And finally.

By Lyn Riddle  

DECEMBER 18, 2009 10:04 a.m. (0)

Judy Jones is used to doing for others.

She raised five children as a single mother.

She brought a newborn granddaughter home from the hospital and reared her as her own, making sacrifices to pay for the piano lessons that will form the basis of her education at Lander University.

She provides nursing care for two homebound people and cooks their dinners before she leaves for the day.

So it wasn’t the easiest thing in the world for her to watch while others did for her.

Especially because of what they were doing: Building her a house, the first house she has owned.

“I had to learn to let go and allow people to do for me,” said Jones, 64. She and her husband James, 68, will move into the house in West Greenville sometime before Thanksgiving.

It is a Habitat for Humanity house, built through the financial resources of Trivent Financial for Lutherans and by the labor of members of the nine Lutheran churches in Greenville County.

At a dedication ceremony last weekend several church folk joked about how hard it was to get that many churches to agree on anything. Jones, a member of Flat Rock Baptist Church, got some schooling on Lutherans, too, when she attended every one of the churches in the weeks the house was under construction.

Also helping to complete the house were donations of custom cabinets and light fixtures. Two landscaping companies donated plants and sod. The city of Greenville donated the land.

Jones said she always yearned to own a home. She was brought up in Piedmont and on Haynie Street near downtown Greenville. She went to the segregated Sullivan School and Sterling High and Bryson High. She attended a year at Greenville Tech, got married and then children started coming. She divorced early in the marriage and raised her kids in Belle Meade and Lakeshore Apartments before moving back to Piedmont.

She was caring for a patient at Scott Towers when she ran into an old friend, James Jones. She had known him on Haynie Street when she was 12. Her family didn’t want her around him because he was 16. She wasn’t interested in boys then anyway. She was more interested in playing with dolls.

Her message to him when she ran into him again six years ago at Scott Towers: “hello and goodbye.”

She wasn’t looking for a boyfriend. She was almost 60. She had great-grandchildren.

He had never married.

“He didn’t accept goodbye,” she said, smiling.

Five years ago – 47 years after they met on Haynie Street – they married and moved into Tara Hill Apartments on Lowndes Hill Road.

The dream of homeownership remained. They knew their ages and income made the dream nearly impossible. But then a friend who lived in a Habitat House told Jones about the program. Her long-time pastor helped build a Habitat house.

She and her husband took the chance and groundbreaking took place Aug. 29. There were 84 volunteers working there that day.

“It was amazing,” said Linda Stazer, the volunteer house leader. “It’s become the old fashioned barn raising.”

The Joneses were on-site half of the workdays and also volunteered at Loaves and Fishes, picking up products from grocery stores and taking them to Triune Mercy Center and the Salvation Army. It was part of what Habitat calls the “sweat equity” required of all homeowners.

The Jones’ khaki-colored house on Endel Street is the 16th built in the neighborhood. It has heart pine floors and oak cabinets. A front porch looks out on the neighborhood, and the backyard sidles up to a railroad track that offers the soothing sounds of locomotives coming through.

On the day of the dedication, children played in the yard and a hundred or more people of all backgrounds stood around talking. Laughter reigned.

Habitat executive director Monroe Free talked about the house giving “life a fresh and new and solid foundation.” Each room was blessed. Dr. W.B. McMahand, Judy Jones’ longtime pastor, offered the benediction.

And then everyone joined hands, formed a circle all the way around the outside of the house and prayed for Judy and for James and for the lives they will live in their own home.

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