His mother died in childbirth and his father, Ely, worked in Central and South America as a train engineer leaving Jones with his aunts and uncles.
[2] Later, as a field representative for New York-based Blair & Co., Edward Jones moved to Ohio, then to St. Louis,[2] where he left the company because of a dispute about his proceeds from a sale.
[6] They had four children, Ann, David, who died as a child, Martha and Edward D. "Ted" Jones.
Before the ratification of the 21st Amendment, repealing prohibition, Jones persuaded the family to take the company's stock public.
[8] In 1943, Edward D. Jones & Co. merged with Whittaker & Co., which was established in 1871 and was then the oldest brokerage firm west of the Mississippi River.