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Helen in 1922 and two consecutive sets of twin daughters, Joyce and Loyce in 1925 and, in 1928, Doris and Ruth. Dr. Alfred William Roark, who had an office in back of a local drugstore in the area, was one of the few physicians around. He often used a bicycle to maneuver through the backwoods. Delivering babies was common for Roark, who’d delivered Ethel and knew the Jones family well. When he required help in emergencies, he often summoned George Washington Jones, who developed a skill for tending to wounds and setting broken bones that made him a sort of primitive EMT or physician’s assistant.
    Ethel, the firstborn, was special to her father, who doted on her within the couple’s limited means. When she became ill in 1926, George and Clara tried to take care of her. A hospital might have helped, but the money wasn’t there, and George’s Thicketeer nature led him to refuse any charity. Dr. Roark did what he could,but it wasn’t enough. Ethel died February 28, 1926. Her shattered parents buried her at Felps Cemetery, northwest of Saratoga. Clara’s deep religious faith helped her cope with the overwhelming grief, but for George Washington Jones, the loss of his first and favorite child forever changed him. He could dull the pain by plunging into the hard work required to support his family. When work ended, after the next week’s groceries were purchased, he began to anesthetize the pain with regular drinking binges that led to alarming personality changes. He became boisterous, belligerent, and even verbally or physically abusive.
    The 1930 census showed thirty-five-year-old George and thirty-three-year-old Clara residing in a house near Saratoga with an estimated value of $150. While the census taker mistakenly listed his trade as “stove maker,” the form correctly categorized the job as part of the “timber” industry, whose trees he was poaching for the wood. The children were Herman, Helen, “Jocee” (Joyce), “Lous” (Loyce), “Doriss” (Doris), and Ruth. Clara’s occupation was “housewife.” In early 1931, she was again pregnant. Dr. Roark was present to deliver the eighth and final Jones child on September 12, 1931. George W took the kids to a nearby home while Dr. Roark saw to Clara and delivered her twelve-pound son, heavy enough that the physician accidentally dropped him, breaking his arm. Telling the kids they had a new baby brother, George Washington Jones brought his brood home to find the infant’s fracture had already been set. The couple named him George Glenn Jones, but to the family, and everyone else in the vicinity, he was Glenn, a name that stuck to him into adulthood. Clara rarely called him anything else.
    She doted on her youngest son, as did his sisters. On Sundays she took them to nearby church meetings. Clara noticed he seemed responsive to music, sometimes hymns, or the old folk tune “BillyBoy,” which she often sang to him at home. He eventually began trying to sing himself, and his uncanny ability to remember a melody and even sing it back impressed many. Clara kept him constantly by her side, as if something catastrophic might happen. But she couldn’t always keep her eyes on him. Sometimes the baby, who had little use for clothes, would run buck naked to neighbors, grinning all the way. As he entered his toddler phase, more folks noticed Glenn’s clear, strong voice in church, a source of pride to Clara, Herman, and the girls. Music became a respite from hard work, and when George Washington Jones was in a good humor, he sometimes pulled out his harmonica and played as Clara happily led their children in singing hymns. Later, when the family acquired a wind-up record player, Glenn found joy in the primitive mountain songs of the Carter Family.
    Within a year of Glenn’s birth, the family relocated to a house in the Depot Town area. Like others in the Thicket, they existed much like