JONES FAMILY SITTING ON THEIR FRONT PORCH CIRCA 1976
This photo was included in the Washington Post Magazine, Special Bicentennial Edition, July 4th 1976. Presumably it was intended to portray how some folks in rural areas were living at the time
The house shown in this photo was originally the Jake Masemer Planing Mill, known to old-timers as Jake’s Store. It was built in the 1880s. An article in the Warren Sentinel, the local newspaper at that time, describes Browntown in April 1884, including this very building:
Warren Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 1, 18 April 1884
“Browntown is a prosperous, business village, with a population of more than two hundred, eight miles south of Front Royal, in the fertile and beautiful mountain locked valley, known as Gooney Manor, whose people are proverbial for their hospitality and thrift. It has three stores, kept by Messrs. Fayette (Lafayette?) Updike, T. & B. Updike, and John H. Baublitz each doing large business. During the last year seven comfortable dwelling-houses have been erected, and the large Factory and Steam Planing Mill of Jacob Masemer, whose owner and operator is as busy always as the engine which propels the machinery.”
The building went through many changes over the next 120 years or so before the main part of it was finally demolished in 2010. The back part of the building, which was an icehouse, still stands today. The property was bought by Al and Mabel Keim in October, 1942 after it had already been converted into an apartment building. Those apartments were lived in by many people over the following years.
This photo from December 1963 shows that the building (on the right), although still in use as a rental property, was already in pretty poor shape at that time.
THE PEOPLE IN THE 1976 PHOTO
Our understanding is that all of the people in this photo were living in this building. The three people on the right were all related to one another and were members of the same (Jones) family. The girl on the left was called Nancy Galloway. In the brief descriptions below of these folks we have relied on a number of different sources but particularly on a few long-time Browntown residents who had fond memories of the Jones family and remember them sitting on their front porch.
MEMORIES OF THE JONES FAMILY
“That is exactly how I remember that house, with everyone on the porch waving as we rode our bikes back and forth. Great memories.”
“I had family that lived there. I remember sitting on the porch of aunt Bertie (she wasn’t really my aunt) playing Jacks.”
“The Jones family lived there. My dad, granddaddy and gramma and their neighbor, and Nancy Galloway, who also lived in the Apts. We weren’t rich but loved our hometown.”
LESTER ALVIN JONES (1900 -1980)
(Also known as “Uncle Lester” and “Moogie”)
Memory of Lester: “I used to go get his groceries for him every day at Lizzie’s store. He kept her in business with needing his Doans pills for his back. He used to keep a cup of quarters on top of the tv & always had me get 50 cents out of it after I came back with his groceries.”
EDWARD ‘”ED” JONES (1943-1988)
Also known by his nickname “Poodle”
His parents were John Lester Jones (1899-1965) and Nellie Virginia Broyles (1908-1997)
Memory of Ed: “Ed would go to town, and pick up old radios and TV’s and repair them on the porch. You’ll notice what looks like several speakers on the porch.”
SADIE VIRGINIA CLATTERBUCK JONES (1915-1992)
Also known as “Aunt Bertie” and “Booty”
Married Frank Gideon Jones Sr (1898-1978)
NANCY GALLOWAY (Also known as “Moodie”)
Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to find out anything about Nancy, other than that her nickname was “Moodie”. For now, she remains a mystery.