Olaive Burrowes Jones' Obituary
Olaive Burrowes Jones passed away on July 8, 2026, 19 days before her 86th birthday.
Olaive was born in Detroit, Michigan to Bertie B. Burrowes, a physician, and Thelma K. Lovell Burrowes, a nurse. They moved to Youngstown, Ohio when she was two years old where her father began his medical practice. Dr. Burrowes was a community leader and primary care physician to the Black citizens of Youngstown.
Mrs. Burrowes practiced nursing, while raising a family and developing her skills as an artist, a seamstress and a gardener. She believed in Olaive's talent and demanded strict effort in learning to play the piano and excelling in school. Dr. and Mrs. Burrowes were both prideful people. Olaive had that quality as well. As she put it, it was at times “…a cross to bear—“pride of race, pride of position, pride of lifestyle, pride of family, pride of heritage, pride of education, pride of accomplishment.” Her life exemplified all of these qualities.
Olaive studied English literature at Oberlin but also studied piano in the Conservatory. Her literature background served her voracious reading habits and intense curiosity about everything. Olaive's last reading project was a book about Oceans, which she found fascinating. She was quite delighted to learn that the water in our bodies was, as she put it, salty ocean water—blood, sweat, tears.
After Olaive and James married, they moved to Philadelphia where she taught high school and in a Head Start program. Rough assignments by her account. Olaive taught music in high school when they moved to New Haven, Connecticut. But she needed to feed her creative soul. When she knew they were moving to Boston where James had his first teaching position at Harvard, Olaive pursued a master’s degree in Piano Performance at the New England Conservatory of Music. While working on her degree and sharpening her performance skills, she also taught music at the Elma Lewis School for the Arts, in the National Center of Afro-American Arts in Roxbury, Massachusetts. Olaive had an opportunity to work with musicians like Ragtimes Eubie Blake, African drummer Olatunji, and Berneice Reagon of Sweet Honey and the Rock. Her talent and multifaceted rendering of it was a beautiful expression of her soul.
After earning her degree at the New England Conservatory, Olaive, James and their daughters, Nashe Jones Cantrell and Shelly Hairston-Jones, spent a year in Trinidad & Tobago where she organized a Jazz-Calypso band and performed across the island. She made a recording of one of her compositions-Sapodilla, and her performance of The Entertainer by Scott Joplin.
When they returned to the US, they moved to Washington, D.C., where Olaive started another jazz band, composed music and performed across the D.C. area. Eventually she decided to stay closer to home to raise her girls. She remained creative while working as a real estate broker, a financial planner and an administrator at the National Endowment for the Arts. Olaive really was a renaissance woman.
Later in her life, after moving to Lewes with James, she turned to art. Olaive was never formally trained, but she had painted much of her life. She turned to various painters for instruction. Olaive went to England and Portugal to study with British painter Roger Dellar, to Italy to take a class on Tuscan landscape painting, and she studied extensively with Rob VanderZee in Virginia and Michigan. She took courses at Rehoboth Art League; read myriad art books and ultimately produced beautiful and meaningful paintings that adorn the walls of her Lewes home.
By others’ accounts about Olaive, she was lovely, kind, curious, open, free, forceful, welcoming and a beautiful and extraordinary human being. She was also by nature a spiritual person and a healer, both of which qualities drew her to religion, philosophy and the healing arts. Olaive trained in a body work technique called Zero Balancing—moving energy through the body by manipulating the bones. She taught and practiced it for over 30 years.
Olaive is survived by her beloved husband, James M. Jones, to whom she was married for 61 years. Olaive and James were life partners since they met at Oberlin College in 1963. Their lives together took them to many places, provided adventures, accomplishment and great joy in creating a loving family whom Olaive adored with unwavering love. She is survived also by her daughter Shelly Hairston-Jones (Keith Hairston), her grandson Lowell Hairston, daughter Nashe Jones Cantrell (Maurice Cantrell), sister Cynthia Hickman, and nephew Michael Hickman. Olaive's sudden passing leaves a huge void in James life as well as the many friends and family to whom she meant so much.
A Memorial Service will be held at 11:00 AM on Saturday, September 12, 2026, at St. Peter's Episcopal Church, 200 2nd Street; Lewes, DE 19958, where friends may visit beginning at 10:00 AM.
Entombment will immediately follow in the cemetery located in the churchyard at St. Peter's Episcopal Church.
In lieu of flowers, memorial donations in Olaive's memory may be made to
Beebe Medical Foundation at https://www.beebehealthcare.org/beebe-medical-foundation/donate or to
First State Community Action Agency at https://www.firststatecaa.org/
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