Oscar N. Jones

As printed in 1905

OSCAR N. JONES.

Success in any line of endeavor or in any field of activity is not a matter of sudden growth, but rather the result of the application of talents and energies along the avenues where lies the greatest potentiality. He who has the judgment and discretion to perceive his own powers, and to follow their bent through the various exigencies of time and place, is the one to whom success is apt to come as a natural sequence. In a very important sphere the subject of this review has proved his ability and usefulness, having for a number of years been superintendent of the Fox Paper Company, one of the leading industries of Butler county, and an establishment in which the people manifest an abiding interest and pride. Oscar N. Jones is. proud to claim Butler county as his native heath, having been born in Union township on July 9, 1865, the youngest in a family of eight children whose parents were James and Jane (Hall) Jones. His father was a farmer and it was amid the quiet scenes of rural life and under the wholesome influence of outdoor labor that the subject spent his early years, receiving during his childhood and youth the bent of mind which led him to plan for his future so as eventually to rise superior to his circumscribed environment and become a useful factor in the world of affairs and an honorable citizen. At the proper age he entered the public schools, where he prosecuted his studies about the usual length of time, following which he turned his attention to farm work, in the townships of Liberty and Fairfield, until his fifteenth year. In 1875 young Jones entered the employ of the Fox Paper Company, beginning in the modest capacity of a common laborer, but his faithfulness and efficiency were such as soon to commend him to the favorable notice of the management of the concern, the result being his gradual promotion to positions of greater responsibility and trust. It may truthfully be said that he has liter-; ally grown up with the plant, and it is not too much to state that much of the steady growth and development of the industry are directly attributable to his abiding interest, effective service and judicious management. After working in various capacities and fully demonstrating his ability and usefulness in each, Mr. Jones finally rose to the responsible position of foreman, which he filled to the satisfaction of his employer until 1890, when he was further honored by being promoted to the superintendency, which post he still holds, discharging the exacting duties of the same in the able and business-like manner for which he had long been characterized, in the meanwhile bringing the establishment to a high state of efficiency, greatly enlarging its capacity and extending the scope of its influence as one of the leading industries in this part of the state. Mr. Jones is highly regarded in business circles as a man of sound, practical intelligence, mature judgment and commendable enterprise. He has fine executive-ability, as the successful management of the large concern with which he is identified attests, enjoys the confidence of his employers and the esteem of the men under his control, while his series of promotions from an humble and subordinate beginning to the present influential position he occupies in business and industrial affairs shows him the possessor of the strong powers of mind, the tact, resourcefulness, and wise forethought which never fall short of the accomplishment of well-devised plans and purposes. Mr. Jones is essentially a self-made man and owes his present advancement to his own plans and energies rather than to fortuitous circumstances. He is also a man of action, knows how to take advantage of opportunities and bend them to his will, or, in their absence, possesses the ability to create them. While making every other consideration subordinate to his business interests, he finds time to attend to the duties of citizenship and to discharge his obligations to the public. He has ever had the welfare of the community at heart, gives his influence and support to all enterprises on progressive measures for the promotion of the same and encourages every laudable object whereby his fellow men may be benefited.

Mr. Jones has ever been a zealous and uncompromising Democrat, but in no sense a politician in the commonly accepted significance of the term, although an active worker for the success of the party. Aside from serving as township trustee, of which office he is the present incumbent, he has held no elective positions, never having entertained any ambition for public preferment, his chief aim being to fill efficiently his present station and to hold no other title than that of private citizen.

Fraternally he is identified with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, belonging to the lodge at Port LTnion. in which he has long been an active and influential worker and in which he has also twice passed the several chairs.

Miss Ollie B. Powell, who became the wife of Mr. Jones on November 5* was born at New Paris, Ohio, in August,

1868. Their pleasant and attractive home is brightened by the presence of four children, namely: Harry, Ruth, Raymond and Mildred, who with their parents constitute a happy domestic circle in which love, mutual forbearance and a reciprocity of interests have always predominated.

As printed in Centennial History of Butler County, Ohio (1905). See the original pages. Wording is the original; obvious scanning errors have been corrected, and a few may remain.