Born in Lake City, Florida, Jessie Aaron was a folk art wood carver whose subjects were animals, people and faces. He lived his entire life in Florida, primarily in Gainsville. Of mixed white, black, and Seminole Indian ancestry, he was one of eleven children. He left school before finishing the first grade to support his family. He worked as farm laborer, baker and cook in the Hotel Thomas in Gainesville from 1933 to 1937 and then worked in hospitals, university fraternities and for the Seaboard System Railroad. In his middle 70s, he was forced to sell his nursery business to finance his wife's cataract surgery.

He attributes his decade-long wood carving career to the answer he got to a prayer for guidance. "...the Spirit woke me u...