Christine Spivey Jones

Funeral services for Christine Spivey Jones, daughter of the late James Travis and Allie Pruett Spivey will be held in the Cookeville Chapel of Hooper-Huddleston and Horner Funeral Home on Saturday, December 17, 2016, at 11 am. Interment will follow in Crest Lawn Cemetery. Funeral will be conducted by Brother Kelly Campbell. Visitation will be held at the funeral home on Friday evening, December 16, from 4 pm-7pm and one hour prior to the service Christine was born in Gallatin, Sumner County, Tennessee July 23, 1924 and lived in Akron, Ohio and Nashville, Tennessee before the family settled in Cookeville in 1932 when she entered the third grade. She graduated from Central High School in 1941 and entered Tennessee Polytechnic Institute, later named Tennessee Technological University. Christine received her B. S. degree in business in 1947. That year, the student body elected her Tech's Sweetheart. She next entered George Peabody College from which she received her Library Science degree in June 1948. Two weeks after graduation, she was named Circulation Librarian at T.P.I. She was later named Tennessee Reference Librarian and Special Collections Librarian. She retired January 5, 2008, after serving 59 � years, thereby ending the longest faculty tenure in the history of Tennessee Technological University. In her work as Special Collections Librarian, she provided reference assistance in history and genealogy. In connection with this, she helped many individuals from various places who were tracing their families or doing historical research in the Upper Cumberland. By providing this help, she became widely known for her expertise. She and three close friends, Dr. Eleanor D. Mitchell, Mrs. Mildred Draper Summers and Mrs. Willie Howard Huddleston started combining their research on the Draper family with Mrs. Ethel Nichols Anderson of Lexington, Kentucky and eventually wrote an exhaustive genealogy, Draper Families in America, containing 514 pages, which was published in 1964 by Parthenon Press, Nashville, Tennessee. Christine's long standing fascination with American history was manifested by her entertaining narrative of little known facts about American presidents which she enjoyed sharing with various civic organizations. She married Roger Gaw Jones, December 23, 1950, in the Willow Avenue Church of Christ. Theirs was the first church wedding to take place at this location with Brother Carl Gossett officiating. She is survived by a daughter and son-in-law, Jennifer Deanne Jones Bertram and Dr. Phillip D. Bertram of Cookeville. She is survived by the following nieces and nephews: Dr. David Curtis Chaffin of Cleveland, TN; Nancy (Dr. Phillip Lee) Eichman of Irmo, South Carolina; Dr. Harold Glendon Brown of Parkville, MO; and Dr. Robert Edwin Brown of Abilene, TX; and Belle (Mrs. Amos Edwin) Spurlock of Cookeville. In her declining years, she was assisted by a dedicated caregiver, Mrs. Ruby Howell, who provided loving and personal comfort. Mrs. Jones was preceded in death by her husband of almost sixty years, Roger Jones; four sisters, Willa Deanne Spivey and Milbra Lee Spivey Chaffin (Mrs. Cecil Chaffin) of Chattanooga; Dorothy May Spivey Brown (Mrs. Earl Glendon Brown) of Topeka, Kansas; and Marguerite Spivey Loftis (Mrs. Ernest Loftis) of Cookeville, Tennessee and by one brother, James Travis Spivey, Jr. of Caracas, Venezuela. Pallbearers will be Dr. David C. Chaffin, Mr. James Carpenter, Dr. Claude McHenry, Mr. Glenn Jones, Mr. Mancil Johnson, Mr. Jason Smith, and Mr. John Ward . In lieu of flowers, the family requests that memorial contributions be made to the Tennessee Technological University Foundation, Christine and Roger Jones History Scholarship Fund, PO Box 1915, Cookeville, TN 38505. Hooper-Huddleston & Horner Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements (931)526-6111. You may share your thoughts and memories at www.hhhfunerals.com