Caroline Jones Cross

Caroline Jones Cross died in Franklin, Tennessee, on Sunday, 1 November 2026, aged 95, following what her family called a long and active life. No cause of death was given. Her obituary was handled by Williamson Memorial Funeral Home and published by the Williamson Herald, and the Walking Horse Report also marked her passing.

Visitation was set for Friday 6 November 2026 at Heritage Church of Christ, 1056 Lewisburg Pike, Franklin, with a service celebrating her life there on Saturday 7 November and interment at Woodlawn Memorial Park. She was survived by her two children, her grandchildren and great grandchildren, and her sister Linda Ruth Jones Biggs. The family asked for gifts to Heritage Church of Christ or the Leadership Franklin Caroline Cross Scholarship Fund.

Caroline Jones was born in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, on 16 July 1931, the daughter of Tom Fox Jones and Ruth Forrest Jordan. Her father was a charter member of the Tennessee Walking Horse Breeders' Association, and she later credited her Grandfather Jordan, who believed that whatever a person has belongs to God, with shaping her habit of giving. She was a direct descendant of Dr Thomas Walker, the explorer who named the Cumberland River and the Cumberland Gap.

She graduated from Hillsboro High School in Nashville and majored in home economics at David Lipscomb College, now Lipscomb University. After graduating she taught in the college's home economics department until her marriage. In 1986 her family endowed a chair in that department in her honour.

In January 1955 she married James William Cross III in Heidelberg, Germany, where he was serving with the US Army, and while he was stationed there she was a substitute teacher at the school of the US Army Europe headquarters. Back in Tennessee, the couple incorporated Century Construction in 1958. She worked alongside her husband as a full partner, and the company, still led by their son Jim and grandson Will, played a part in the development of Franklin from a sleepy town into the community it is today.

The family was active in the Tennessee Walking Horse industry. The Crosses were instrumental in forming the Walking Horse Owners' Association and the International Grand Championship, and in 1980 they were invited to exhibit two Walking Horses at the Royal Olympia Horse Show in London.

She was one of the founders of Leadership Franklin, a programme bringing together current and emerging leaders to improve the city, and served as its volunteer executive director for sixteen years before handing the role to Paula Harris. She recited Ralph Waldo Emerson's lines on success at the start and graduation of every class.

Her other work included chairing the second Heritage Foundation Ball at Carnton and serving as president of the Heritage Foundation; serving on the first Carnton board as the property was acquired; founding the Carter House Candlelight Tour of Historic Homes, the Spring Town and Country Tour of Homes and the Battle Ground Academy Antique Show; helping raise funds for the first YMCA in Williamson County and sitting on the first Franklin YMCA board; 21 years on the board of World Christian Broadcasting; planning the John Miller Equine Arena at Middle Tennessee State University; and an appointment to the Tennessee Historical Commission. In 2003 she helped bring 27 students from Madagascar to study at Lipscomb and hosted the president of Madagascar at dinner.

Caroline and Jim Cross had two children, Amy Cross Nance and James William "Jim" Cross IV. Her husband died in 1993. In 1998, with editor Dimples B. Kellogg, she wrote A Delightful Life, an account of her life intended above all for her grandchildren, who had never known their grandfather.

A lifelong member of the Church of Christ, she was one of the founders of Heritage Church of Christ in Franklin in 2003. The family kept a house at the Monteagle Sunday School Assembly for 38 years, where she served on the education committee awarding scholarships to Grundy County students. She loved to travel, to Africa, Russia, London and South America, enjoyed sport fishing at Boca Grande, Florida, for 25 years, and collected antiques on trips to England. She was a member of the Colonial Dames and the Daughters of the American Revolution and a Paul Harris Fellow of Rotary.

Leadership Franklin, which marked its 30th anniversary in July 2026 with Cross honoured repeatedly as a founder, remains her most visible legacy, along with the Caroline J. Cross Service Award, created by a Leadership Franklin class in 2007 and presented every year to a resident who embodies service and leadership. Her honours included the Distinguished Leadership Award of the Franklin Business Leadership Council, the Franklin Tomorrow Leadership Award, recognition from the Lipscomb Center for Leadership Excellence and Williamson Christian College, Lipscomb's Distinguished Alumnus Award, and a Caroline Cross Day proclaimed by Mayor Tom Miller on Leadership Franklin's tenth anniversary.