Through The Leaves A profile on Sheila Jones
By Bradley Williams
Sheila Jones is the woman in the weeds. Mrs. Jones is a woman of many hobbies and talents but one of her more unique talents is her mysterious green thumb. No matter the condition of a plant Mrs. Jones can make it healthy and beautiful. The garden housed in Mrs. Jones’s backyard is the most extensive privately owned garden I have ever had the pleasure of seeing. Once you walk out the back door or through the gate on the left of the house you are in awe. All around you are fruit trees and rows of planters filled with everything from watermelon to strawberries with dashes of shrubs shaped in various forms. The garden grows different food and flowers year round because of the Bay
Area’s unique climate. Mrs. Jones showed me a lemon tree in the back of the garden that she was collecting from because it’s first batch of lemons were ready and she needed to remove them because in a few months the next season’s batch would be ready. She explained that particular breed of lemon tree grows four uniquelemonsthroughout the year, a different kind of lemon for each of the seasons. She offered me one of the fresh lemons and asked me how it tasted. The lemon tasted sweet, for a lemon, and she explained that the summer lemons were always sweeter than the other seasons. Mrs. Jones showed me various plants and flowers and new more information on
them then I could even imagine existed. When we arrived at her orange tree she said this will be the next to be harvested. She disappeared into the leaves and then came out from behind the massive tree with an orange and gave it to me. Regretfully I admit I didn’t eat it because I wasn’t hungry and I took it with me but forgot it in my car so the sun had ruined it by the time I remembered it. We walked over to her watermelon planter, which looked too small for watermelons but she made it work, and she recalled the story of her and her son planting them. There is a matching watermelon planter at Greg’s, Mrs. Jones’s son, house, she noted. At this point I was captivated with Mrs. Jones’s garden and wondered how she became who she is today. I wondered how Mrs. Jones had a garden so extravagant even though we’ve been in a drought. I asked why everything was so green and alive in her
ground and evaporate. The secret to Mrs.
garden but a lot of gardens are greying and dying off. She told me it was that she gave her plants love jokingly, you could tell she really did love her garden. Then she smiled and lifted a low lying branch and showed me a pipe system she pad built. The pipes ran under the whole garden and came up in various places where it had drippers. I looked up how the drippers watered the plants. The drippers water the plants by a drop at a time so the ground won’t get wet enough where the water will sit on top of the
Jones’s success was such a simple explanation that I was shocked by it. From the moment Mrs. Jones opened the door the first time I could tell she is a character who need to be shared with the world. When I first met Mrs. Jones I had no idea what to expect, but when the door opened, she was standing there smiling and reminded me of what you think of when you imagine a grandmother. Mrs. Jones was welcoming and
kind and had a smile that wouldcomfortanyonewho catches a glance of it. I introduced myself and she invited me into her house. Once we exchanged our pleasantries she guided me into the kitchen and offered me some fresh picked and peeled oranges that she had grown. At first I declined but after a while of talking to Mrs. Jones I had a taste of one and it was incredible, it was sweet and juicy. I’ve never met a woman so welcoming, Mrs. Jones, who prepared a snack for a person she had never meet and didn’t know anything about besides my name. She made me feel like I had known her for years in a matter of seconds. After we had our snack we went out back to the garden where she worked with her plants as we talked. Without even looking up from the strawberry roots she was pulling up, she started to talk about who she was and what she does, how she got to where she is now.
before going to college. She started from the She originally went into beginning with where and college not knowing what how she grew up. She she wanted to do but one day she needed contacts was born and raised in Los Angeles, California for her vision so she went which is where she lived to get her eyes checked by an optometrist. She her whole life until she met her husband. Mrs. started to ask the optometrist questions about Jones was raised by a single mother who worked eyes and how they. Fascinated by the knowledge hard to give Mrs. Jones a good childhood. Mrs. she received about eyes from the optometrist, she Jones attended a small private school in Orange switched her major to study optometry. county in Los Angeles
Mrs. Jones has travelled all over the world, on one of her trips to Turkey she went east and saw a city made in the times of the ancient turks and she recalled how beautiful the stones were. She then showed me a picture she took of a door on the building it was an old
wooden door with various carvings in it that told a story.She told me how she has journeyed down to South America and Asia and been to almost every country in Europe. Everywhere she went she took pictures and so everytime she told me about a new place she would show me pictures from there so I could see what she saw. They were all shot with precision each one showing exactly what she described just how she described it. I asked her where she hasn’t been that she would like to go and she took a moment to think and replied, “I would like to go to Brazil, mainly Rio de Janeiro but also to the jungle. When I asked what her favorite moment was she told me it was her son’s wedding a few months ago and how she played the trumpet with her son at it. Nate Donovan, a close friend and photography teacher to Mrs. Jones, told the same story when asked what his most memorable
moment of Mrs. Jones was. She told me about her first trip on which she shot photos. It was to an observatory in west California. The photos she took were different they all were capturing things you normally didn’t think of taking pictures of like various gears and stairs. She told me about how they let her look into the telescope out into space. She ended the story and made a joke: “I guess it makes sense that they let me look into space because I’m a bit out there.” She was very funny and would always crack jokes that were thought through thoroughly. If Mrs. Jones could change one thing in her life she wouldn’t change anything. Mrs. Jones said, “I wouldn’t go back to change anything because I love where I am and everything in my past is what makes me me.” She grew up going to a good school, in a nice area, and then went to college and got an edu-
cation and job in the field she wanted. She married to the man she loves and has been with for more years than most people can imagine possible. Her two kids were very involved in school and made great grades. Her daughter got sick just after college and died but there would have been nothing she could do to change that. She quickly changed the focus to her son, I knew that was a
“ I’m not an artist so I’m a copy artist I guess you’d call it then because I can’t originate art. ” -Sheila Jones
tough subject so I didn’t push anymore, and how he went to college and got an education and a job. He’s now is married to a woman who Mrs. Jones likes because she make her son happy. Mrs. Jones moved on to how she loved what she did all the way up till
she retired. Now she has all day to do whatever she wants so she goes around and takes pictures of anything that interest her. She studies something new everyday and practices the things she knows to improve her skill with whatever it may be that day. She reads a lot when she showed me her office and the den there were bookcases everywherefilledtothemaximum capacity of books that ranged from love stories to mysteries to fantasy and even to sci fi. She gardens every day as well to keep everything healthy and green. Most the food she eats she grows, besides meat for obvious reasons such as she live in a house with very little room for livestock. On my first encounter meeting Mrs. Jones she told me how she didn’t like to cook. Looking back if I had to describe Mrs. Jones I would say she reminds me of a grandmother kind gentle welcomingwithoneexception, that she hated cooking.