Rosa Lee Jones Jay, 89, of Fitzgerald, Georgia died Saturday, March 5, 2011, at her residence surrounded by her family.
Funeral services will be held at 4:00 P.M. Monday, March 7, 2011, at Central United Methodist Church with The Rev. Hallock Martin and The Rev. Keith Goodlett officiating. Cam Jordan will deliver the eulogy. Interment will follow in Evergreen Cemetery. Visitation, an evening prayer service, will be held Sunday afternoon at 4 PM at St. Matthew's Episcopal Church.
Mrs. Jay was born April 28, 1921 in Barnesville, Georgia to the late Malcolm Dupont Jones, Jr. and Marian Elder Jones. She attended Wesleyan College and Mercer University and received a Bachelor’s Degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. During World War II, she was employed at a munitions factory in Macon and also worked for the Southern Regional Council, one of the first civil rights organizations in the south. Living in Fitzgerald since 1944 where she was a member of St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church, she was the former owner/operator of House of Yesteryear and a former columnist with The Fitzgerald Herald, The Fitzgerald Leader and The Herald-Leader. She was published in Ladies Home Journal.
She is survived by her husband of 67 years, Philip Clayton Jay, Jr. of Fitzgerald; son, Philip Clayton Jay, III of Fitzgerald; daughters, Susan Jay of Los Angeles, CA and Lydia J. (Hallock) Martin of West Palm Beach, Florida; 6 grandchildren and 8 great-grandchildren. Along with her parents, she was preceded in death by a grandson, a great granddaughter and a son-in-law.