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Waldo Brighton Jones ’50

Waldo Jones photo

Waldo was born in New York City and grew up in the Greenhaven neighborhood of Rye, New York. She attended the Rye Country Day School and then the Putney School in Vermont. An adventurous spirit led her to Reed, where she was as enthusiastic instructing skiers and hiking on Mt. Hood as she was in the classroom. Waldo graduated from Bennington College with a bachelor’s degree in literature. Immediately following graduation, she married the love of her life, James E. Jones ’47, whom she met at Reed.

She started out in the executive training program at Bonwit Teller in New York, doing copywriting until she welcomed a first child in 1952. The couple embraced parenthood and moved to Mt. Kisco, New York, to raise their three children. Waldo had an uncanny ability to teach, and under her tutelage, countless kids learned to read, ride a bike, swim, recite a poem, and, most importantly, to value and respect others. She began working as an assistant teacher, and retired in 1991 as the head of the lower school at Rippowam Cisqua School. Nothing made her happier than greeting hundreds of children by name and with a firm handshake. After retiring she shared pleasurable years with family and friends, alternating between summers in Whitingham, Vermont, and winters in Pass-a-Grille, Florida.

At her hospital bedside a week after a devastating fall, her doctor astutely commented, “She had 88 wonderful years and one really bad week.” Her children, Kinnon Williamson, Hutton Cole, and Britton Jones, survive her.

Appeared in Reed magazine: December 2017