Love Perry Jones : 1907 - 1998

By STUART D. LUMAN

OAKLAND - Love Perry (L.P.) Jones, 91, lost his eyes and his arm in World War II, but spent the rest of his life giving to his West Oakland Community.

Jones died March 31 at the Embassy Club, which he found and ran for 50 years in West Oakland. Even at 91, Jones still worked at the club. He was serving drinks when he died of a heart attack, according to his cousin Henry Delton Williams.

"He was just an amazing man," Williams said. "He was one of the last veterans in the neighborhood."

He lost his eyes and his right arm in World War II, when the ship he served on was bombed by the Japanese. Floating in the South Pacific Ocean amid twisted metal, burning oil and the dead, Jones was saved by a rescue ship on its third trip through the debri. He was on of only 13 sailors who survived the attack and was at first thought dead until he groaned in pain, according to his 98-year old sister Clara Jones of Oakland.

Born in 1907 on a small farm in Natchiotches Parish in Louisiana, Jones grew up with his sister. Ms. Jones remembers her brother as a baby when she often took care of him and she remembers his nickname, "Lovey."

"As a boy growing up on the farm, he was always independent," she said of his early years growing up in the South. He left home at 15.

A memorial service for Jones was held at Hudson's Funeral Home. Services were open to the public and Lenny Williams of "Tower of Power" performed at the service. Burial was at Evergreen Cemetery in Oakland.

"I don't think anyone can take his place, everybody knew LP because he has been part of the neighborhood for 50 years," Betty Warner said, a close friend of the family. "Everyone loved him, that's all you can say."

The Embassy Club, spoken of in the same breath as Slim Jenkins and other big-time jazz clubs from the forties and fifties, is still one of the last establishments from the old West Oakland jazz scene on Seventh Street. The area at that time was known for its vibrant night life and jazz. The club is still located on 10th and Wood Streets and was part of what Williams called "the Broadway Stroll," which included Esther's Orbit Room, which is still open today.

Before the war, Jones worked in Freeport, LA in a glass factory. Like many other African-American men who came to Oakland during the war years, he came to work on the boat docks. He was a longshoreman before being drafted into the Navy during World War II and saw action in the South Pacific on the U.S.S. South Dakota before it was bombed.

Jones was a member of the Blind Veteran's Association for many years and traveled across the country attending their conventions. As a serviceman he received the Purple Heart and the Gold Star.

Jones is survived by: his sister Clara Jones of Oakland; his brother Alex Jones, 90, of Texas; his daughters Mary Hale of Los Angelos and Nettie Marie Alfred of Oakland; nine grandchildren and several nieces, nephews, aunts and uncles.

His son Love Perry Jones Jr. died previously as did his wife of many years Carrie Lee Jones, who died in 1989.

"He was a wonderful man and died doing what he wanted to in the cafe," said Alice L. Stamper, his long-time companion. "He really did good, nobody went hungry in the community. He never published that and no one knew except those in the neighborhood."

An edited and much shorter version of this appeared in the March 1, 1998 Oakland Tribune