“The Sunny Side of Virginia Street"

In “The Sunny Side of Virginia Street: Kitchen table stories & musical memories,” Jones will answer the following questions: Was her great-great-grandfather impeached from the Vanderburgh County Council? Did her great-grandfather really know Hoagy Carmichael? Could her grandfather’s family be traced or were they too poor and uneducated to even be counted? Jones researched her story at the Willard Library in Evansville, as well as the Indiana Memory collections through the Indiana State Library.

After becoming a children’s librarian at Monroe County Public Library in 2001, Jones joined the Bloomington Storytellers Guild and started performing at its annual “Ghost Stories in the Park” and “Wintertelling” events. In 2018, Jones and fellow librarian Stephanie Holman were commissioned to research and write a story for an affordable housing initiative. The project, “Your Neighborhood, Your Story,” consisted of two, 30-minute, original stories outlining the history of four historic Bloomington neighborhoods.

Jones has also performed at Ghost Stories at Crown Hill Cemetery and Two Truths and a Lie. From 2007-2019, she was an adjunct professor, teaching a storytelling course at Indiana University.