Dr. James Harding Jones was born on a small farm near the village of Sunny Side in LeFlore County, Mississippi, at the end of the 19th century. He spent two years in France with the Mississippi Rainbow Division during World War I. After the war he attended Ole Miss where he met and married Myra Hume. During the decades of the Great Depression and World War II he completed a doctorate in the French language, became a foreign language professor in Alabama and raised three sons. After the end of World War II (1946), Dr. Jones conceived of the idea of starting an international student program at JSU. By bringing together students from different cultures around the world, they would learn to know and respect one another, thus making a small step toward the goal of world peace. Dr. Jones and Mrs. Jones devoted themselves fully to this endeavor until his retirement in 1964.
Dr. James Harding Jones
"Memories of My Father" by Dr. William B. Jones
“Memories of My Father” is a history of the Jones International House Program and the families and backgrounds Dr. James H. and Mrs. Myra Hume Jones. It was written by their son, Dr. William B. Jones, and is reprinted with his permission.