Martha Jones 1814-1906

JONES, WHITE, SAVAGE

Posted By: Sharon Elijah (email)
Date: 9/18/2018 at 07:33:20

2 August 1906 - West Branch Times

Martha J. Jones was born in Ohio, July 25, 1814, and died at Atalissa, Ia., July 27, 1906, aged 92 years and 2 days.

She was united in marriage to Ellis Jones, May 19, 1836, at Chillicothe, Ohio, by Rev. Samuel Caruthers. To this union seven children were born: Mrs. Mary E. White, of West Branch, Ia.; John N., who died in 1869; Joseph H. of Mt. Vernon, Ill.; Theodore C., of West Liberty, Ia.; Clarissa J., who died in 1861; William H., of Atalissa, Ia., at whose home the mother died; Mrs. Mattie M. Savage, of West Branch. There are also 12 grand children as as many great grandchildren. Her husband died May 18, 1856, she living a widow over 50 years.

She and her husband united with the Presbyterian church at South Salem, Ohio, when they were young and residing there a number of years, when they moved by wagons to Lewiston, Ill., where the husband died. Two years later she came with her children to Iowa, locating on a farm where they lived until the breaking out of the Civil war. Two of her sons going into service, she moved to Atalissa, where she has since made her home.

Grandma Jones, as she was familiarly known, was left an orphan when a little child and cast among strangers, and at the age of 9 years she began to work for her board and clothes, and be self supporting. She never attended school but two or three short winter terms when they had but two books, the Bible as reader and speller, and an arithmetic, yet few people of today are better readers, writers or spellers than she was. She read many books--biography, history and missionary books being her favorites. She retained the use of her faculties until the last and, through reading the daily papers, was well posted on current events and especially interested in national affairs, of which she spoke freely in her home. Having begun reading the Bible in school and being a woman who had ever trusted in God, she had studied His word with which she was very familiar, and only two weeks before her death she repeated the whole of the 23rd Psalm without a break in her voice, and spoke of the comfort it had been to her during the six months she was confined to her bed.

The funeral services were held at the Presbyterian church in Atalissa Saturday, July 28, conducted by Rev. Geo. Furniss, of West Liberty. Her children were all present at her funeral but Joseph H., of Illinois. Six grandsons acted as pall-bearers, they being Thead and Charlie White of West Branch, Walter and Rob White and Ned Savage of Cedar Rapids, and Fred Jones of Davenport.