- Date Of Death: December 26, 2010
- State: New Mexico
Vernon Richard Jones, also known by family and friends as Cowboy or Poker, age 88, of Moran, Texas, died peacefully on Sunday, December 26.
Cowboy was born on May 16, 1922, in Santa Anna, Texas, the son of the late Oddie and Bill Jones. He was the fifth child of seven siblings. His father died at a young age in 1929, and his mother gathered her children and moved to Ft. Griffin, Texas, to be closer to other family members for support. Cowboy went to school at the Diller Common School District in Diller Flat in Shakelford County, Texas.
Because of the burden placed on his mother by the depression, Cowboy quit school after the eighth grade and started working, as did many young men of that time. For five years he worked on the ranches of the Matthews and Caldwell families in Shackelford and Throckmorton counties. He joined the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1939, and worked for the CCC in Colorado for two years.
He married Marcella Lloyd on July 18, 1941, in Cisco, Texas. Five children were born of this marriage. Marcella preceded him in death in 2000. Also, preceding him in death is his youngest son, Spud Jones, who was killed in an accident on December 22, 2010, in Timberon, New Mexico.
