Boisfeuillet Jones; Educator Led Philanthropic Groups

Boisfeuillet Jones, a former educator, federal official and administrator of several philanthropic organizations, has died. He was 88.

Jones died Wednesday at Piedmont Hospital after falling at his Atlanta residence and slipping into a coma, said his son, Washington Post Publisher Boisfeuillet Jones Jr.

Jones was president of the Emily and Ernest Woodruff Foundation and the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation from 1964 to 1988. Robert Woodruff was a longtime chairman of Coca-Cola Co.

“Atlanta has lost one of its greatest champions and philanthropy one of its finest leaders,” said Woodruff foundations President Pete McTier.

While Jones was president of the Woodruff Foundation, it gave $105 million to Emory University, one of the largest gifts ever made to an educational institution at that time. The school’s health sciences center is named for Robert Woodruff, and its admissions office is housed in the Boisfeuillet Jones Center.

Jones also was president of three other foundations, the Joseph B. Whitehead, Lettie Pate Whitehead and Lettie Pate Evans foundations, from 1972 to 1988.

He served in President Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration as an expert on health policy and also worked with President John F. Kennedy, said his son.

Born in Macon, Ga., Jones attended public school in Atlanta and went to Emory University, where he received both his undergraduate and law degrees. He served in the Navy during World War II, holding a position in the Bureau of Ordnance.

After the war, he returned to Emory, where he served as an assistant professor of political science, dean of administration and a vice president. In 1952, he wrote a comprehensive plan for the expansion of the Emory Clinic and the development of schools of dentistry, medicine and nursing.

In 1959, Jones became chairman of a national committee investigating the quality of medical research.

After joining the Woodruff foundations, Jones worked to widen the philanthropy’s reach to address delinquency, job training and welfare in the central city, Waldemar A. Nielsen wrote in “The Big Foundations.”

Besides his son, Jones is survived by his wife, Anne Baynon Register Jones; a daughter, Laura Hardman; and five grandchildren.