Youngstown documentary producer takes aim at “631,” his childhood home

By Ashley Luthern

aluthern@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

The numbers 6-3-1 mean so much to Derrick “D” Jones and his family.

Jones, 33, an acclaimed documentarian, created “631,” a film about his childhood home at 631 Ridge Ave. on the city’s South Side. The house is now vacant.

Jones, who teaches at Bowling Green State University, returned to Youngstown several times this year to screen “631,” which was very well received.

“It was one of those things where you realize how small the world is and how connected people are even by geography, and that my story and my family’s story is just one of many in a neighborhood or city around the country,” he said.

Jones was assigned to do a personal documentary for a graduate class at Ohio University in 2008. The following year, the short film was screened at a half dozen film festivals, including the Cannes Film Festival and the Langston Hughes African-American Film Festival.

His mother, Joyce Jones, narrates most of the nine-minute documentary, telling the story of how her parents, Cecil and Naomi Dial, moved to Ridge Avenue in the mid-1950s. Cecil was a county business agent and Naomi was a homemaker. Joyce, the only child, said her family enjoyed a middle class life.

After graduating from South High School in 1977, Joyce married Dennis Jones, started a family and moved into her childhood home. Joyce’s parents had since divorced and her mom, Naomi, moved into an apartment.

Joyce’s children, including D, James, now 31, and Nikita, now 22, grew up in the house until an accidental fire destroyed much of the basement in 1997, and then an electrical fire damaged the house in 2000.

“I thought, ‘It’s time for me to find another place,’ after the second fire,” Joyce said. “Even thinking about it now, I still get upset. I’ll never live there again.”

A house isn’t just a structure that holds belongings, Joyce said.

Read the full story Monday in The Vindicator and on Vindy.com.