Lucinda Newton Jones

Lucinda Newton Jones passed away peacefully early in the morning on May 22nd at Samaratin Evergreen Hospice House in Albany, Oregon. She was 76 years old. Cindy was the only child of Elizabeth (Howe) and James Holland Newton, Jr. Born in Boston and raised in Ipswich, Massachusetts, Cindy graduated from the Mary A. Burnham School in Northampton, MA in 1963 and matriculated at Boston University the following autumn. As an English major, her goal was to become a journalist like her father. Unfortunately, her father suffered a devastating stroke during her second year at BU and she was forced to withdraw from school. In 1965, Cindy enlisted in the US Air Force, completing basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio. It was there that she also met her future husband, Kenneth Raymond "Butch" Jones. She then completed medic training at Gunter AFB in Montgomery, Alabama. When Cindy got pregnant, she and her husband received honorable discharges from the USAF and moved back to Ipswich. Their marriage ended shortly thereafter. Cindy placed a premium on autonomy and chose to remain unmarried for the rest of her life. Faced with single motherhood, she re-matriculated at BU, this time in the school of nursing. Cindy managed to graduate with her BSN while commuting into Boston from Ipswich, raising her young son, and working as a candy-striper at Cable Hospital. After graduating, she worked in the neonatal and pediatric ICUs at a number of Boston-area hospitals, including the Boston Hospital for Women (later Brigham and Women's Hospital) and Boston City Hospital. She also worked for several years as a nurse manager in the maternity ward at Salem Hospital, but learned that her calling lay in direct patient care in a critical-care setting and moved back to the ICU. In 1986, she moved the Triangle area of North Carolina, where she worked in ICUs at the University of North Carolina, Durham County Hospital, and Duke University. While working at UNC, she pursued part-time graduate study in medical anthropology and pediatric health, and dedicated time to various local environmental and racial-justice causes. She retired from nursing in 2009, and moved to Corvallis, Oregon in 2015 to be closer to family. Cindy had an affinity for animals. She always shared her life with multiple cats and, after moving to North Carolina, became passionate about her Belgian Shepherds. Music, especially ancient and sacred music, was a central feature of her life and church choir was generally the center of gravity for her social life. She also possessed a lifelong love of ballet and modern dance and was devoted to public radio and television. In her later years, Cindy became member of The Society of the Companions of the Holy Cross. Cindy was a character who made friends wherever she went. She was a loyal and generous friend to a remarkable menagerie of personalities she met in her journeys. She is survived by her son Jamie, a professor at Stanford University, her daughter-in-law, Libra, and her grandchildren Calder and Milan.