Gilbert R. Jones

MTA bud driver

Gilbert R. Jones, a bus driver for the Maryland Mass Transit Administration whose regular riders presented him with a cake when he was transferred to another line, died Wednesday of cancer at his home in Catonsville. He was 56.

He joined the MTA in the late 1960s. About six years ago, when he was transferred from the No. 21 line, his regular riders presented him with a cake in the shape of a bus.

Mr. Jones, a former construction worker, helped his neighbors repair their automobiles, do carpentry work, cut lawns and shovel snow.

The native Baltimorean was a graduate of Dunbar High School who served in the Marine Corps in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

He shook hands with President Lyndon B. Johnson while on a tour of Washington.

He was a former member of Unity Christian Church and Olivet Baptist Church. Most recently, he was a member of Southern Baptist Church on Chester Street in East Baltimore, where services were held yesterday.

He is survived by his wife, the former Alvera Ferguson Harris; two daughters, Curley Patrice Jones of Washington and Pamela Williams of Charlotte, N.C.; his mother, Mae Frances Moody of Woodmoor; and a sister, Brenda Jones, who lives in Gambia.