Benjamin Franklin Jones

Benjamin Franklin Jones, the former president and CEO of Monarch Life Insurance Company in Springfield and the oldest paramedic at Ground Zero following the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, died Jan. 14 2016 in Stuart, Florida, at the age of 93. A graduate of Dartmouth College and a U.S. Army veteran, serving during World War II, he joined the Monarch Life Insurance Co. in New York City where he rose from field underwriter to managing his own agency in Cleveland, Ohio in 1953. After a 40-year career with Monarch, he pursued a lifetime interest as a first responder. He and his wife of 71 years, Betty, were trained as EMTs at Springfield College. Jones continued his training in the first class of paramedics at the college. He began his second career as a volunteer in Springfield and later in Shelter Island, New York, and Stuart, Florida. Jones is survived by his wife Betty Jane, his three children, son Douglas Jones of Ellsworth, Maine, his daughters Susan Jones of Ithaca, New York, and Nancy Jones of Somers, Connecticut, and his five granddaughters and two great-grandchildren. He also leaves a sister, Elizabeth Crandall of Shelter Island, New York.