Nancy Jones-Shelton

Brought forth in love and praise, Nancy Burch Jones-Shelton, the first child of the late Mrs.Fannie Gaddy Burch and the late Mr. Bayron Burch, was born on Friday December 13, 1935, in Ruby, South Carolina. Her big sister, the late Johnsie B. Burnett, mentored her.
The family moved to North Carolina where she attended the Long Pine Elementary School and graduated with honors from the West Deep Creek High School in Wadesboro, North Carolina.She attended Shaw University in Raleigh, NC where she pledged Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Incorporated. Her line crossed over in the summer of 1955. As a student at Shaw University,she majored in Home Economics with a focus on sewing and design. While in high school, she designed many of her own patterns and sewed for herself and her younger sisters.

Growing up in North Carolina, she joined the Long Pine Baptist Church where she was baptized. She attended Sunday school and became the Sunday school secretary. She joined the usher board and assisted with praise and worship.

When she began her migration from North Carolina, her first stop was Virginia with her sister,Johnsie, babysitting her boys. She then moved to Princeton, New Jersey where she developeda close bond with her cousin the late Lina Broadway Boone and brother, John O. Broadway,whom she loved.
When her sister, Doretha spent her first summer in New Jersey, Nancy gave her the domestic engineering job where she worked until she moved to New York with her Aunt Beluah. While in New York, she met her future husband on a blind date, the late Howard Arnold Jones. From this union two children were born, Valerie Elizabeth Jones (Waters) and Howard Arnold Jones Jr. They loved to travel by trailer all over the country. Nancy and her husband also traveled with his motorcycle club on the open highways throughout the United States.
Nancy held jobs in Croton, Briarcliff Manor, and Ossining, NY. Her favorite job was working inthe Ossining Public Library, from which she retired, before relocating to Pennsylvania after the death of her husband. She promised him she would move closer to her sisters, Doretha and Barnia. She later met and married the late William G. Shelton, aka "Bill."
Thinking back over Nancy's life, we see her enjoying her hobbies of sewing, reading, and jewelry making, and gifting it to family and friends. She enjoyed catering, baking coconutcakes and fruitcakes for others, and quilting and giving quilts to all babies born into the family and to those newly married.
She loved attending her church Star of Bethlehem in Ossining, NY Tabernacle Baptist Church in Coatesville, PA, and her present church, St. Paul's Baptist Church in West Chester, PA where she enjoyed listening to Reverend Dr. Wayne E. Croft "bring life to the word". She found a place of joy at St. Paul's in the quilting ministry, library ministry, Sunday school, Yada Yada book ministry, greeters' ministry and women's fellowship.
She enjoyed being a member of the "Foxy after Fifty" Red Hat Chapter of Chester County PA, Dorcas #70 OES and the Motorcycle Cheetah Wives Club of Westchester County New York.
Nancy enrolled in and received a diploma from Stanford Career Institute in Cooking and Catering. She also took classes in jewelry making at Jo Anne's Fabric in Downingtown, PA.
She leaves to celebrate her memory two adult children, Valerie E. Jones Waters of Downingtown and Howard A. Jones Jr. of New York; eight grandchildren Tyronza' T. Beniot (Frantz), Prince Malachi A. Grant (Tiffany), Julian A. Robinson, Anthony Jones, Arnold Jones, DeWayne Jones, Shana Jones and Brian Jones, seven great grandchildren, Kriss Benoit, Lance Benoit, Shamar Benoit, Emir Jones, Elijah Jones, Hayden Jones, but "the apple of her eye" was the latest edition, seven-month of Dylan Mateo Benoit. He made his "GG" so happy. She often said, "I just love him so much."

She also leaves to cherish her memory, four sisters, Doretha B Tucker, of Downingtown, PA, Eulah B. Sharrock (Starkie) of Peekskill, NY, Barnia B. Young (Sidney) of Downingtown, PA, and Irma B Tillman (Bobby) of High Point, NC.

In addition to her parents, her sisters, Johnsie Burnett (Zaron), Alice B. Powell (Franklin) and brother, Henry Thomas Burch who only lived for three months, preceded her in death.

We have that blessed assurance that Nancy is rejoicing with Jesus.