110 Years of Walter Casey Jones
A Chronicle of Non-Stop Work: An Oral Biography
A larger-than-life biography of an ordinary man, 110 Years of Walter Casey Jones draws on oral transcripts for its form.
Philip F. Tennyson’s intimate biography of Walter Casey Jones draws on hours of taped interviews to form a cohesive portrait of a centenarian devoted to wandering and self-reliance.
Walter Casey Jones, a a self-proclaimed “codger” who spent years entertaining others while guarding his independence, claimed to have been born in 1872 and to be 108 years old when he met Tennyson, whose work was devoted to recording ordinary people’s oral histories. Together, they produced hours of taped interviews and notes. Tennyson later drew on these to form this text.
Jones’s voice, with the cadence of a seasoned performer’s, shapes the book’s structure, as where repetition is used for emphasis. He presents himself as an itinerant American, discussing his post–Reconstruction era childhood and time on the late twentieth-century lecture circuit. In his later years, he lived in an aging motor home, delivering talks on nutrition, thriftiness, and his philosophy of independence—a lifestyle he credited for his remarkable longevity.
Herein, the material is arranged around moments from Jones’s speaking tour, as well as recurring themes in his life. There’s coverage of his daily routines, dietary habits, and moral code of self-sufficiency. Preserving the rhythms of his speech, the book’s rhetorical flourishes and repeating turns of phrase imply a lifetime of practice at turning personal memories into general messages. Still, the book also reflects the fact that as he aged, Jones’s daily habits, work patterns, and practical strategies for staying mobile had to shift.
Tennyson’s editorial additions are restrained, including when it comes to shaping Jones’s story for general audiences. There are few annotations and little direct commentary; Jones’s voice is preserved as a matter of fact. This is also somewhat limiting, though, preserving the speaker’s narrative loops and tendency to revisit maxims without much alteration and at the expense of narrative flow.
Indeed, many anecdotes circle back to Jones’s insistence on living life his way, even at the expense of steady work, healthy romantic relationships, and his connection with his son. The book’s grammar is unpolished and its expressions are colorful, but audiences are sometimes held at a distance by the particularity of the book’s form and focus. Further, the ending is abrupt, necessitated by Jones’s accidental death from propane inhalation, which is recounted in brief.
A personable biography of a singular man, 110 Years of Walter Casey Jones captures both his charisma and his stubbornness in the form of an ongoing performance.
Reviewed by
John M. Murray
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
