In honor of its longtime leader’s upcoming retirement, the community around social services agency Wesley House gathered to grant him a special honor, one they had been keeping a secret for weeks.
Terry “Chip” Jones, the director of Wesley House for 31 years, was the only person attending the celebration on August 25 who did not know that it would end with the reveal of a new street sign outside Wesley House bearing his name.
The event was attended by community leaders, including 21st Ward Alderman John Collins Muhammad, president of the Board of Alderman Lewis E. Reed and St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson, as well as many of Jones’ friends, family members, classmates and fraternity brothers.
“Everyone has been lying to you, including your wife,” Muhammad said. “But that’s okay, it’s for a good reason.”
The Board of Aldermen unveiled their resolution honoring Jones’ work with Wesley House, which praised the organization’s work providing food to around 300 seniors a month and educational services to 10,000 middle and high school students over its history, among other social services projects. The organization, founded in 1903, is affiliated with United Way.
Reed said the resolution recognizing Jones’ work is the highest honor the Board of Aldermen can give to an individual.
“We commit your name to the permanent records of the City of St. Louis,” Reed said. “One hundred, two hundred years from now, when you research the records of the city of St. Louis, you will see amongst those records Terry ‘Chip’ Jones.”
The event then moved outside, where Wesley House revealed a new street sign outside of its headquarters, marking a section of Lee Avenue as Terry “Chip” Jones Way.
“Many of you are aware I’m a student of philosophy,” Jones said in his address to the crowd. “I like Chinese philosophy a whole lot. A cat named Confucius had a student named Mencius, and he said, ‘It is not important that the work you do be recognized,’ and for me, it hasn’t ever been important. But it is important that the work you do is worthy of recognition.”
Reed said Jones has impacted not just the neighborhood of the 21st Ward, but people all over St. Louis.
“Some of the biggest challenges we have in our city are positive role models that some of these young kids can look up to, so that they can say, ‘You know what, I can go on to do great things also,’” Reed said. “As an African-American male, it’s so important that we have an African-American man stepping up to work with our kids and create a positive influence all across this city.”
Mike Jones, Terry Jones’ brother and a member of The St. Louis American’s editorial board, was the first person to encourage him to get involved at Wesley House.
“I’ll say on behalf of Chip’s family that Chip is to our family what he is to the Wesley House family,” Mike Jones said. “He’s both the foundation and the anchor. He’s always been the mortar that held our individual bricks together.”
Mike Jones said he and his brother both learned their life philosophy from their father, who ran a barbershop. The brothers asked their father why he charged $1.25 for haircuts at a time when everyone else was charging $1.50. He replied that people who didn’t make much money also needed haircuts and he wanted to charge them only as much as he needed to make a living.
For the last 31 years at Wesley House, Mike Jones said, Terry Jones has put that lesson into action.
“Everybody has a hero,” Michael Jones said. “My brother has always been my hero.”
Jessica Karins is an editorial intern for the St. Louis American from Webster University.
