Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 16, 1993 TAG: 9305140174
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: FORT CHISWELL LENGTH: Medium
"We hated to leave here," she said, "because our landlords have been actually super."
But, the way stores are opening in downtown Pulaski, she said, "it was an opportunity we couldn't say no to."
Another reason she is moving is Roscoe Cox, the director of Pulaski Main Street Inc., who has been recruiting her store for the growing business activity in downtown Pulaski.
"He really is good at his job . . . I wish I had half his energy," Jonas said. "He actually approached us last fall about going down there."
Jonas opened her store a year ago offering period home furnishings, antiques, gifts and accessories, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation-certified pieces and country, traditional and colonial reproductions.
"We researched it for about a year before we finally opened the doors last spring," she said.
And it took another year to persuade her to come to Pulaski. "You can tell I don't make decisions overnight."
She is moving into the Pulaski store on West Main Street formerly occupied by the Believe It Or Else boutique which, in turn, is moving to new quarters on Main Street.
Jonas plans to be open for business before the planned May 29 Pulaski open house at its new downtown antique, art and music stores. The celebration from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. is sponsored by Pulaski Main Street, the town of Pulaski and Pulaski County Chamber of Commerce.
"I'm real excited about going down there," she said. "I can only see bigger and better things coming for that area."
Although born in Germany ("I'm an Army brat," she said), Jonas has New River Valley connections.
Her father, retired Col. Jackson S. Jones, who died Feb. 15, commanded the Radford Army Ammunition Plant from 1961 to 1964. She graduated from Radford High School and earned a degree in business from what is now Radford University.
The former Debbie Jones only had to change one letter of her name, and "all my monograms on everything stayed the same," when she and Danny Jonas, a Wythe County teacher, were married. They have two children: Shannon, 15, and Justin, 10.
They attended Radford High School, but never dated until they found themselves both working the summer after graduation at St. Albans Psychiatric Hospital, she as a lifeguard and he in the recreation department.
Jonas is a frequent visitor to Wythe County Clerk Hayden Horney's office and the Kegley Historical Library at Wytheville Community College to trace family lineages. "Hayden knows me well," she said.
Her interest in genealogy may have been sparked by her great-aunt, Helen Trammell of Gloucester, Ohio, who was president of the Daughters of the American Revolution national organization for a number of years. Trammell had the lineages traced for many of her family members.
"Danny's family for some reason had never been traced," she said. But, at a Jonas family reunion at Cripple Creek, someone came up with a suggestion: "Well, Debbie, why don't you do that?"
At Colony of Virginia, she has been the owner, president and only employee. "I'm it right now. We'll be looking at adding at least some part-time employees," she said, after the move.
She had worked at a manufacturing job in Radford for a time before deciding to open her own business. "But I'd always wanted to do this," she said.
by CNB