Jones was born in
Okmulgee, Oklahoma to
Welsh-American father Johnpaul Jones and
Choctaw/
Cherokee mother Dolores. His maternal grandfather was Choctaw and his maternal grandmother Pearl Gurley was Choctaw/Cherokee. Neither parent had more than a grade school education. His parents marriage had largely ended by the time he was 9 years old, and he and his mother moved to
Manteca, California under an Indian relocation program. In Oklahoma, he had been instructed in Native American traditions by his maternal grandmother Pearl; in California (Manteca and later
Stockton) he lived in a largely Hispanic environment and at times did farm work, which was his mother's occupation. Although he did poorly in school other than excelling in art classes and physical education, he managed to graduate from high school in 1959, and attended
San Jose City College. A job as an office boy at architecture firm Higgins & Root in
San Jose, combined with his drawing skills set him on the first steps of his career. With help from his boss Chester Root he entered the
University of Oregon in
Eugene, Oregon, where for the first time he became a serious student, and where he began his interest in Native American architecture, more neglected in the U. of O. curriculum of the time than not. He continued to work summers at Higgins & Root. After graduating in 1967, he moved in Seattle, working briefly for
Paul Thiry, then at Dersham & Dimmick, before opening a practice on
Bainbridge Island. He became increasingly involve in Native American matters, joining the Urban Indian Committee, where he first came to know Native activist
Bernie Whitebear. In the early 1970s, he met landscape architect
Grant Richard Jones (no relation), who was studying the
Native American burial mounds of the Midwest. In 1973, he joined Grant Jones and Grant's then-wife Ilze Jones at Jones & Jones, based in the Globe Building in Seattle's
Pioneer Square neighborhood. ==Work at Jones and Jones==