Kristin Marie Stanton Jones, a beloved wife, mother, sibling, mentor, and friend died peacefully at home surrounded by her husband and children on November 26, 2022, following a battle with brain cancer that lasted more than two years. She was 61 years old.
Welcomed into a sizable Minnesota family as one of eight siblings, Kristin asserted early on a natural balance of her father's plainspokenness and her mother's outspokenness. As they moved from the Twin Cities to Columbus, Ohio, to Buffalo, New York, she developed and shared a deep fidelity to the ties of kinship that exist not just among family, but between friends and neighbors in every community she called home.
It was in Buffalo that Kristin earned her degree in community and urban planning and began a career in banking and housing finance. This is the work that brought her to New York City, where she embarked on a career that she loved - fostering the economic development of low- and moderate-income communities through home ownership. Kristin pioneered the affordable home mortgage program for heritage Chase Bank at its Community Development Corporation from 1989-1993. After Chase, she was called to be Director of Housing for Asian Americans for Equality, a civil rights and community development organization, where she led the effort to develop and to expand first-time homeownership opportunities for the Asian communities of New York City.
It was during that time that she first met Lewis P. Jones III, her future husband, who, at the time, was President of the JP MorganChase Community Development Corporation. It was their shared commitment to community development that first connected them. They were married in 2001. In the same year, Kristin also authored a handbook for financial institutions seeking to reach the immigrant market through mortgage financing for first-time home buyers. Published by the Fannie Mae Foundation and the Georgetown University Institute for the Study of International Migration, the report offered strategies and tools to expand homeownership and promote sustainable economic development for new Americans.
Kristin's passion for building sustaining community also found expression through the creation of the Congregation of Saint Saviour at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine. As a founding vestry member, she helped to establish a welcoming community parish within an imposing architectural edifice - a spiritual home for neighbors and pilgrims seeking togetherness in an active Christian life.
Kristin came to find purpose for her natural senses of determination, discipline, and love of dogs in the breeding of Rhodesian Ridgebacks. Originally bred in Southern Africa to track and bay lions, these intelligent, playful, family-friendly hounds require a firm but loving hand from puppyhood on. Kristin's enterprise, Sugar Hill Ridgebacks, produced not only a string of confirmed champions but also numerous well-matched pets, who became beloved members of many families.
The truest expression of Kristin's love and spirit was the family she made with her husband, Lewis, and their two children, Ella Louise (2002) and Micah Stanton Jones (2008). She gave herself fully to raising young people equipped to encounter a complicated world with integrity, curiosity, and compassion - not to mention an appreciation for musicals and romantic comedies, both on screen and in live theaters. And although Kristin was blessed as a member of a large family, her heart was not clannish. Her devotion to her people extended well beyond ties of blood or marriage, and her maternal generosity was felt by many children beside her own.
Kristin Jones was the adored wife and constant partner of Lewis Jones throughout their 21 years of marriage, the devoted mother of Ella and Micah Jones, the cherished daughter of James Stanton (deceased) and Geralda Stanton, the dearest sister of Paula Bokros, Leah Harvey, Nora Gibson, Mark Stanton, Peter Stanton, Jacob Stanton, and Anthony Stanton, and the ever-supportive aunt of twenty five nieces and nephews and fifteen great nieces & nephews.
A remembrance and rejoicing of Kristin's life will be held on Saturday, January 14, 2023, at 2:00 p.m. in the St. James Chapel of the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York City.
The family welcomes donations in Kristin's memory to the Mt. Sinai Lillian and Benjamin Hertzberg Palliative Care Institute, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, the Center for Neuro-Oncology, or WNYC-New York Public Radio as an expression of fellowship in her deep commitment to supporting palliative care for glioblastoma patients and research to find a cure for glioblastoma and to helping to preserve democracy through an independent press.
Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.walterbcooke.net for the Jones family.
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