Thomas E. Jones, businessman, fisherman
Thomas E. Jones, co-founder of a Towson retail lighting firm and an avid fisherman, died April 24 from cancer at his Millersville home. He was 76.
Thomas Edward Jones was born in Baltimore, the son of Edward Jones, a waterfront worker, and Stella Szciecenski Jones. He was raised in Glen Burnie and graduated from Southern High School.
After working several different jobs, Mr. Jones and a partner established PortnoyJones Valley Lighting, a retail lighting firm on Bellona Avenue in Towson. It later moved to York Road. Today, the familyowned and -operated commercial lighting business is known as Valley Lighting LLC and is located in Linthicum Heights.
Mr. Jones retired about a year and a half ago, family members said.
His professional memberships included the Illuminating Engineering Society, Associated Builders and Contractors and the National Association of Electrical Distributors.
Mr. Jones was a prolific boater and deep-sea fisherman. He had a condominium at White Marlin Marina in Ocean City where he kept his boat, The Kingfisher. He sailed up and down the East Coast and had competed in more than 100 fishing tournaments. In 2013 he won the White Marlin Open held off Ocean City.
Mr. Jones was a member of the White Rocks Yacht Club in Pasadena, where he had been fleet captain and commodore. He was also a member of the Ocean City Marlin Club.
He maintained memberships in the Jaycees, the Ancient Order of Hibernians, the Knights of Columbus and the Cedar Room Club.
Mr. Jones was a communicant of Our Lady of the Fields Roman Catholic Church in Millersville, where a Mass of Christian burial was offered April 28.
He is survived by his wife of 56 years, the former Maureen Mulherin; two sons, Tommy Jones of Severna Park and Greg Jones of Baltimore; two daughters, Kathy Deppe of Crownsville and Michelle Lillie of Millersville; two brothers, Melvin Jones of Severna Park and Robert Jones of Baltimore; a sister, Marlene Jones of Baltimore; and eight grandchildren. Union Theological Seminary in Manhattan, where Dr. Cone had been on the faculty.
“He could not understand how anyone could do Christian theology in America without talking about the black struggle for freedom, and how anyone could do Christian theology in general without talking about the oppressed,” she said.
In his writings, Dr. Cone suggested that God was black, but “wasn’t arguing that God was physically black, or that only black people were righteous,” said Anthony Pinn, a religion professor at Rice University. “He was arguing that Christians — white, black, purple, red — have to be committed to racial justice; that whites in their churches have to be committed to racial justice, or they need to call themselves something different.”
James Hal Cone was born in Fordyce, a small town in Arkansas, in1938. He received a master’s in divinity in 1963 and a doctorate in 1965, both from Northwestern University.
In 2018, his book “The Cross and the Lynching Tree” (2011) — which described the crucifixion of Jesus as “a first-century lynching” — received the Grawemeyer Award in Religion from Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary and the University of Louisville. His final book, the memoir “Said I Wasn’t Gonna Tell Nobody,” is scheduled for publication this year.
Dr. Cone continued to speak out against racial inequality. He remained hopeful, he said, that “together we can create a society and world not defined by white supremacy.”