became an interim pastor at St. Paul's United Methodist Church in New Windsor.
( Excerpted from Rev. Jones' obituary published in The Baltimore Sun, October 3, 2017 .)