Tyree P. Jones Sr.

retired funeral director, Brown’s Funeral Home, Plainfield, New Jersey, died December 4, 2020, at age 92. Jones, a U.S. Army veteran of the Korean War, graduated from Knoxville College in Tennessee with a bachelor’s degree and was a member of the Beta Phi Chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity. Following college, he moved to Brooklyn, where he was employed by the New York City Transit Authority.

Both his late mother-in-law, Adele M. Brown, and his late wife, Louise, were funeral directors in Plainfield. In 1955, Jones resigned from the Transit Authority and enrolled in American Academy of Funeral Service, graduating in 1956. Although he worked at Brown’s Funeral Home, he was employed as a graduate assistant for the Congress of Graduate Management Education at Columbia University. It was here that he visited historically black colleges and universities to interest students in getting their MBA degrees. Other employment included the NYC Civil Service Commission and Perry Funeral Home in Newark, New Jersey, where he served for 25 years, retiring in 2000. Returning to work at Brown’s Funeral Home, Jones had been the manager there since his wife died in 1982.

Other memberships include: life member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity and Plainfield Alumni Chapter, Stone Square Lodge #38 F.&A.M. Prince Hall Affiliate, American Legion Johnson Jeter Post 219, the Garden State Funeral Directors Association, the National Funeral Directors & Morticians Association, NFDA, the New Jersey State Funeral Directors Association, and the Essex, Union and West Hudson funeral directors associations.

He is survived by son Tyree Jr., daughter Diane, six grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.