George Jones, who helped found Chicago's first Black-owned bank, dies

Jet, Nov 15, 2004

George Jones, 90, Chicago businessman, community activist and one of the founders of the city's first Black-owned bank, died recently of a stroke at Brentwood Health Care Center in Burbank, IL.

Jones was among 11 people who raised $1 million in 1965 to organize the Seaway National Bank, now the third-largest Black-owned bank in the country, the Chicago Tribune reported.

Jones, who retired from the bank as vice chairman in 1986, was born in Pelahatchie, MS. He lived in New Orleans until his family moved to Chicago in 1934, then served in the Army in Europe until 1945.

His business savvy took root after recovering from an illness at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. Jones opened a 20room boarding house for incoming Mayo patients, which he ran three years before he returned to Chicago. He operated a tavern, restaurant and later sold insurance while he earned his bachelor's degree in business administration at Roosevelt University.

Jones divorced his first wife, Gladys, in the early 1960s and later married Helen May Thornton, a widow and president of Joe Louis Milk Co. (formerly Lakeview Milk Co.), a major supplier of milk to Blacks in Chicago in the 1930s and '40s. Jones became vice president and general manager of the milk company. He and Helen then helped found Seaway in 1965.

During the 1960s Jones, chairman of the Chicago Conference on Religion and Race, was active in civil rights protests that led to the creation of Operation Breadbasket, the economic branch of Martin Luther King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He and wile Helen were key in the development of a car shipping company, T-R Auto Handlers Corp. After Helen's death in 1989, Jones married Paula Estrada in 1994. In addition to Paula, survivors include three nephews.