Jewel May (Jones) Snow, 78, of Emerson Village Pomona died July 10, 2003, in her home.
Jewel’s earliest years were in Pomona, California; in fact she was born at the home of John Abner and Mollie Loofbourrow at 1408 West Grand south-west Pomona. A few years after her birth her parents divorced and she lived with her mother Blanche and her 2 sisters Dorothy and Evelyn, growing up with her cousins and uncles. Then, in an event that was considered by all at the time as tragic, she and her sisters were abducted by their father and his new wife and taken to Oklahoma. This was about 1933 or so and Jewel was only 6 or 7.
Living in Enid, Jewel went to school there and lived with her stepmother and father and sisters and her new 1/2 sister Veldena who was about 3 years younger than Jewel. Times were tight back then, being in the heart of the depression and her father (Leonard) decided to scale down the family. So in about 1936 or 37 he had Uncle Joe and Aunt Josephine take Dorothy to live with them in Tulsa and Evelyn came out to live with Uncle Ben and Aunt Edna in Hollister California. Jewel stayed in Enid, but life was not easy for her. Finally, about 1942 she came back to Pomona and lived with her mom and the rest of the Loofbourrows.
During the war, Jewel learned to machine parts for the war effort. How long she did this or for what company is not clear, but the family has a few of the machined parts she made. She met Donald Eugene Snow at this time and they were married when she was 17 1/2. Nancy was born a little over a year later and eventually they moved to Oklahoma where Jewel worked at a fruit packing plant and at an Enid Bank. Once again life dealt a hard blow in that her husband Don got in trouble with the law and Jewel and Nancy ended up moving back to California.
Later in California, although just recently divorced, Don and Jewel remarried in about 1950 but it was not to last with Don again getting into trouble and eventually they divorced again, but not after starting Ron on his way.
Jewel raised Nancy and Ron in Pomona but could not work or drive due to a brain injury and caused her to have random “black outs”: A condition that would immobilize her in a kind of trance for 5 to 10 minutes and occur a few times a day. This condition made being a single mom more difficult for her and the medication they prescribed had side affects that compounded the difficultly of raising kids and thus resulted in Nancy leaving home at 16 to get married and Ron leaving home 3 years later, at age 12, to live with Nancy for a short while.
Jewel was active in the church and in the quilting bees and other church group events. She loved playing Volley Tennis at Washington Park with a group of women that had formed teams in the Pomona area. She volunteered at senior centers to help with activities such as Bingo and card games and was a welcomed and appreciated visitor to many there.
She loved visiting relatives and every so many years would take the greyhound bus out to New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, and Colorado for visits. She kept a daily diary from about 1950 until her death in 2003. While the diary entries eventually became more and more meteorological notes on weather and temperature, she would always note when visitors came and special events occurred.
While she did not drive, she is remembered as enjoying riding motorcycles and even took her Uncle Ben’s motorcycle out of a spin a few times when she was a teenager. When visiting her relatives in Enid, she would ride a horse between the various relatives houses. One of her favorite memories was riding with her Grandfather John in his old Model T out to fish in Puddingstone reservoir (now part of the Bonelli Regional Park in San Dimas).
Jewel is survived by her daughter Nancy Snow of Crestline, her son Ronald of Menlo Park, 6 grandchildren, 5 great-grandchildren, her sister Dorothy Tritschler of Enid, OK, and her brother Ray Kirby of Pacific Palisades.
Graveside services were held at 10 a.m. July 15th at Pomona Valley Cemetery.
