I’m Robert Jones.

I live in Le Claire, Iowa.

I retired from government service in 1995.

I’m married and have three grown children.

I spend almost all of my time with my beautiful wife.

If you see one of us you usually see the other not far away.

I think that I have had a very interesting life.  I was raised in construction camps on the West Coast.  Because of this we usually lived on the edge of town or in one case so far from town that we were miles to the nearest telephone.  That was at Cougar, Washington.  As a result, I grew up enjoying the outdoors and anything associated with it.  That is almost anything, I never actually liked snakes.  Still don’t.

Through life, if I found something interesting, I tried it.  I have raised a number of small animals, pets and even had 65 colonies of bees at one time.  That was very interesting but the most interesting of all was the parakeets.  I had 300 breeding cages and supplied a number of pet stores in the area.  The genetics of parakeets really kept my attention.  

I built our house from lumber with very little help.  My wife and I were very good woodworkers.  We created a number of our own scroll saw designs and went to craft shows for years.

I’ve rode (and worked on) motorcycles for years but haven’t had one for a long time.  My first motorcycle was a 1947 Indian Chief.  Boy don’t I wish I had that now.  I have metal detected, hunted for geocaches, tried panning gold and just about anything that came to mind.

My big love, in activities, is my computer.  I have been using computers since my TRS-80 Model 1 which I bought about 1977 or 78.

Genealogy is another main interest of mine.  Very close to genealogy is the subject of cemetery records and photographing head and foot stone (which are often called tomb stones) and monuments. I just started that this year (2007) because I know that there are many people that are deeply into genealogy and for one reason or another can’t make it to this area to get information on their ancestors.  This is just my way of assisting them in their efforts.  At this time I have indexed seven small to medium sized cemeteries.  I hope to get back out next year and do a few more.  So far I have taken over 6500 photos of head / foot stones and monuments.  That’s a lot of cleaning and photographing.  My lovely wife assisted me by cleaning most of them.  It was really hard on her shoulders and back but she didn’t give up.  I think next year I’ll have to find a way to make it a lot easier on both of us.

That should be enough about me.  You are probably bored to death by now.  Just let me say that I will do my best to make this site interesting.  If you would like more information on something that I have posted here, feel free to contact me.  You can do so either by email or in the “Guest Book”.

Thanks for stopping in and putting up with my rambling.

You have a Great Day.
 

Bob Jones