Bob Jones Sr.

==Early years==
Bob Davis Reynolds Jones<ref>The story that Jones was also named "Davis" for Confederate president Jefferson Davis is presented at length in Johnson, 7-10, and is repeated in Kurt W. Peterson, “Jones, Bob,” ''American National Biography'', 12: 180-82. It is more likely that Jones was named for a former neighbor, the blind doctor who delivered him, Robert Davis Reynolds.  In any case, the "Davis" was never used on any official document.  On Robert Davis Reynolds, see Henry Schuman, “A Dream Come True: The Lawrence Reynolds Collection,” ''Bulletin of the Medical Library Association'', 47 (July 1959), 238.</ref> was the eleventh of twelve children born to William Alexander and Georgia Creel Jones. In 1883, when Bob was born, Alex Jones, a Confederate veteran, was working a small farm in [[Dale County, Alabama|Dale County]], [[Alabama]], but within months the family moved to Brannon Stand west of [[Dothan, Alabama|Dothan]]. All the unmarried Jones children helped work the farm there, and Bob Jones often sold the family vegetables door-to-door in Dothan. Jones later recalled, "We may have been a little undernourished, but we built some character."<ref>Turner, ''Standing Without Apology'', 3</ref>

Jones's elementary schooling was limited by modern standards, but the boy early exhibited a quick mind and oratorical ability. Alex Jones had Bob memorize passages from the [[Bible]] and from literature, and Bob, who was "timid and self-conscious," was regularly called on to perform for guests. Jones later recalled, "I did whatever my father said to do, but when he told me to 'say the speech,' I suffered agony that nobody could possibly know."<ref>Turner, 6</ref>

Jones must have quickly overcome his stage fright, however, for by 1895, as a twelve-year-old, he gave a spirited, twenty-minute defense of the [[Populist Party (United States)|Populist Party]] while standing on a dry-goods box in front of a Dothan drug store. His gifts were recognized by Dr. Charles Jefferson Hammitt (1858–1935), a Methodist missionary from Philadelphia and former president of Mallalieu Seminary (1882–1923), a Methodist secondary school in [[Kinsey, Alabama|Kinsey]]. Jones boarded with the Hammitts and helped pay his board by serving the household, even taking orders from the Hammitt children. Jones graduated from Mallalieu in 1900, and the following year he entered Southern College (later [[Birmingham-Southern College]]) at [[Greensboro, Alabama]], supporting himself with his preaching. He attended until 1904 but by then was already so prominent as an evangelist that he left without taking a degree, in part to help support two widowed sisters.<ref>Turner, 6-8; Mallalieu Seminary catalog, 1897-98.</ref>

By the time Jones was 17, both his father and mother were dead. In 1905, Jones married Bernice Sheffield, who contracted tuberculosis and died within ten months of their marriage. On June 17, 1908, he married Mary Gaston Stollenwerck, whom he had met as a choir member during a meeting he was conducting in [[Uniontown, Alabama]]. Their only child, [[Bob Jones Jr.]], was born October 19, 1911, in [[Montgomery, Alabama|Montgomery]], where they made their home. Mary Gaston Jones died on May 12, 1989, in her 101st year—83 years after the death of her husband's first wife.