Dennis Jones, guitar playing steelworker and union activist, dies at 85

Dennis Jones was the second person in charge of an electric arc furnace at North Star Steel in St. Paul when Dave Foster first got to know him.

Jones "had to put on asbestos-lined protective gear and blow oxygen into the furnace to purify liquid steel, which was very hot," said Foster, former district director of the Steelworkers Union, and before that the grievance chair at North Star's Local 7263. "A spectacular job. Sparks were flying everywhere."

Jones, of Cottage Grove, a steelworker who edited the local union paper, "Scraps of Steel," and a singer-songwriter who played his 12-string guitar on picket lines, died July 20 of complications from lung cancer. He was 85.

"He was pro-union and he would tell me that the union was responsible for our weekends off," said his stepdaughter Elisa Jones, of Cottage Grove.

A St. Paul native, Jones graduated from North St. Paul High School and what is now North Park University in Chicago. When he was a boy an uncle taught him how to play the guitar, which he brought to family gatherings to play for his stepchildren, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. "Everyone loved his singing," Elisa Jones said.

In 1985 Jones and his wife at that time, Maryann, traveled frequently to Austin, Minn., to support members of United Food and Commercial Workers Local P-9, a meatpackers union that went on strike against Hormel after the company demanded a 23% wage cut following a seven-year wage freeze.

"In the 1980s struggle against corporate greed, he was an important member of the Twin Cities Local P-9 Solidarity Committee," said Peter Rachleff, who co-chaired the committee and later founded the East Side Freedom Library in St. Paul. "He brought his particular talent as a folk singer to picket lines, rallies and community gatherings."

Wherever we're needed / Won't you please heed the call / An injury to one / Is an injury to all / We must ban together / We cannot deny / No more concessions / Is our rallying cry / Remember you brothers and sisters all / United we stand, divided we fall.

Long said he plans to reissue the album on Memorial Day next year in partnership with the East Side Freedom Library to honor Jones' memory.

Jones was a devoted father to his stepchildren, said stepdaughter Georgette Susla of St. Paul. "He loved all of us," she said. In 1981, he went on a 35-day canoe trip on the Mississippi River from Elk River to Vicksburg, Miss., with stepson George Rhode, who was then 15.

"It was a great experience," said Rhode, of Princeton. "I became a man on that trip."

Besides Elisa Jones, Susla and Rhode, Jones is survived by stepchildren Shelly Seffl, of McGregor, Minn.; Vicky Westhoff, of Princeton; and Jennifer Savage, of Elko New Market; and a brother, Art Jones, of West Plains, Mo. A celebration of Jones' life has been held.