Howard Graeme Jones

Howard Graeme Jones was born on 21-June-1950 to William Henry Jones and Olwyne Jones (nee Smith). Both Dad and Mum were both from the United Kingdom (UK) and they met and married after very different WW II experiences. Dad was in the Royal Engineers and spent most of his time in Burma and India building infrastructure and runways to support “over the hump” flights to China. Dad lived in requisitioned tea plantation housing and never saw any Japanese troops. Mum lived in London that was subject to nightly Luftwaffe bombing. She was a secretary, not privy to any secrets, at the Royal Armaments Research and Development Establishment (RARDE) where new weapons were developed. He has a younger brother Barry Mark Jones.

In 1950 Howard’s Dad worked for Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC) at a desert pumping station; therefore, Mum was flown to a hospital in Tripoli, Lebanon to give birth. His first flight at two weeks old was in a twin-engine DeHavilland Rapide wood and fabric biplane. This probably explains his lifelong love of planes and flying in general; however, he doesn’t remember that flight. He does remember growing up in Basra Iraq from around five years old, where he had a privileged life including a cook Ibrahim and housekeeper (Ibrahim’s daughter) Miriam. He attended an IPC affiliated elementary school at that time. The family flew back to England every year at a time when only the rich and famous could afford to fly. Back then the multi-stop Basra-Kirkuk-Beirut-Rome-London flight took 24-hours, including a hotel and shopping break in Beirut before a night flight to Rome. Today’s non-stop flight would be around 5-hours. KLM had a contract with IPC and he remembers flying in the piston engine DC-6, DC-7C and Constellation and the turboprop Electra. This all came to an end in 1958 when General Kaseem (founder of the Baarth party) assassinated King Faisal and all but Dad returned to the UK. Dad continued working in Iraq until 1961 to get a pension.

Howard spent his formative years at Heather Cottage, which his Dad bought in 1952 and Barry still lives there today. He had a very pleasant life in the UK and continued to visit his family and school friends he had known for over 50-years. He was educated at Rye Collegiate School (middle), Rye Grammar School (senior) and The City University (TCU), London, where he obtained a BS in Civil Engineering. He also was an exchange student at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester MA for six months in 1972. He ended up pursuing engineering, despite his love of planes, as at that time the UK aviation industry was not in good shape; however, he knew that there would always be civil construction.

Howard had been employed by North Thames Gas Board on a sandwich (co-op) course while at TCU and graduated in 1973. He then went into the North Sea oil and gas construction work with Brown & Root and eventually moved to the USA in 1978. There he met and married Mary Jane Tautenhahn (16-October 1982) and had twin sons Matthew Paul Jones and Mark William Jones. He spent his entire working career in that field, working for several construction and engineering companies and for multiple clients. He was based in several countries in all parts of the world, including France, Norway, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, the Netherlands, the UK and finally the USA. He also worked on multiple projects in countries including Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Nigeria, Thailand and West Africa. These work trips allowed him to fly around 2 million miles on commercial flights. He really liked his work as there were several ground-breaking projects. His finest achievement was probably being Senior Client Representative on the TotalFinaElf “Canyon Express” when J-lay vessel SaiBos FDS broke the world record depth for a pipeline in 2002 at 7,205-ft water depth.

Finally, in retirement Mary Jane urged Howard to find a calling so he joined The Commemorative Air Force (CAF), an organization dedicated to preserving and flying WW II planes. He has flown in an AT-6, B-17, BT-13 and N3N Biplane from WWII. He volunteered at CAF Houston Wing open houses (1st & 3rd Saturdays of each month) and at Warbird Weekend and Wings over Houston fundraiser events.

Howard always loved travel including our 1-year “honeymoon” working in Saudi Arabia. He also had his family living with him, while the children were very young, on projects in Argentina, Canada and Taiwan. He also took his family, while the children were still at home, numerous times to the UK to see his UK family with occasional side-trips to Paris. After the children left home Mary Jane and he took his children, and future daughters-in-law, several times to the UK to see his UK family with occasional trips to France and Italy. Unfortunately he didn’t live long enough to take his grandsons to London and Paris, including rides on double-decker buses in London and the Eurostar high speed train to Paris.

In addition, despite Mary Jane’s protestations that it was “cruel and unusual punishment’ they took road trips to places such as California, Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Minnesota and New Mexico to visit Mary’s Jane relatives and family friends. These trips were up to 3-weeks and 6,000 miles but they did get to see many national parks and spectacular scenery, including driving the entire length of The Pacific Coast Highway.

Howard & Mary Jane also went on many international trips together including Austria, Croatia, France, Germany, Italy, Panama, Romania, Singapore and Slovenia. Some of the more memorable places we visited were Kitzbühel and Vienna in Austria, Dubrovnik and Plitvice Lakes National Park in Croatia, Bamberg and Schloss Neuschwanstein (Mad King Ludwig’s Castle) in Germany, “Dracula’s Castle” in Bran and the Royal Places in Siniai in Romania and Lake Bled and Ljubljana in Slovenia.

Howard was a modern man and always treated women as equals. He would often be the only teacher spouse that helped at school after he finished work, whether in setting up the room at the start of the school year, storing items at the end of the school year or many other activities during the school year. He also supported Mary Jane when she was involved in her favorite activities of dance or theater. Mary Jane and he both enjoyed eating out at restaurants, watching movies, walking in parks and enjoying nature and wildlife (including their cats).

Howard is survived by his wife Mary Jane, son Matthew, his wife Cortney (nee Russel) and grandsons Hayes and Kyle, son Mark and grandson Rowan. In addition, he is survived in the UK by his brother Barry, an aunt and several cousins.

Memorial donations can be made to the CAF, Nature Conservancy, The World Wildlife Fund or similar groups.