Family trees: Generations of Joneses cultivate orchard business
Each reddish-gold jar of peach jelly created by the hands of the 82-year-old matriarch at the sprawling 600-acre family farm of fruit trees in southern Millington has a bit of individual personality. The earlier peaches produce a lighter hue, the later deepen as the season grows.
"Sometimes the mood changes," says Juanita Jones, the chief of the kitchen at Jones Orchard.
Generations of the Jones family have cultivated the orchard since the late HL Jones, known as 'Peaches', founded the farm in 1940. And for decades, the woman behind the orchard's extensive line of jellies, jams, preserves and relishes has been Juanita Jones, the wife of Peaches' son Lee Jones.
On a recent summer morning, the orchard's jelly expert stood over a bucket full of pears. She selected one and carved it in a frenzy of blade and peels.
"Three pears in a minute," she said, her green top highlighting her bright blue-green eyes.
Jones' pear preserves follow a timehonored process. From the orchard to the kitchen, they are picked from the tree, peeled, covered in sugar, set overnight, cooked and jarred.
"Old fashioned, just like it's been done for ages," Jones said. "I grew up with them. My mother grew up making pear preserves that way."
Jones was born in 1936 in Samantha, Alabama, in unincorporated Tuscaloosa County. The daughter of tenant farmers, Jones picked cotton, canned vegetables, picked berries and helped her mother in the kitchen making jelly.
Her aunt introduced her to shorthand when she was 15 years old, which eventually led to a long career, to love and to peaches.
Jones devoured shorthand, jotting down preachers' sermons and the lyrics to country songs in quick symbols. She got an apprenticeship in high school at a law office, and during her 20s, an older court reporter became a mentor to her.
They typed up cases together and after she became proficient, she took on some of his cases. She went into business for herself, and for the next 38 years, she transcribed legal matters, criminal and civil, preserving the record of lawyers, witnesses and judges.
Early on in her career, she met a gentleman who was a witness to a lawsuit over a land dispute in a case she was transcribing. She liked that he was a college man, and they connected in having a background in farming growing up and as Southern Baptists.
"We could speak the same language," she said.
The man, Lee Jones, asked her to go on a date, which blossomed into a romance. They went to fairs, fishing, The Peabody to eat, plays and the symphony. After about two years, they were married, Juanita continuing her work in the legal system and Lee working at his family's peach orchard. Their son, Henry Jones, came in 1970, and their daughter, Mary, in 1972.
After Henry graduated from the University of Tennessee - Knoxville with a degree in agribusiness, he worked in Nashville and Memphis and then returned to the orchard. He took over the operation about four years ago. Among the new additions since his return is a strawberry patch and a corn maze, including a haunted maze, plus pumpkins and tomatoes.
Henry and his wife, Dayna, have four children — Cooper, twins Ty and Jack, and Olivia — who are homeschooled and work the farm learning the family business.
Juanita and Lee's daughter, a classical musician who plays French horn, got a scholarship to the University of Southern California where she got married and has her family. She also grows heirloom tomatoes. "She's still a Southern girl," Lee said. The Jones Orchard today attracts customers to two locations in Millington, a market on U.S. 51 North and one on Singleton Parkway. The farm offers pick-your-own produce from April until September with acres of plums, nectarines, blackberries, strawberries, pears, blueberries, apples and pumpkins. At least 25 varieties of peaches are grown on 110 acres, including Elberta, Contender, Redhaven, Indian and Georgia Belle peaches.
Their products are also sold at the Agricenter market, the Downtown Memphis farmer's market and others. In addition to canned peaches and peach preserves, they offer peach salsa, flaming hot salsa, homemade sauerkraut and a chow chow relish made from green tomatoes, peppers, onions and a special syrup from a family recipe shared by an employee, June Edwards, from Ripley, Tennessee.
"I'm kind of enchanted with the peach orchard being just south of Millington," customer Ben Beaird said. "Normally they're way out in the country."
Beaird said he values "the absolute integrity of the place."
"If you buy a watermelon, you know it's going to be a good one," he said. "Buy a peach, you know it's going to be a good one. You can count on them. That's their reputation."
On a drive around the expansive farm, Juanita sat behind the wheel of a white Honda Accord and Lee in back.
They point out apples, okra, peaches and the wild elderberries, which Juanita forages, and the nearby Big Creek Baptist Church where Lee's mother was a pianist and organist.
The church's cemetery abuts the Joneses' orchard, which has grown to 10,000 trees. That's where Lee plans to be buried.
"He’s going to look out over the orchard and make sure it's done right," Juanita said.