EVAN
JONES---BIOGRAPHY
My grandfather, Evan Jones, was born in South
Wales, 13 July 1839,
and was the eldest son of John Jones and Susannah Titus. Starting his education
at the age of eight he remained in school until he was fourteen, at which time
he took his place in the world of work.
Locomotives seemed to have a fascination for him as they do
for most boys, and his first job was lamp boy on the railroad at Swansea.
His first promotion came after two years of service when he moved into the
locomotive department as a cleaner, or wiper and later transferred to New
Milford where he worked in the same capacity.
At eighteen years of age he was employed as fireman on a
boat running from New Milford to Ireland,
and later was transferred to a river steamboat running down to Milford Haven.
One bright sunshiny day while he was carrying passengers to Ireland
he met a friend of his with a party that was going on a picnic. He [the friend]
invited grandfather to go with them to take two girls that did not happen to
have partners. He did not want to accept the invitation because he was bashful
to ask the girls, but a little coaxing from the girls persuaded him to go.
After that he took turns taking them out. One night at a dance he discovered he
was courting a Mormon girl. The other girl was not a Mormon. He thought a great
deal of them both, but grandfather not being a Mormon thought if he married the
Mormon girl there might be trouble.
Up to this time grandfather never thought much about
religion. He had been just a carefree boy attending churches of different
religions with the neighboring boys. His parents were Methodists, but he did
not like their belief and his parents never persuaded him to believe theirs was
the true church. When he asked his parents which one to marry they said to
marry the non-Mormon, for if he married Jane Thomas, the Mormon girl, he would
be sorry. They thought any religion was better than Mormonism. So he decided to
ask his Father in Heaven which one to take for a wife. He prayed very earnestly,
and he said he heard the answer as plain as you can hear me, "Take the
Mormon girl and you will be happy the rest of your life."
When he told his parents they were angry with him and said
he was crazy and tried to get him not to marry her, but he decided to
investigate further. So he talked to the girl again as he had done many times
before about her religion and would go with her to her home when the
missionaries were there and discussed their belief in the Mormon Church. They
gave him many books to read which he liked very much. He also went without many
meals to buy books with his money. Through good hard study and prayer again, this
time the same answer as before came to him, "Marry the Mormon girl and you
will be happy the rest of your life." So Jane Thomas the Mormon girl
became his wife.
In 1867 grandfather resigned his position on the riverboat
and in May with his family sailed for America
for his religion on the Palmyra of the Guard-Line, a ten-day boat
from Liverpool. Upon his arrival in New
York he resided in Williamsburg
for sixteen months where he worked, saving his money to emigrate
to Utah for his religion. He
secured a position with the Long Island Railroad Company at Jamaica,
Long Island and had charge of two engines.
Leaving New York
in the summer of 1868 he started for Utah
from Benton, Wyoming,
the terminus of the Union Pacific Railroad Company. He traveled with ox teams
in Captain Simpson Molen's company and arrived in Salt
Lake City 2
September 1868 with his wife and five children with five cents in
his pocket. He located in Paradise, a small town in the
southeastern part of Cache Valley
twelve miles from Logan where my
mother's father [David Thomas] and her brother [William Nash Thomas] and his
family had located a few years previous.
Although this was twenty-five years after the first pioneers
came into the Valley, the people in that vicinity were very poor. The
grasshoppers and crickets had destroyed all of their crops, the grasshoppers
being so thick at times that they shaded the sun. The Indians were also very
troublesome and settlers had to share with them what little they had to keep
peace.
In 1893 he left for a mission to Wales,
returning in 1895. In 1906 he went again to Wales
for a visit and to gather genealogy. He is the only one of his family who
joined the Church and has done all the work for his kindred dead as far back as
he has any record. During the twenty-five years that he has been working in the
Logan Temple
he has done work not only for his own kindred but for hundreds of others, and
he is still active in temple work.
Soon after he joined the Church, through his studious nature
and humble spirit, he received a testimony of the divinity of the Lord's work
and he prizes it above everything else.
He is proud of his large family of 10 children, 50
grandchildren, 45 great grandchildren, and 2 great-great grandchildren, all of
whom are justly proud of him and would not have been Latter-day Saints if it
had not been for his faith and prayers.
Sent to me by LaRue Jones Linthicum, 1488
W. 4890 South, Murray, Utah, in Jan. 1964.
Written at the top of page 1:
"received from Mrs. Roy Soderborg, 20 Sep '64."
[The history was apparently written before Evan Jones's
death in 1935.]
