Nina was the daughter of Clifton Benjamin Henry "Cliff" and Louella Anna "Ella" (Sexton) Jones. She was the fifth of eleven children (four of whom died at or shortly after their births). The only one of Grandma's siblings I really got to know was her sister Zeda and Zeda's husband Bert Dilday who were two of the nicest and most welcoming people you could have the pleasure of knowing. They lived in a lovely old two-story vintage home in Miller with beautiful furnishings. Their daughter Wanetta was Paul and Morris' teacher when we lived on the farm near Miller.
Nina Edith Jones and James Trenton DePreste (both of Miller), eloped and were married April 20, 1818 by the Judge of the Probate Court at the Jasper County Courthouse in Carthage. [Marriage License] Granddad stated that he was over twenty-one years of age, and Grandma stated she was over the age of eighteen. Granddad was actually eighteen, and Grandma sixteen. I never thought to ask Grandma how she and Granddad traveled to Carthage, but was likely to have been by farm wagon unless Granddad was able to borrow a buggy or rent one from the livery barn on the east side of Miller. James and Nina had four children; Virginia Lee (1918-1918), Victor Eugene (1919-1994), Paul Trenton (1924-2011), and James Biffel "Jimmy" "J. B." (1931-1944).
James Biffel "Jimmy" "J. B." was their last child and youngest son. He died at St. Mary's Hospital in Richmond Heights, St. Louis County, Missouri after a long and extensive surgery for a malignant brain tumor. Dad told me about how his little brother Jimmy had suffered from terrible headaches and Grandma and Granddad had taken him to several well known specialists who recommended St. Mary's as the best hope for surgical removal of the malignant brain tumor. Jimmy was originally buried at Davis Cemetery southeast of Miller, near Heatonville. In the 1970's, Grandma had him re-interred at Miller Memorial Gardens where he rests next to his parents. Grandma also wanted little Virginia Lee re-interred there as well, but was advised against it as her grave would unlikely yield many removable remains after such a long time.
Having always been a person of strong faith, Grandma became even more zealously devout after Jimmy's death and was noted locally as being an evangelist minister in the Springfield and Miller, Missouri area. (Both Paul, Jr. and I have vague memories of being baptized in a natural pool or stream in Missouri as youngsters and would have surely been by or in the presence of Grandma Nina, and of course Morris would have been baptized at the same time as well.)
Grandma and Granddad divorced in the early 1950's. Our dad has spoken about how Grandma had become more zealously religious after little Jimmy's death, and that it had a negative effect on her and Granddad's marriage. He believed that it had played a part in their marital disharmony and eventual divorce.
...In the early 1930's, Nina befriended A. A. Allen, a young charming bootlegger who lived east of Miller. According to his biography, he was saved through her ministry, and considered her his spiritual mother. Initially, A. A. Allen was minister of the Miller Assembly of God Church. He later became a Pentecostal. At the time of his death on June 10, 1970, where he was found slumped in a chair in front of the television in his room at the Jack Tar Hotel in San Francisco, he was worth several million dollars. Commenting in the Miller Press on Allen's wealth at the time of his death, Kenny Friar said, "I remember when A. A. Allen left town. He didn't have the price of a tank of gas and gas was ten cents a gallon." [James Dale West, 2003]
In about 1954, Grandma married Ervin Walter Stoltz in Springfield, Greene County, Missouri, and shortly afterwards they moved to Hayward, in Alameda County, California. Our family got to know and love Ervin after our family moved from Missouri; first to Texas in 1955, then on to Livermore in Alameda County, California in the fall of 1956. We all loved Ervin and were saddened when he and Grandma divorced in the mid-1960's and Ervin moved on to Oregon.
Grandma Nina and I attended one of A. A. Allen's big tent revivals once in Oakland, California. She was well known in the A. A. Allen Pentecostal Revival movement (he called her his spiritual mother). These were huge gatherings and it was a little overwhelming, especially the healing service. It also got pretty hot under the tent in the summer and many people fainted and had to be taken outside. I also went with Grandma a time or two to a Pentecostal Church in East Oakland, and would imagine Paul and Morris probably also attended church with Grandma when they visited her as well.
Though I knew Grandma felt a little more at ease with the boys, she was always affectionate and generous to me and I loved being with her. She did something so special on a visit to see us during the summer we lived near Pleasanton that it cemented a bond between us that was never broken. Us kids usually only got one new pair of shoes each year at the start of school and mine were totally outgrown and falling apart the day Grandma visited. Grandma asked mom if she could take me shopping for new shoes for school and mom said yes. Grandma bought me a new pair of white oxford school shoes AND a pair of casual play shoes as well! Another important thing I started to realize around this time was the affection between mom and Grandma. A decade later, Grandma told me she never got to raise her baby girl Virginia Lee who was born prematurely and died at 25 days old, and that she had always loved mom like she was her own daughter.
After Grandma and Ervin were divorced, she moved to Livermore and we saw her fairly often before she returned to Missouri in the summer of 1965. Paul and Morris accompanied her and helped with the driving on the trip to Springfield. She then bought their bus tickets for the return trip back home to California.
Grandma Nina would bring resolution to a forty-year-long separation of their family in a rather unique way. She bought plots in Miller Memorial Gardens and had little "Jimmy" re-interred there from Davis Cemetery and made arrangements for her and Granddad to be buried there upon their deaths. If memory serves, they have matching tombstones and I have little doubt that Grandma purchased all three and prearranged her and Granddad's funerals as well. Grandma died on August 21, 1982 and was buried next to little Jimmy, Granddad was laid to rest next to Grandma at his death on March 17, 1984.
Nina Edith Jones and James Trenton DePreste (both of Miller), eloped and were married April 20, 1818 by the Judge of the Probate Court at the Jasper County Courthouse in Carthage. [Marriage License] Granddad stated that he was over twenty-one years of age, and Grandma stated she was over the age of eighteen. Granddad was actually eighteen, and Grandma sixteen. I never thought to ask Grandma how she and Granddad traveled to Carthage, but was likely to have been by farm wagon unless Granddad was able to borrow a buggy or rent one from the livery barn on the east side of Miller. James and Nina had four children; Virginia Lee (1918-1918), Victor Eugene (1919-1994), Paul Trenton (1924-2011), and James Biffel "Jimmy" "J. B." (1931-1944).
James Biffel "Jimmy" "J. B." was their last child and youngest son. He died at St. Mary's Hospital in Richmond Heights, St. Louis County, Missouri after a long and extensive surgery for a malignant brain tumor. Dad told me about how his little brother Jimmy had suffered from terrible headaches and Grandma and Granddad had taken him to several well known specialists who recommended St. Mary's as the best hope for surgical removal of the malignant brain tumor. Jimmy was originally buried at Davis Cemetery southeast of Miller, near Heatonville. In the 1970's, Grandma had him re-interred at Miller Memorial Gardens where he rests next to his parents. Grandma also wanted little Virginia Lee re-interred there as well, but was advised against it as her grave would unlikely yield many removable remains after such a long time.
Having always been a person of strong faith, Grandma became even more zealously devout after Jimmy's death and was noted locally as being an evangelist minister in the Springfield and Miller, Missouri area. (Both Paul, Jr. and I have vague memories of being baptized in a natural pool or stream in Missouri as youngsters and would have surely been by or in the presence of Grandma Nina, and of course Morris would have been baptized at the same time as well.)
Grandma and Granddad divorced in the early 1950's. Our dad has spoken about how Grandma had become more zealously religious after little Jimmy's death, and that it had a negative effect on her and Granddad's marriage. He believed that it had played a part in their marital disharmony and eventual divorce.
...In the early 1930's, Nina befriended A. A. Allen, a young charming bootlegger who lived east of Miller. According to his biography, he was saved through her ministry, and considered her his spiritual mother. Initially, A. A. Allen was minister of the Miller Assembly of God Church. He later became a Pentecostal. At the time of his death on June 10, 1970, where he was found slumped in a chair in front of the television in his room at the Jack Tar Hotel in San Francisco, he was worth several million dollars. Commenting in the Miller Press on Allen's wealth at the time of his death, Kenny Friar said, "I remember when A. A. Allen left town. He didn't have the price of a tank of gas and gas was ten cents a gallon." [James Dale West, 2003]
In about 1954, Grandma married Ervin Walter Stoltz in Springfield, Greene County, Missouri, and shortly afterwards they moved to Hayward, in Alameda County, California. Our family got to know and love Ervin after our family moved from Missouri; first to Texas in 1955, then on to Livermore in Alameda County, California in the fall of 1956. We all loved Ervin and were saddened when he and Grandma divorced in the mid-1960's and Ervin moved on to Oregon.
Grandma Nina and I attended one of A. A. Allen's big tent revivals once in Oakland, California. She was well known in the A. A. Allen Pentecostal Revival movement (he called her his spiritual mother). These were huge gatherings and it was a little overwhelming, especially the healing service. It also got pretty hot under the tent in the summer and many people fainted and had to be taken outside. I also went with Grandma a time or two to a Pentecostal Church in East Oakland, and would imagine Paul and Morris probably also attended church with Grandma when they visited her as well.
Though I knew Grandma felt a little more at ease with the boys, she was always affectionate and generous to me and I loved being with her. She did something so special on a visit to see us during the summer we lived near Pleasanton that it cemented a bond between us that was never broken. Us kids usually only got one new pair of shoes each year at the start of school and mine were totally outgrown and falling apart the day Grandma visited. Grandma asked mom if she could take me shopping for new shoes for school and mom said yes. Grandma bought me a new pair of white oxford school shoes AND a pair of casual play shoes as well! Another important thing I started to realize around this time was the affection between mom and Grandma. A decade later, Grandma told me she never got to raise her baby girl Virginia Lee who was born prematurely and died at 25 days old, and that she had always loved mom like she was her own daughter.
After Grandma and Ervin were divorced, she moved to Livermore and we saw her fairly often before she returned to Missouri in the summer of 1965. Paul and Morris accompanied her and helped with the driving on the trip to Springfield. She then bought their bus tickets for the return trip back home to California.
Grandma Nina would bring resolution to a forty-year-long separation of their family in a rather unique way. She bought plots in Miller Memorial Gardens and had little "Jimmy" re-interred there from Davis Cemetery and made arrangements for her and Granddad to be buried there upon their deaths. If memory serves, they have matching tombstones and I have little doubt that Grandma purchased all three and prearranged her and Granddad's funerals as well. Grandma died on August 21, 1982 and was buried next to little Jimmy, Granddad was laid to rest next to Grandma at his death on March 17, 1984.
Nina was the daughter of Clifton Benjamin Henry "Cliff" and Louella Anna "Ella" (Sexton) Jones. She was the fifth of eleven children (four of whom died at or shortly after their births). The only one of Grandma's siblings I really got to know was her sister Zeda and Zeda's husband Bert Dilday who were two of the nicest and most welcoming people you could have the pleasure of knowing. They lived in a lovely old two-story vintage home in Miller with beautiful furnishings. Their daughter Wanetta was Paul and Morris' teacher when we lived on the farm near Miller.
Nina Edith Jones and James Trenton DePreste (both of Miller), eloped and were married April 20, 1818 by the Judge of the Probate Court at the Jasper County Courthouse in Carthage. [Marriage License] Granddad stated that he was over twenty-one years of age, and Grandma stated she was over the age of eighteen. Granddad was actually eighteen, and Grandma sixteen. I never thought to ask Grandma how she and Granddad traveled to Carthage, but was likely to have been by farm wagon unless Granddad was able to borrow a buggy or rent one from the livery barn on the east side of Miller. James and Nina had four children; Virginia Lee (1918-1918), Victor Eugene (1919-1994), Paul Trenton (1924-2011), and James Biffel "Jimmy" "J. B." (1931-1944).
James Biffel "Jimmy" "J. B." was their last child and youngest son. He died at St. Mary's Hospital in Richmond Heights, St. Louis County, Missouri after a long and extensive surgery for a malignant brain tumor. Dad told me about how his little brother Jimmy had suffered from terrible headaches and Grandma and Granddad had taken him to several well known specialists who recommended St. Mary's as the best hope for surgical removal of the malignant brain tumor. Jimmy was originally buried at Davis Cemetery southeast of Miller, near Heatonville. In the 1970's, Grandma had him re-interred at Miller Memorial Gardens where he rests next to his parents. Grandma also wanted little Virginia Lee re-interred there as well, but was advised against it as her grave would unlikely yield many removable remains after such a long time.
Having always been a person of strong faith, Grandma became even more zealously devout after Jimmy's death and was noted locally as being an evangelist minister in the Springfield and Miller, Missouri area. (Both Paul, Jr. and I have vague memories of being baptized in a natural pool or stream in Missouri as youngsters and would have surely been by or in the presence of Grandma Nina, and of course Morris would have been baptized at the same time as well.)
Grandma and Granddad divorced in the early 1950's. Our dad has spoken about how Grandma had become more zealously religious after little Jimmy's death, and that it had a negative effect on her and Granddad's marriage. He believed that it had played a part in their marital disharmony and eventual divorce.
...In the early 1930's, Nina befriended A. A. Allen, a young charming bootlegger who lived east of Miller. According to his biography, he was saved through her ministry, and considered her his spiritual mother. Initially, A. A. Allen was minister of the Miller Assembly of God Church. He later became a Pentecostal. At the time of his death on June 10, 1970, where he was found slumped in a chair in front of the television in his room at the Jack Tar Hotel in San Francisco, he was worth several million dollars. Commenting in the Miller Press on Allen's wealth at the time of his death, Kenny Friar said, "I remember when A. A. Allen left town. He didn't have the price of a tank of gas and gas was ten cents a gallon." [James Dale West, 2003]
In about 1954, Grandma married Ervin Walter Stoltz in Springfield, Greene County, Missouri, and shortly afterwards they moved to Hayward, in Alameda County, California. Our family got to know and love Ervin after our family moved from Missouri; first to Texas in 1955, then on to Livermore in Alameda County, California in the fall of 1956. We all loved Ervin and were saddened when he and Grandma divorced in the mid-1960's and Ervin moved on to Oregon.
Grandma Nina and I attended one of A. A. Allen's big tent revivals once in Oakland, California. She was well known in the A. A. Allen Pentecostal Revival movement (he called her his spiritual mother). These were huge gatherings and it was a little overwhelming, especially the healing service. It also got pretty hot under the tent in the summer and many people fainted and had to be taken outside. I also went with Grandma a time or two to a Pentecostal Church in East Oakland, and would imagine Paul and Morris probably also attended church with Grandma when they visited her as well.
Though I knew Grandma felt a little more at ease with the boys, she was always affectionate and generous to me and I loved being with her. She did something so special on a visit to see us during the summer we lived near Pleasanton that it cemented a bond between us that was never broken. Us kids usually only got one new pair of shoes each year at the start of school and mine were totally outgrown and falling apart the day Grandma visited. Grandma asked mom if she could take me shopping for new shoes for school and mom said yes. Grandma bought me a new pair of white oxford school shoes AND a pair of casual play shoes as well! Another important thing I started to realize around this time was the affection between mom and Grandma. A decade later, Grandma told me she never got to raise her baby girl Virginia Lee who was born prematurely and died at 25 days old, and that she had always loved mom like she was her own daughter.
After Grandma and Ervin were divorced, she moved to Livermore and we saw her fairly often before she returned to Missouri in the summer of 1965. Paul and Morris accompanied her and helped with the driving on the trip to Springfield. She then bought their bus tickets for the return trip back home to California.
Grandma Nina would bring resolution to a forty-year-long separation of their family in a rather unique way. She bought plots in Miller Memorial Gardens and had little "Jimmy" re-interred there from Davis Cemetery and made arrangements for her and Granddad to be buried there upon their deaths. If memory serves, they have matching tombstones and I have little doubt that Grandma purchased all three and prearranged her and Granddad's funerals as well. Grandma died on August 21, 1982 and was buried next to little Jimmy, Granddad was laid to rest next to Grandma at his death on March 17, 1984.
Nina Edith Jones and James Trenton DePreste (both of Miller), eloped and were married April 20, 1818 by the Judge of the Probate Court at the Jasper County Courthouse in Carthage. [Marriage License] Granddad stated that he was over twenty-one years of age, and Grandma stated she was over the age of eighteen. Granddad was actually eighteen, and Grandma sixteen. I never thought to ask Grandma how she and Granddad traveled to Carthage, but was likely to have been by farm wagon unless Granddad was able to borrow a buggy or rent one from the livery barn on the east side of Miller. James and Nina had four children; Virginia Lee (1918-1918), Victor Eugene (1919-1994), Paul Trenton (1924-2011), and James Biffel "Jimmy" "J. B." (1931-1944).
James Biffel "Jimmy" "J. B." was their last child and youngest son. He died at St. Mary's Hospital in Richmond Heights, St. Louis County, Missouri after a long and extensive surgery for a malignant brain tumor. Dad told me about how his little brother Jimmy had suffered from terrible headaches and Grandma and Granddad had taken him to several well known specialists who recommended St. Mary's as the best hope for surgical removal of the malignant brain tumor. Jimmy was originally buried at Davis Cemetery southeast of Miller, near Heatonville. In the 1970's, Grandma had him re-interred at Miller Memorial Gardens where he rests next to his parents. Grandma also wanted little Virginia Lee re-interred there as well, but was advised against it as her grave would unlikely yield many removable remains after such a long time.
Having always been a person of strong faith, Grandma became even more zealously devout after Jimmy's death and was noted locally as being an evangelist minister in the Springfield and Miller, Missouri area. (Both Paul, Jr. and I have vague memories of being baptized in a natural pool or stream in Missouri as youngsters and would have surely been by or in the presence of Grandma Nina, and of course Morris would have been baptized at the same time as well.)
Grandma and Granddad divorced in the early 1950's. Our dad has spoken about how Grandma had become more zealously religious after little Jimmy's death, and that it had a negative effect on her and Granddad's marriage. He believed that it had played a part in their marital disharmony and eventual divorce.
...In the early 1930's, Nina befriended A. A. Allen, a young charming bootlegger who lived east of Miller. According to his biography, he was saved through her ministry, and considered her his spiritual mother. Initially, A. A. Allen was minister of the Miller Assembly of God Church. He later became a Pentecostal. At the time of his death on June 10, 1970, where he was found slumped in a chair in front of the television in his room at the Jack Tar Hotel in San Francisco, he was worth several million dollars. Commenting in the Miller Press on Allen's wealth at the time of his death, Kenny Friar said, "I remember when A. A. Allen left town. He didn't have the price of a tank of gas and gas was ten cents a gallon." [James Dale West, 2003]
In about 1954, Grandma married Ervin Walter Stoltz in Springfield, Greene County, Missouri, and shortly afterwards they moved to Hayward, in Alameda County, California. Our family got to know and love Ervin after our family moved from Missouri; first to Texas in 1955, then on to Livermore in Alameda County, California in the fall of 1956. We all loved Ervin and were saddened when he and Grandma divorced in the mid-1960's and Ervin moved on to Oregon.
Grandma Nina and I attended one of A. A. Allen's big tent revivals once in Oakland, California. She was well known in the A. A. Allen Pentecostal Revival movement (he called her his spiritual mother). These were huge gatherings and it was a little overwhelming, especially the healing service. It also got pretty hot under the tent in the summer and many people fainted and had to be taken outside. I also went with Grandma a time or two to a Pentecostal Church in East Oakland, and would imagine Paul and Morris probably also attended church with Grandma when they visited her as well.
Though I knew Grandma felt a little more at ease with the boys, she was always affectionate and generous to me and I loved being with her. She did something so special on a visit to see us during the summer we lived near Pleasanton that it cemented a bond between us that was never broken. Us kids usually only got one new pair of shoes each year at the start of school and mine were totally outgrown and falling apart the day Grandma visited. Grandma asked mom if she could take me shopping for new shoes for school and mom said yes. Grandma bought me a new pair of white oxford school shoes AND a pair of casual play shoes as well! Another important thing I started to realize around this time was the affection between mom and Grandma. A decade later, Grandma told me she never got to raise her baby girl Virginia Lee who was born prematurely and died at 25 days old, and that she had always loved mom like she was her own daughter.
After Grandma and Ervin were divorced, she moved to Livermore and we saw her fairly often before she returned to Missouri in the summer of 1965. Paul and Morris accompanied her and helped with the driving on the trip to Springfield. She then bought their bus tickets for the return trip back home to California.
Grandma Nina would bring resolution to a forty-year-long separation of their family in a rather unique way. She bought plots in Miller Memorial Gardens and had little "Jimmy" re-interred there from Davis Cemetery and made arrangements for her and Granddad to be buried there upon their deaths. If memory serves, they have matching tombstones and I have little doubt that Grandma purchased all three and prearranged her and Granddad's funerals as well. Grandma died on August 21, 1982 and was buried next to little Jimmy, Granddad was laid to rest next to Grandma at his death on March 17, 1984.
Family Members
Siblings
Sponsored by Ancestry
Advertisement
Explore more
Sponsored by Ancestry
Advertisement
