Lois Jones

Lois K. Jones, of Centennial, Colorado, died on Thursday, July 16, 2020 at the age of 76. Lois lived an adventurous life, travelling the world with her beloved husband John, who died in 2013, along with her son Sean, and daughter Kristin, who survive her. She parlayed a love of reading and books into a career as a university librarian, first at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and later at the University of Denver. She retired from DU as head of the cataloging department and assistant professor in 2005.

Lois Key McCleskey was born in Mount Vernon, New York in 1943, to Roy McCleskey and Sylvia Garofano McCleskey. The McCleskeys had five daughters and one son; Lois was their fourth child. Five years after her birth, the family moved to Coral Gables, Florida. Her childhood friends and siblings remember her as a kind, well-mannered girl with beautiful red hair, and a gifted pianist with special mastery of Mozart’s Rondo Alla Turca.

After graduating from Immaculata High School in 1961, Lois received her bachelor’s degree in English from Barry College (now Barry University), the alma mater of all five McCleskey daughters, in 1965.

After university, she joined her sister Kathie in Germany to work for the U.S. Army Special Services for three years. She and Kathie then moved to Washington D.C., where Lois would fall in love with her husband-to-be, John Finbarr Jones.

John and Lois married at the chapel at Georgetown University in Washington D.C. on August 3, 1974. Their son Sean was born in Duluth, Minnesota, in 1976. Shortly thereafter, John was offered a job in the department of social work at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Their daughter Kristin was born in Hong Kong in 1978. Lois started working at the university library, where she discovered a gift for library administration that led her to earn a master’s degree in library science at Case Western University in Cleveland, in 1983.

The Joneses moved to the Denver area in 1987, where John taught at the University of Denver’s Graduate School of Social Work and Lois accepted a position in the cataloging department at Penrose Library. An inveterate organizer, Lois was promoted to head of cataloging at DU, where she worked until her retirement. She was active in her field well after her retirement, volunteering at the Book Stack, a used bookstore at DU, and helping lead the University Library Association.

In addition to her children Sean and Kristin Jones, Lois is missed for her grace, elegance, and empathy by her loving sisters Ethelmary Maddox, Natalie Crawford, Judith Stenta, Kathie McCleskey, and brother Robert McCleskey, as well by her adoring grandchildren Niko and Rohan, and son-in-law Nicholas Troiano.

A memorial service will take place once all her friends and family can safely travel to celebrate her life together. Donations in her name may be made to the University Library Association .