BRIEF
BIOGRAPHY OF MARY JOHN JONES
By Martha Jones, her
daughter.
Mary John Jones,
daughter of Henry and Margaret Harris John, and wife of Patriarch John G Jones,
was born in Dowlais, Glamorganshire, South Wales, April 27th 1832.
At the age of three she
was left without the tender care of a mother and she was raised by a
step-mother who proved to be good and kind. Mary John Jones was one of the
first to join the Church in her native land and throughout her life she was a
faithful worker. She was baptized in l847. Five years later she was married and
her eldest daughter Adelaide was born in Wales. In l855 the family came to America settling first in St. Louis where her father had located. Here
her second child was born. Later the family moved to Coalchester,
the birthplace of her third child in l857. Two years afterwards the family
started with a hand-cart across the plains to Utah. She endured the many hardships
pursuant to that long and weary pilgrimage, but ever without complaint. She was
always of a spiritual turn of mind. One year after she joined the church she
had a dream to the effect that she saw her husband, herself, and a child
standing in a beautiful house and that a pleasant gentleman came to her and
showed her about. Years afterward she
recognized Bishop Faucett as that man, when one day
he came to urge her husband and herself to go and get their endowments, and the
beautiful house she had seen was the Endowment House. She knew every room as if
she had been there many times before.
The hardships of the
early days in Utah
were shared abundantly by Mary John Jones and her family. In those days she was a constant worker among
the sick even after a hard day’s toil in the fields gathering ground cherries
or gleaning a neighboring wheat field. On one occasion she and her daughter
were approaching the market with a sack each of ground-cherries on their head
when who should they meet but President Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, A. 0. Smoot, and some others. As they approached President Young
said, “Well, Sisters, taking your hard earnings to get new clothes?”-and
they had to drop their sacks and shake hands with them all. When she came home
she still had the blush on her cheeks, for she was naturally proud and
independent. She would make “gaters” as they were
called, out of pieces of her husband's trousers, have soles put on at the
shoemakers then would loan these around to be used at the dances when she could
not go herself.
She had never seen a
spinning wheel before coming to Utah,
but she soon learned to wash and pick wool and card bats, then spin and weave it into cloth. Then she would make it into clothes for
the family use. This was all hand-work for in those days there were no sewing
machines.
Mary John Jones saw the
want of bread many times during her first years in Utah and it was only by the most careful
management and saving that she and her husband provided the bare necessities of
life. On one occasion she traded her labor in spading a lot for that of
seamstress who was engaged to make some clothes for the family. Indians always
frightened her and she never lived to see that fear leave her.
The first six years in Utah she never saw a
dollar--but traded the things she made and had for the things she wanted that
someone else had. She was the mother of 12 children, 8 boys and 4 daughters.
She met her death by accident [on the way home from a funeral] - being thrown
from a buggy; breaking her back. This was in 1886 and she was 54 years of age.
OBITUARY of MARY JOHN JONES
Died at the residence in
the 4th Ward in this City (Provo,
Utah), Monday September 27th 1886
at ll:05 P.M. Mary John Jones, beloved
wife of John G Jones, age 54 years and
five months. She was thrown from a Buggy
and received injuries to the head and back which were fatal, and she died of
the effects 36 hours later.
Deceased was born April
27, l832, at Dowlais, South
Wales. When three years old her mother died leaving her without
the tender attentions of a mother. She was among the first of her native land
to receive the message of the Latter-day Saint Gospel and was baptized by
Phillip Sykes in Jan. 1847 at Coat Brook Vale, Monmouthshire, England. She was married Feb. 9th,
1852 and with her husband she emigrated to America June 1, l854 in William
Taylor's Co. on the sailing vessel Marchvil1e [Marshfield] and in l859 gathered
with the Saints in Utah, in Captain Stevenson's train, arriving in Salt Lake City,
late in Sept. l859, and the following month, moved to and settled in Provo,
Utah where she resided and was a faithful and true Latter Day Saint, and
gathered around her many warm hearted, and true friends.
Her
life being one of usefulness in the Female Relief Society, and among the sick
or wherever her labors were required. She was a true and devoted wife
and mother. A mother of 12 children, 8 of whom are living,
who with her faithful husband deeply mourn her loss.
Funeral will be held in
the 4th Ward Assembly Room at 2 P.M. Sept. 29th. The room
was filled with
sympathizing friends. Appropriate remarks were made by Elders L. V. Halliday, David John, Andrew Watson, and George Meldrum. At the close of which hosts of friends followed
the remains to Provo
City Cemetery. (Deseret
News.)
