When a Family Matter Turns Into a Business
Helen Jones sits in a wheelchair, surrounded by strangers who control her life. She is not allowed to answer the telephone. Her mail is screened. She cannot spend her own money. A child of the Depression, Jones, 87, worked hard for decades, driving rivets into World War II fighter planes, making neckties, threading bristles into nail-polish brushes. She saved obsessively, putting away $560,000 for her old age. Her life changed three years ago, when a woman named Melodie Scott told a court in San Bernardino that Jones was unable to manage for herself. Without asking Jones, a judge made Scott — someone… Continue reading
