Lawrence Jones was born in 1947 and grew up in New England. He is the oldest son of a Methodist minister. Soon after high school, he joined the Marine Corps and spent two years in Vietnam. Upon returning home, he fled the mainland, settling first on Nantucket Island, later on Long Island, Maine, working as a carpenter and as a commercial fisherman. At age thirty, he entered St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, graduating in 1981. For the next decade, he restored historic houses in the Washington, DC, area. In more recent years, he creates period rooms, writes essays, and lives with his wife and daughter in Chicago, Illinois.
