Ina Sue Jones

February 6, 1951- June 16 , 2024

Ina was born February 6, 1951 in Vinita, Oklahoma to Carolyn H. and Joel E. Mann, the youngest of three daughters. Ina attended grade school in a one room school in Miles, Oklahoma close to the family farm. The farm included 50 acres of Indian Allotment Land from her grandmother where they lived for several years before moving to Oklahoma City when Ina was nine years old. Ina graduated from Putnam City High School and attended the University of Science and Arts in Chickasha, Oklahoma. Ina was a Cherokee Nation Citizen and a member of the First Families of the Cherokee Nation. She was proud of her Indigenous as well as her European heritage and loved learning about her ancestors through genealogical research conducted by her husband and daughter.

Ina met her future husband Tim at a 4th of July picnic in 1976, the beginning of their lifelong enduring love affair. They were blessed with the birth of one daughter, Jennifer, and in her later years a step grandson, whom she loved the privilege of being Elisi to.

Ina is survived by her beloved husband Tim, daughter Jennifer and life partner Mike, step grandson Zac and a robust group of close friends who became family. As well as her sisters Carol Ritsch and Sandra Dean, several nieces and nephews and many great nieces and nephews.

Ina was a very passionate woman with strong convictions and a deep love for the environment and animals. She volunteered for many years at the Oklahoma City Zoo Education Department and belonged to several organizations that supported environmental conservation and animal welfare. She loved to raise flowers in her many flower beds, feed and watch the birds in her yard, and always had a menagerie of pets. One of her desires was to be able to serve with a wild animal rescue organization, unfortunately the travel time and other competing responsibilities made that untenable but injured wildlife was often rescued and delivered to a wildlife rehabilitation site for treatment. Ina was well read concerning the environment and conservative efforts to protect nature’s bounty and gave to conservation organizations and animal rescue organizations each year.

Ina left this earth just as she lived – a medical anomaly always defying the odds, hardheaded, radiating her kind and sweet heart giving a generous gift to her husband and daughter to sustain them going forward.