Lois Swan Jones

Educator shared love of art with students

Lois Swan Jones traveled the world - to Spain, Morocco and East Germany during the height of the Cold War - and captured more than 100,000 slides of famous artists' work.

She devoted her life, including 20 years as an art professor at the University of North Texas, to educating students with the wealth of information she obtained.

Dr. Jones died from heart and lung complications Monday at C.C. Young Retirement Community. She was 79.

Memorial services were Friday at Sparkman Hillcrest Funeral Home.

Dr. Jones graduated from Highland Park High School and received a bachelor's and two master's degrees in interior design and education from the University of Chicago in the 1940s. She earned her doctorate in education from the University of North Texas in the late '70s.

Over the span of her teaching career, she taught at The Hockaday School, Lamplighter School, UNT and the University of Texas at Arlington.

Dr. Jones' ardor for art began when her father, Hugo Swan , took her traveling overseas. He had developed a kindred passion while serving in World War I.

After attending the University of Chicago and graduating with a law degree from Columbia University, Mr. Swan moved from Iowa to Texas, where he bought and sold several pieces of property. He used his earnings to travel, said his grandson Preston Jones of Duncanville.

"My mother got to see the world because of my grandfather. They would drive a car to New York and then take a boat across to some part of Europe," Mr. Jones said. "Having a car, they went to remote parts of countries - places off the beaten path. They would take pictures wherever they went."

Mr. Jones and his brother, Jeffrey, started accompanying their mother on overseas adventures during their adolescence.

The family drove to Russia in 1964, covering more than 900 miles at the height of the Cold War. Mr. Jones said they got a glimpse of communism from the other side.

Influenced by their mother, Preston Jones became an artist and teaches art at Duncanville High School. His brother is a playwright and actor in New York.

In addition to her sons, Dr. Jones is survived by a sister, Phyllis Swan Dorsey of Cleveland; a brother, Hugo Swan of Victoria, Texas; and two granddaughters.

Dallas Morning News, The (TX), August 13, 2006, page 13B