Robert Jones, who co-founded Orleans Psychotherapy Associates in 1986 and the Cape Cod Village for adults with autism in 2020, died on July 2, 2024 while attending an AA meeting in Harwich, where he was scheduled to receive a chip recognizing his years of sobriety. The cause was sudden cardiac arrest. He was 80.
His wife, Lauren, said that Bob “was a fantastic bad boy of the finest kind.”
The son of Robert and Muriel Jones and the oldest of three siblings, Bob was born on July 31, 1943, in Bridgeport, Conn. The family lived in a subsidized housing project when Bob was a boy.
His younger brother, Tom, suffered from cerebral palsy, and Bob took it upon himself to take Tom to his physical therapy sessions, pulling him in a little red wagon. That experience, Lauren said, was the source of Bob’s lifelong commitment to helping the most vulnerable.
After the family moved to Derby, Conn., Bob attended Notre Dame High School in West Haven, graduating in 1961, and then the University of Connecticut, where he majored in history and economics. While in college, Bob worked part-time at the Mansfield Training School, a state mental hospital for people with developmental disabilities, where he witnessed the insensitivity and substandard care that characterized such facilities at the time.
Bob left the university for a time to live in a hippie commune near Storrs, Conn., growing vegetables and striving to live close to the land and free of social constraints. He was an early devotee of Bob Dylan and of the Canadian poet, novelist, and songwriter Leonard Cohen. He was at the legendary concert at Woodstock in 1969 — the highlight of the decade, he said.
Bob became partners with Patricia McGraw near the end of the decade and finished his degree in 1970. The couple had two children together, son Jesse in 1972 and daughter Adrienne in 1976, moving to Cape Cod in 1973.
Bob’s first employment on the Cape was in Orleans, where he worked on construction sites during the day and tossed pies at Villa Pizza at night. He also worked at Dodie’s Pizza in Provincetown and spent free time at the Yardarm and Land Ho, where he made friendships that lasted a lifetime.
Bob took advantage of the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act, passed in 1973, and completed training in mental health. In 1978 he became the first executive director of Lower Cape Human Services in Orleans, where he also met Lauren Burgess. They married in 1983.
At a time when state mental hospitals were being closed due to abuse and inefficiency, Bob and Lauren teamed up to work for the Dept. of Mental Health and establish the Woodward House, a group home and day program for the mentally ill on Aspinet Road in North Eastham.
In an online remembrance, former colleague Deborah Bainton wrote that Bob was “hell bent” on helping people with severe mental illnesses integrate into their communities and on “normalizing them for the Cape communities who received them home.”
After years at Woodward House, Lauren earned a master’s degree in social work from Smith College in 1983, and Bob followed, earning his in 1986. Together they established Orleans Psychotherapy Associates, a group practice with a staff of six that operated for more than 30 years.
Bob was a devoted father, coaching Jesse’s Little League team and serving on the Nauset Regional School Committee and Orleans Elementary School Committee for 17 years.
Bob and Lauren’s son Alexander was born in 1988 and was diagnosed with autism a couple of years later. Bob built a deep connection with his son based in friendship, acceptance, and love. Alexander inspired the creation of Cape Cod Village, a project that fused Bob’s commitment to family and to serving people with mental and developmental disabilities.
People with “profound autism” who are minimally verbal or nonverbal frequently have a strong attraction to apparently random subjects, such as trucks or elevators. Alexander’s obsession is carwashes, and Bob built his relationship with his son by embracing that obsession with him. They would drive up and down the East Coast visiting and photographing carwashes and listening to music together.
When the family discovered the International Carwash Association, Lauren wrote and explained Alexander’s interest. The association invited the family to its convention in Las Vegas, where they spent days as VIP guests exploring the latest innovations in the industry — the happiest days of Alexander’s life, Lauren said.
In 2011, Bob and Lauren attended a conference on the lack of housing for adults with autism and decided to build some. Rather than a single large building, they planned to build smaller homes in a wooded setting close to the center of town. They began with only $75 but succeeded in getting a $3-million low-interest loan from the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture and a series of grants from the state, county, and all the Lower Cape towns, as well as private donations. In 2020 they opened Cape Cod Village: four homes that house 16 adults with autism built around a large community center that offers programs for residents and others living with developmental disabilities.
Bob and Lauren put equal care into their own home, expanding the original 1950s structure and planting flower and vegetable gardens around the house and its expansive deck. Many of Bob’s woodworking pieces, which emphasize the natural beauty and texture of the wood, are integrated in the gardens.
Bob loved boating and fishing, driving on the outer beach, and traveling. He and Lauren would winter on the coast and in the mountains of Mexico, and he remained committed to his left-leaning politics.
“He told it like it was, but often did so with wit and humor, love, wisdom, and a twinkle in his eye,” said his daughter, Adrienne. He could get spirited and feisty — traits that served him well when he faced resistance to Cape Cod Village. He was always an idealist, and, Lauren said, “the very best kind of rascal.”
Bob is survived by his wife, Lauren, of East Orleans; daughter Adrienne of Brewster; son Jesse of Wilmington, N.C.; son Alexander of Orleans; five grandchildren; and his brother, Tom, of Florida.
He was predeceased by his parents and his younger sister, Carol Eskins.
In lieu of flowers, donations in Bob’s honor can be made to the Cape Cod Village Center for Developmental Disabilities at 19 Childs Homestead Rd., Orleans 02653.
A celebration of life is being planned for this fall.
