Dr. William R. Jones Endowed Chair in Companion Animal Medicine/Surgery

Join us in supporting this endowed chair position.

William Robert Jones was born in Seattle on May 27, 191 I to Hattie and Robert C. Jones. He received his BS and DVM degrees in 1935, having spent summers and one whole year working at Dr. Emer's clinic. Dr. Emer was co-developer of the Kirschner-Emer splint.

Following graduation, he worked for the U. S. Department of Agriculture testing cattle for Bangs disease out of Lincoln County, Oregon. In 1941 he went to Washington, D.C. where he worked on anthelmintics at Beltsville, Maryland.

With the war on, he joined the army and was stationed in Oakland, California. He checked the fishery packs up and down the coast and inspected foods for the services in the Pacific. He repeatedly requested overseas service, and was eventually, in 1946, sent to Trinidad, West Indies. Once released from military duties, he built a small animal hospital in the suburbs of Port of Spain, Trinidad. He married in 1948.

Professionally he was primarily interested in good medical practice first, and in being a good representative of the USA. Conditions improved during the 35 years of his practice--in the early days of sulfa therapy life was hard; the arrival of antibiotics was a boon, as were the new vaccines. In the early days, his was the only veterinary clinic on the island so medicines were hard to come by and mostly he used human drugs. He took vacations attending veterinary conventions and stocking up on new techniques and medications. He was particularly frustrated at being unable really to cure demodectic mange.

He was a gregarious man, a golfer, and a great teller of stories. He was delighted to be accepted as an associate member of the American Animal Hospital Association, and generally attended their conventions.

He could not bring himself to retire until 72 years of age. Then he moved to Sarasota, Florida, where he lived until his death in 1988.