Mary Jackson Jones Monson

Mary Jackson Jones Monson, of Winston-Salem, NC, died on February 21, 2025 after having contracted the Norovirus and then Influenza A, resulting in acute respiratory failure. She had just celebrated her 95th birthday three weeks earlier with a party for family and friends.

Mary was born on February 8, 1930, to Chester Oscar Olaf Jackson and Beulah Mae Firkins Jackson in Champaign, IL. After Mary graduated from the University of Illinois Laboratory High School in 1948, she went on to college to study music at the University of Illinois and graduated with a degree in music education. Mary’s voice was exceptional and singing made her (and many others!) smile. She was an honorary member of Sigma Alpha Iota, an international music society. Mary had learned to play piano and autoharp and was asked to play at many church and school events. While in Illinois, Mary spent many summers at Auntie Dot’s and Uncle Harry’s farm, helping with the pigs, cows, ducks, chickens and geese. Her Uncle Robert taught her about horses and shared family stories with her about her mother, aunts and uncles when they were children living at Buttertub Hill. She learned all about trees, flowers, plants, birds, and camping during her years as a camp counselor in Wisconsin where she took campers on five-day canoeing trips.

After college, Mary married Val Jones, moved to New York State, and had three daughters: Lynn, Kathy, and Susan. She was a Girl Scout leader, children’s choir director, adult choir soloist, substitute schoolteacher and volunteered in many organizations. Mary loved spending time planting and tending to her gardens; any extra vegetables were canned or frozen. She sewed many of her daughters’ clothes as well as little outfits for their dolls. She was an excellent cook, but baking was her specialty, including cream cheese chocolate chip cupcakes, zucchini bread, and rum cake.

In 1971, Mary and her girls moved to Winston-Salem, NC, where Mary spent the next 24 years teaching music and kindergarten. She was president of Forsyth County Kindergarten Association, and set up one of the very first kindergarten classrooms in NC. A special activity Mary provided each week was teaching songs with her piano accompaniment for all of the kindergarten classes in the school. Mary sang with and was a Lifetime Member and President of the Golden Triad Chapter of Sweet Adelines. She got up very early several days a week to swim laps at the YMCA, showered, sat under a bonnet-style hairdryer, then headed off to teach school. 

Volunteering at Baptist Hospital with the critically ill babies filled her with love as she rocked and sang soft, sweet songs to those tiny little ones. Mary gave more than 36 gallons of blood and donated using apheresis for the American Red Cross. She faithfully attended church and sang in choirs at Burkhead UMC, First Church of Christ and most recently Clemmons United Methodist Church. She served on numerous church boards including UM Women and Young at Heart. For several summers, she offered a morning program for children ages 3-5, teaching songs, games, arts and crafts, cooking, and outside activities. Mary had a huge positive impact on hundreds of children’s lives; many former students and parents would stop by and see her, telling her how much she meant to them and how they would never forget their kindergarten/music/choir teacher.

In 1994, Mary married church friend and widower Carl Monson and spent the next 23 years together traveling to Florida for two months every winter; visiting Europe (where they caught up with distant relatives in Germany and Sweden), and throughout the U.S. They both spent time volunteering weekly for Bingo at the VFW; learning about both families’ genealogies; watching many varieties of birds outside their kitchen window; and spending time with numerous friends and relatives. Per Mary’s request, her daughters published the book, Buttertub Hill Kids, filled with stories that Mary’s mother had written in the 1950s about her own brothers and sisters growing up in the early 1900s. This book was given to all the family members in 2017 at the Jackson Family Reunion, a gathering where relatives met every two to three years in different parts of the country. “Family” was always on Mary’s mind, and for the past 12 years, she wrote a weekly letter to her children and grandchildren, describing her daily life and any little tidbits about other relatives she had heard that week, just as her father had always done during his lifetime.

Mary was preceded in death by her parents; her daughter, Lynn Jones Moore; first husband Val Stephen Jones and final husband Carl Gustav Monson; her brother, Willard Lewis Jackson and sister-in-law, Ruth Maase Jackson; her sister, Margo Jackson Crotts and brother-in-law, Marcus Bowman Crotts. She is survived by five children and step-children: Kathy Jones Crouse (Ken) of Fallbrook, CA; Carol Monson Carroll (Dallas) of Danbury, NC; Gary Christian Monson (Julie) of Simpsonville, SC; Susan Jones Platt (Sam) of Clemmons, NC; Adele Monson Cogar (Ross) of Winston-Salem, NC; son-in-law, Jim Moore of Ocean Isle Beach, NC; eleven grandchildren, eight great-grandchildren, and numerous special nieces and nephews.

In the Spring, a service will be held at Clemmons United Methodist Church, 3700 Clemmons Rd., Clemmons, NC 27012. Her ashes will be interred at Clemmons UMC Garden of Memories Columbarium. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to Heritage Woods Assisted Living, Clemmons UMC choir, or Trellis Supportive Care, three organizations that were very important to Mary.