Milford Dale Jones, 92, of Grand Chain, Illinois passed away May 4, 2026 in Nashville, TN.
He was born on his maternal grandparents’ farm (Will and Mamie Brown) west of Karnak, IL on October 3, 1933 to Albert (Bert) and Iva (Brown) Jones.
When Milford was a year old the family moved to a house his father had built five miles east of Grand Chain (currently Ducks Lane) where he lived until 2025. He moved a year ago to an assisted living facility in Nashville to be closer to his son and daughter and grandchildren.
As a child he walked down the hill from his home to Round Pond School, a two-room school where his mother taught for many years. His mother was his teacher for some of his elementary school years. He helped his mother bring in wood to heat the wood stove, sweep the floors and other tasks.
He lived with his dad’s sister Minnie Cummins in Metropolis and attended Metropolis High School for two years and then attended Grand Chain High School. He graduated in 1950 at age 16.
After high school he worked briefly at Caterpillar in Peoria, IL and then returned home after his mother had a stroke. After his mother died six months later he stayed home with his dad.
A year later in 1952 he married Dorothy Aileen Schierbaum from Levings (near Olmsted, IL). The young couple lived with Milford’s dad and raised three children, all born in the 1950s (Charlotte , Constance (Connie) and Curtis (Curt ).
After marrying, Milford worked on a riverboat and then as a laborer during the early phases of building out the Electric Energy Plant (EEI) in Joppa. He worked for the contractor hired to prepare the foundation for the plant.
He joined a team of local men hired to clear cut the right-of-way for the new electric plant. This work included using two-man chain saws and mules that pulled away the trees. Then Milford worked full-time for about five years at the coal terminal adjacent to the plant.
Sometime around the late 1950s Milford settled into farming full-time with his dad raising grain and hogs.
To supplement their farm income father and son raised broom corn. They built a “broom shop” near the house where they made hand-stitched brooms and sold them to local retailers and to individuals for home use.
After setting up the broom shop Milford soon started another side business. He carved a small space in the back of the broom shop for a television repair business. After completing a correspondence course with the DeVry Institute of Technology in Chicago Milford started making home visits to repair televisions. Milford said he charged $3 “unless the people didn’t have any money to pay.” In that case the visit was free.
Milford was a lifelong learner. He attended national farm and livestock conferences and took classes at Shawnee College in physics, genealogy and other subjects that interested him. He was studying electronics at Shawnee College and contemplating a new career when his son Curt started developing Dippin’ Dots, a beaded novelty ice cream, in the late 1980s.
His plans for a career involving electronics soon took a different path. Milford, Curt and his sister Connie became business partners. They built a tiny production facility in Curt’s home garage adjacent to the farm. Milford soon deployed his natural engineering and design talents to help make the first equipment to manufacture beads of ice cream which involved dripping ice cream mix through a plate with tiny holes into a vat of liquid nitrogen.
The fledging Dippin’ Dots company soon outgrew the garage and the family opened a small manufacturing facility on 3rd Street in Paducah. When the business outgrew that facility a 26,000 sq. ft. manufacturing and office building was designed and built in the Coleman Road Industrial Park in Paducah. It remains the sole manufacturing facility for Dippin’ Dots products in North America.
Milford played a huge role in setting up the plant in Paducah. He continued to assist in the design of new equipment and strategies for freezing, packaging, storing and shipping the ice cream.
In 1991 Dippin’ Dots opened multiple retail locations in the Opryland theme park in Nashville. The product soon was in high demand in many theme parks and water parks.
Soon after the Dippin’ Dots plant opened, an adjacent property and building were purchased and retrofitted to build kiosks and other equipment for the theme park industry, professional sports stadiums and other entertainment venues. Milford, an accomplished carpenter himself, helped train and supervise a crew of carpenters.
Soon the iconic kiosks appeared in shopping malls across the country and at hundreds of fairs and festivals as the new Dippin’ Dots franchisees built their businesses in dozens of trade areas from coast to coast.
For a time Milford stepped up as a key deliveryman. He delivered product and equipment to dozens of theme park locations and to individual franchisees from the Atlantic seaboard to California (often with Dorothy traveling with him).
As the international business developed, Milford traveled extensively to countries where investors were setting up Dippin’ Dots businesses. Milford and Dorothy traveled with a Dippin’ Dots delegation to many places including Australia, South Korea, Brazil, the Philippines and the Netherlands among others.
Late in life Milford would often tell people he met how much he enjoyed traveling abroad. He would say, “I have traveled all over the world.”
Providing jobs was a founding principle and important mission at Dippin’ Dots. For many young people Dippin’ Dots was a first job. For some college students and teachers Dippin’ Dots provided seasonal or part-time work. For many others Dippin’ Dots provided long-term employment. For many of the Illinois residents, especially those from Pulaski County where jobs were scarce, Milford was their first contact and often their entryway into the Dippin’ Dots ecosystem.
Milford’s abiding sense of purpose and moral compass largely was shaped by his life-long membership in the Ohio Chapel church just a mile and a half from his home. Milford’s parents were members of Ohio Chapel when Milford was born. They remained members for life. Milford followed in their footsteps. He very rarely missed church and Sunday school during the 91 years he lived in the community. If Milford wasn’t in his pew when services began members started calling to check on him.
He loved Wednesday night Bible study and he was a serious student of the scripture. Milford and Dorothy visited Israel twice in the 1980s. Milford often talked about specific sites he had visited in the Holy Land. It made the Bible come alive for him.
Over many years Milford was on the front lines of multiple projects in the community.
When the old Ohio Chapel church had to be torn down and replaced in the 1960s because of structural problems, Milford helped to build the pretty red brick church still in use today. And he helped build out the interior of the fellowship hall which was added in 2002.
Milford helped remodel office space in Karnak for use by the administration of the newly formed Shawnee College. The college staff was housed there while the campus was being built. He helped build and remodel houses for local residents in Grand Chain and Karnak.
Milford helped build out the ball field at the Grand Chain school and then was first baseman for the Grand Chain softball team for many years. Milford enjoyed playing sports. Milford played basketball in high school and later joined an independent baseball league. He and other men from Grand Chain were part of a bowling league for several years. He and Dorothy took lessons in ballroom dance and competed in dance competitions when they were young. They sometimes danced even late in life at local events when the music was playing.
Milford followed the St. Louis Cardinals with an intensity that bordered on obsession. Like other families the Joneses listened to the Cardinals on a transistor radio in the days before televised games. But Milford also took the family to see live games on several occasions.
Milford saw the Cardinals play in all three of their stadiums including Sportman’s Park. Milford was lucky to be in the crowd for several iconic moments in Cardinal lore. He saw Mark McGwire hit home run #61 that tied Roger Maris and he was there for game 6 of the 2011 World Series when David Freese became a Cardinal legend after hitting three home runs and helped propel the Cardinals to the World Series championship.
When his son Curt got to throw out the first pitch during the Dippin’ Dots 20th anniversary in 2008, Milford and Curt had their photograph taken with one of their all-time heroes Lou Brock.
When Milford reflected on his life, as he often did in his later years, he said the same thing over and over. He said his proudest achievement was his role in raising a “good family.”
Most mornings Milford’s first stop after getting dressed was to stop and survey the photos of family he had displayed in his study. He would say, “Thank you God for giving me such a good family.”
Showing up for family was his highest priority. He was a loving and loyal husband for 56 years. And he was a proud participant for all the milestones for his children, then his grandchildren and great grandchildren. He sent birthday cards. Most of all he was a constant and reliable presence for family members for all the mundane challenges of life. Whether moving a grandchild to or from college or helping with buying a car he was able and ready to help.
Milford is survived by daughter Charlotte Jones (Donald Butner/domestic partner), Orlando, FL, daughter Connie Ulrich of Nashville, and son Curt Jones (Kay) of Brentwood, TN; granddaughters Tracey Jones of Brentwood, Nicole Ulrich (Matt Arnold) of New Orleans, Jana Ulrich (Brandon) of Nashville and Melanie Schrieber of Nashville; great grandchildren Dorothy and Henry Arnold of New Orleans, Celeste Boyd of Nashville and Crosby Schrieber of Nashville
His wife Dorothy preceded him in death in 2009.
Visitation will be from 5-8 p.m. May 8 (Friday) at Wilson Funeral Home in Karnak. A funeral service will be held at the Ohio Chapel Church in Grand Chain at 11 a.m. May 9 (Saturday) followed by interment at Grand Chain Masonic Cemetery. Pastors Tammy Horn and Steve Heisner will be officiating
Memorial contributions may be made to the Ohio Chapel Church and will be accepted at the church.
Wilson Funeral Home in Karnak is in charge of arrangements.