About Me
The Early Years Born at the start of the 20th century, Indiana Jones' life kept pace with and mirrored the tumultuous events that reshaped the modern world through two World Wars and an era of adventure. So synonymous was his name with death defying exploits, a popular phrase was coined: "If adventure has a name, it must be Indiana Jones." In truth, "Indiana" was but a fanciful alias adopted by Jones at a very young age. He was born Henry Jones, Jr. on July 1, 1899, in Princeton, New Jersey. The son of Henry and Anna Jones, he lived in the shadow of his esteemed father, and often bristled at the belittling moniker "Junior." Jones began using the name "Indiana" as a child, borrowing the appellation from the beloved family dog. It was an early and largely innocuous act of rebellion, much to the consternation of his conservative father. The elder Jones, a professor at Princeton University, embarked on a two-year lecture tour starting in 1908. Accompanying him was Anna and Indy, and Helen Seymour, Professor Jones' former tutor at Oxford who came along to school the young Jones. The small family traveled to major universities and cities around the world as Professor Jones spoke on the medieval chivalric code and the Holy Grail, topics of great importance to him. The experience opened up young Jones' eyes to the world's many different cultures and traditions. In Egypt, he encountered Howard Carter in his search of the Valley of the Kings. Jones' earnest desire to learn and his sharp mind earned him the respect of T.E. Lawrence, another new acquaintance found in Cairo. The two maintained a correspondence for years. It is said that Lawrence may have first turned Jones on to archeology and the wonders of antiquity. In Paris, Jones witnessed firsthand the transforming world of modern art by meeting Pablo Picasso. In Vienna, at the age of 9, he became smitten with young Princess Sophie, the daughter of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The following year, he explored the African wilderness in Nairobi with former President Teddy Roosevelt. The last year of Professor Jones' lecture tour brought young Indiana to Asia, where he learned a great deal of the various religions of the world in Benares, and the merits of Eastern medicine when he was treated for illness while traveling through China. Returning to America, the Jones family was shattered by the tragic death of Anna, who succumbed to scarlet fever in 1912. Henry Jones moved with his son to Utah to begin work at the Four Corners University in Las Mesas. Later that year, Jones narrowly avoided his own death by escaping the Titanic disaster alongside his tutor, Helen Seymour. In Utah, Jones witnessed thieves attempting to steal the Cross of Coronado and came to realize the importance of preserving items of antiquity in museums. He recklessly plunged headlong into a daring romp to recover the cross from the cutthroats, but ultimately failed. Nonetheless, it was important in young Jones' development, and he would carry much with him from that day -- he scarred his chin in his first attempt to use a bullwhip, developed a well-founded ophidiophobia from plunging into a circus tank filled with snakes, and was given a rumpled, well-worn fedora by one of the robbers in an uncharacteristically generous gesture. He would carry these traits -- hallmarks of his character -- with him for decades to come. The Great War In the years following Anna's death, Henry Jones became consumed by his research regarding the Holy Grail. This served to distance him from his young son. In 1916, during a visit to extended family in New Mexico, Indy escaped his father's reach. A trip across the Mexican border swept Indy up in the Mexican revolution, and Indy briefly rode with General Francisco Villa. Among Villa's riders was a displaced Belgian named Remy Boudian. Reports from Europe, as well as letters from T.E. Lawrence, told of the growing advance of German forces. Indy became disillusioned with Villa's cause, and was trying to find himself at the age of 16. When Remy was determined to return to Europe to defend his beloved Belgium, Indy accompanied him. He would later credit youthful exuberance and naïveté for propelling him into the bloody battlefields of a European war. As he would later recount, "when you're 16 and you hear of a fight going on, you sometimes think it'd be a good idea to get involved." The first port of call across the ocean was Dublin, a brief stopover on their way to London. Once again, revolution erupted around Jones as he witnessed the Easter Rebellion. Once in London, he found a recruitment office. At 16, he was too young to serve -- and America was not yet involved in the war. Nonetheless, Jones adopted a less-than-clever alias -- Henri Defense -- and signed up for the Belgian Army. Though the recruitment officer saw through his ruse, he didn't stop Indy. Belgium was hungry for fresh soldiers to defend her soil. It wasn't long before Indy witnessed firsthand the horrors of war. At the Battle of the Somme, Indy's unit was decimated, leaving the young Corporal Defense in charge of the frightened troops. They were reassigned under French command, and Indy was captured by German forces during a devastating counterattack. Jones was taken to a daunting maximum security prison, but with the help of fellow inmates -- including future French general Charles DeGaulle -- he escaped, and rejoined the Belgian army. After briefly serving as a motorcycle courier for the French army, Jones was reassigned to Africa, receiving a promotion in the process. Along with Remy, Lieutenant Defense became lost in transit and came to serve with the very unorthodox 25th Royal Fusiliers as they tracked down enemy artillery in German East Africa. Indy rejoined his unit in Lake Tanganyika, where he continued to prove himself despite differences with his commanding officer, Major Boucher. Jones received a promotion to Captain, and was given the grueling task of crossing the unforgiving elements of the Congo to deliver weapons. Many of the unit's soldiers died of disease, including Boucher. Incapacitated by jungle illness, Jones recovered in a hospital run by Albert Schweitzer. Following his Africa duties, Jones returned to Europe in 1917, and graduated from his frontline activities to espionage and intelligence operations. He accompanied the secret emissaries attempting to negotiate a separate peace between the Allies and Austria, and also tried to encourage the Spanish to turn against the Germans. By the time of his 18th birthday, Indy was stationed in Petrograd, Russia, working in the French Embassy. He tried to ferret out information about the Bolshevik uprising and was caught in the riots during a failed attempt to overthrow the provisional government. Other assignments that year led Jones to Prague and Beersheba. In 1918, his intelligence operations took him to Romania, Northern Italy, and Istanbul. By 1919, following long years of death and destruction, the Great War finally came to a halt. At the Paris Peace Conference, Indy's talent for language served him well as he worked as a translator. With the formalization of treaties, many believed the claim that "a thousand years of peace" would follow from that day, but within two decades, the world would be at war again. The College Years Following the end of the War, Indiana Jones finally returned to America to continue his studies at the University of Chicago. Having experienced war before his time, Indy found himself older and much worldlier than his fellow classmates. As a reflex to the death and destruction of the Great War, America in the 1920s was eager to celebrate life. Jones was no different. He embraced the growing popularity of jazz, trying his own hand at the soprano saxophone with such up-and-coming luminaries as Sidney Bechet. These musical contacts led Jones to New York during a break from school in the summer of 1920, where he worked backstage at a Broadway musical and met young George Gershwin. Jones' brief fling with the entertainment industry even brought him to California, where he worked as a stuntman on a John Ford western. In the 1920s, Jones' academic pursuits were split between his strengths in linguistics and archeology. After having completed his undergraduate degree, Jones moved into a linguistics graduate program at the Sorbonne. There, he was lured by a beautiful archeology professor, Dorian Belecamus. With her, Indy went to Greece to study the Oracle at Delphi. While there, he was drawn into a plot to overthrow King Constantine, a plot Jones was able to thwart. Despite such danger, he realized that archeology would become a lifelong pursuit in his life. After completing his graduate program, Jones was hired for his first professorial job at London University. The head of the Archeology department, Joanna Campbell, invited Jones to a dig in Whithorn, Scotland, on an expedition to confirm the legend of Merlin. Here, Jones met and became romantically involved with Campbell's daughter, Dierdre. The two traveled together in other archeological pursuits, and tragically, Dierdre Campbell Jones was killed in a plane crash during an expedition to Brazil in April of 1926. While studying archeology, Jones learned from Professor Abner Ravenwood. The two developed a strong friendship, which Jones destroyed in 1926 by romancing Abner's young daughter, Marion. He would not see her again until a decade later. The World Returns to War Despite the promised millennium of peace, the world was gearing once again for a globe-enveloping war. As international tensions grew in Europe, Jones was in Asia. In 1935, when attempting to recover the lost ashes of Nurhachi for a family of Chinese gangsters in exchange for a rare diamond, Jones was double-crossed. During his harried escape from Shanghai, his plane crashed in India. Alongside his traveling companions Willie Scott and Short Round, Jones discovered a surviving Thuggee cult in the caverns beneath Pankot palace. The bloodthirsty cult had kidnapped all the children from the neighboring village of Madripoor, forcing them into slave labor to dig for gems to fund their dark cause. The cult was determined to recover the sacred Sankara stones, mystical rocks with great power that would allow the Kali-worshiping cult to dominate the world. Jones was able to kill the cult leader and free the enslaved children. The next year, Indiana Jones was contacted by the U.S. government following reports of Adolph Hitler's growing interest in occult antiquities. A French archeologist, René Belloq, led a German dig in the deserts of Africa. Army Intelligence confirmed that Hitler was in pursuit of the Ark of the Covenant, the sacred chest described in the Bible as being the transport for the Ten Commandments. According to legend, the resting place of the Ark could be determined with a related relic, the headpiece to the Staff of Ra. Its owner, Abner Ravenwood, lived in Nepal, so Jones voyaged there to make amends with his former mentor. Nazi spies discovered Jones' plans, and attempted to secure the headpiece before he did. They failed, and Indy was reunited with Marion Ravenwood. He learned that Abner had died. Jones and Marion rekindled their turbulent romance during their quest to recover the Ark. They succeeded, transporting the Ark to Washington D.C.. Indiana Jones and his patron, Marcus Brody of the National Museum, were handsomely compensated for the priceless artifact, but the government reneged on its initial promise to allow the museum to keep the Ark. In 1937, Jones left Marshall College in Connecticut for Barnett College in New York. The following year, wealthy industrialist Walter Donavan contacted Jones. Donavan was funding an archeological expedition to find the Holy Grail, and the venture had stalled when the project leader, Henry Jones Sr., went missing. The elder Jones had been kidnapped by German agents, and Indiana Jones was once again recruited to beat the Nazis in a race for a priceless relic. The Holy Grail was never recovered, but Jones was able to reunite with his father, ending decades of estrangement. Post War Years Indiana Jones continued to lecture and teach in a variety of higher learning institutes around the world after the 1940s, though records of his adventuring diminished. It is known that in 1950, he attempted to save a sacred Native American relic from falling into the wrong hands in Wyoming, but not much is known after that. Age and injury may have finally taken their toll on Jones' adventuring days, though he was markedly active in his advanced age. Even in the 1990s, Jones was still lecturing, at the age of 93. Though he needed a cane and wore an eye-patch, Jones still led an independent life, possessed a quick wit, and could recount a lifetime of extraordinary adventures throughout the 20th century.
