Anthony Jones was a blacksmith and railroad man who had a farm on the east side of Route 7, just north of the Hubbard line, in Brookfield.
With all that going on, he also suffered “terrible, debilitating migraine headaches,” said his grandson, who goes by Anthony Jones Jr., but is the third in the lineage with that name.
“Nobody could help him.” said Jones Jr. “He tried all kinds of things. My grandmother, she was selling strawberries, walked past a chiropractor’s office, and I wish I knew who it was. It had to be someone pretty local. She stopped in and asked, ‘Do you help migraines?’, and he said, ‘Yeah.’ She said, ‘How many visits?’ He said, ‘Probably about 12.’ She paid him up front.”
When Ann Jones brought the receipt home and told her husband what she had done, he said, “I’m not gonna see one of those guys,” and put it in a drawer, his grandson said.
This was in the late 1910s. Chiropractic had only come into being in the 1890s, and more than a few chiropractors had been prosecuted for practicing medicine without a license.
The headaches persisted and Jones gave the chiropractor a try.
“Two visits, his migraines were gone, and he came back and said, ‘I’m going to school to be a chiropractor,’” said Jones Jr.
Although Ann Jones was skeptical, Anthony Jones went off to chiropractic school in Iowa, and came back and set up his practice in his home, the old gray farmhouse that once stood along Route 7, in what is now the parking lot of the Jones Chiropractic Clinic.
“The story I always heard was, he would get a patient, my grandmother would call him out of the field, he would come in and take care of the patient,” said Jones Jr., 57, of Hubbard.
The practice is celebrating its 100th year. The first Anthony Jones’ diploma, which hangs in the office lobby, is dated Nov. 7, 1920. “That’s why we picked that date as our 100th year anniversary,” said Jones Jr. “I’m not sure exactly what date he started.”
Jones Jr. has treated patients who had been treated by his grandfather, and one of them, a woman now in her ’90s, told him that she and her sister would accompany their mother when she had an appointment with Jones the grandfather.
“They thought my dad was cute, and they were hoping they would catch a glimpse of him,” said Jones Jr., whose wife, Kathy, works in his office.
Jones Jr.’s father, who went by Anthony Jones Sr., came back from serving in the Navy in World War II, married his sweetheart, Edith, and whisked her away to Iowa so he could receive chiropractic training.
Jones Sr. studied under B.J. Palmer, the son of the founder of chiropractic.
“I have a picture of him (Palmer), handwritten to them, signed on the bottom,” said Jones Jr. “He (Palmer) used to hold my sister when she was a baby.”
After training, the Jones family returned to Brookfield and Jones Sr. entered his father’s practice.
Jones Jr., a Brookfield High School graduate, said he always assumed he would become a chiropractor.
“When you’re raised in a chiropractic family, it is a philosophy of how you live,” said Jones Jr. “Chiropractic is, obviously, you’re taking care of the spine but, through the spine, the brain and the nervous system. It’s proper nutrition, it’s exercise, proper rest, just a way of living. Our goal is to live life until the very end and then it’s over.”
On his very first day as a practicing chiropractor, Jones Jr. was the only chiropractor in the office when a long-standing patient of his father came in with a lower back issue. Upon learning that Jones Sr. was not available, he asked the receptionist how long the new guy had been practicing.
“She said, ‘This is his first day.’ He said, ‘Oh, hell no,’ and turned around, walked out,” Jones Jr. said.
However, the man was in so much pain that he couldn’t climb into his truck. He hobbled back into the office to be treated by the first-day practitioner.
“He’s been a great patient ever since,” said Jones Jr.
Chiropractic runs deep within the Jones family. Jones Jr.’s sister, Ann Mitchell, her husband, Donald Mitchell, and their daughter, Audrey Blevins, practice chiropractic together in Alamogardo, N.M.; another sister, Alice Wray, married a chiropractor, Clarence Wray, who rents space from Jones Jr.; his father had uncles who were chiropractors; and his son, also named Anthony, is studying pre-medicine at Youngstown State University with the intent to become a chiropractor.
“I hope he can get us to 140 years,” Jones Jr. said of his son.
Although Jones Jr.’s chiropractic school classmates questioned his sanity when he said he was moving back home to practice, Jones Jr. said he has never doubted the decision.
“I’m so fortunate, what my dad had built,” he said. “I walked right into a business. It’s grown over the years.”
“I love chiropracty,” Jones Jr. added. “We’ll do anything to help somebody. They know they’re gonna get their best effort from me.”