Born March 1, 1887,  Luther Ellis Jones was the youngest child of John and Ann.  His father died when he was a baby.  He grew up on the farm and after graduating high school in Wymore, Nebraska, and then Business College in Lincoln, Nebraska, he became timekeeper in the Trainmaster's office on the Burlington Railroad in Wymore.  In 1911 he married Vera Juanita "Hope" Woods, daughter of Dr. Fred J. Woods of Barnston, Nebraska, who had completed her high school in Wymore.  For the next two years they, with his brother Rob, operated a cattle feeding business at Krider and Deane.  Their oldest son, Deane, was born in 1912.

Lue's brother, John Jr., had acquired land in Saskatchewan and in 1913 it was agreed that Lue would take over the land.   He went to Canada in March 1913 via a freight car load of settler's effects, including one of the first gas powered tractors in the area.  Hope and baby Deane followed in April and they made their home in two granaries while a house was built.  A crop of flax had been sown  in 1912, so one of Hope's first tasks upon arrival was cooking for a threshing crew.   With his tractor, Lue did much contract land breaking in the district.  The railroad arrived that summer and the village of Dinsmore, Saskatchewan, began.  A second son, Dale, and a daughter, Kathern, were eventually born on the farm - both delivered by a vet!
 
 

In 1917, Lue went into the hardware business in Dinsmore, first in a partnership and later alone.  They built a new house  which was to be the family home for the next thirty years and in which Harlo, their youngest child, was born in 1923.  Lue constantly sought new business opportunities and the L.E. Jones Co. Ltd. expanded into the automobile and farm machinery fields with a host of sidelines (e.g. most farms had windmills and lightning rods and within the district, the majority of both were erected by Lue's firm).  In one year in the mid 1920s, he sold more than 120 Model T Fords!  In 1926, he installed electric lighting in the town and operated it until it was taken over by the Saskatchewan Power Commission in 1946.  He also became and undertaker and added a morgue to his business complex.  He served the town both as councillor and reeve.
  

Lue and Hope were active both socially and in service organizations.  In their early years, Hope played piano for dances and taught music.  She sang in and conducted the church choir and also was organist.  She taught in and was superintendent of the Sunday School, and led a church girls' group.  She was among those who campaigned for a hospital in the town and served on both the hospital and school boards. Hope was the first Worthy Matron of the Eastern Star chapter.  Lue played baseball, became a first class curler, and took part in a host of choral events.  He was one of the first initiates in the town's Masonic Lodge and later became District Deputy Grand master and a Shriner.  Lue became involved in politics, too, and in 1929 ran for the provincial legislature as a Liberal, but was defeated.  His interest in farming never diminished and by the late 1930s he was working 1 1/2 sections of grain land with the help of his sons and hired hands, but he loved to operate the tractor or combine himself.

In 1946, an illness attributed to heart fatigue led to Lue's retirement and he and Hope moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, where they had a lovely hilltop home on a double lot overlooking Vancouver harbor.  He kept his green thumb in practice by gardening, specializing in roses, and by returning to Dinsmore in the spring and fall for seeding and harvesting as long as he was able.  He died in Vancouver on October 23, 1973 and was buried in Saskatoon on the prairies he loved.  Hope then moved to Victoria, British Columbia, where her daughter, Kathern, lived.  She died there suddenly of a stroke on June 3, 1980.

One of Lue's sons, Harlo, subsequently wrote a book about growing up in Dinsmore. "O Little Town: Remembering Life in a Prairie Village" by Harlo L. Jones is available through The University of Manitoba Press 1995, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, R3T 5V6.  More than a social history of a town, it recounts many details of the lives of Lue, Hope and their children from the establishment of the village in 1913 to the beginning of the war.
 
 

June Wolfe Jones, wife of Deane Jones

Scotty Richey	Eric, Rebecca and Scotty Richey	Eric Richey