Reuben Isaac Jones (1835 - 1917)

JONES, MILLER, GIGRAY, HORTON, MCCANN, GOODWIN, EMARY

Posted By: Karen Brewer (email)
Date: 3/5/2024 at 11:47:10

The Osceola Sentinel, Osceola, Iowa
May 3, 1917, Page 1

Reuben I. Jones.

Reuben I. Jones was born at Green Castle, Putnam county, Indiana, November 17, 1835. He was one of a family of nine children, two of whom, Mrs. Mary Miller of Osceola and Elizabeth Jones of Lamoni, Ia., are still living. Mr. Jones came to Des Moines, Iowa in 1853, and two years later moved to Clarke county. He was married in 1858 to Susan Gigray of this county, To them were born ten children, Frank I., Wm. and J. O. of Clarke county, Ia., T. J. of Basin City, Wyoming, Mrs. Mayme Horton of Hale Center, Texas, Mrs. N. T. Miller of Des Moines, Mrs. Geo. McCann, Mrs. Myrtle Goodwin and Mrs. F. J. Emary of Clarke county, and Mary Elizabeth, deceased. His aged widow also survives him.

Mr. Jones moved to Nevada in 1864. In 1866 he went to California. In 1868 he returned to Clarke county. Those journeys were made by emigrant train transportation.

The deceased lived on a farm in Ward Township until a few years ago when he removed to Osceola where he had since resided. He had been spending the winter with his son T. J. of Basin, Wyoming, and after a brief illness died on April 25, 1917, being 81 years, 5 months and 8 days old.

The nine children were present at the funeral services which were conducted at the home in Osceola Saturday afternoon at 2:30 o'clock, Rev. Wm. (?) having charge. Interment was made in Maple Hill cemetery.

More than sixty years ago Reuben I. Jones established a shoe shop in Osceola, then a mere hamlet on a bleak prairie. It was not a repair shop, oh no, it was a real shoe shop presided over by a real shoemaker who made boots and shoes for the pioneers for miles around. He met and mingled with the early settlers and he learned to know and to love them and in turn his congenial disposition won for him the universal favor of the frontiersmen, and from the friendly, hospitable customs of that ruled pioneer communities Reuben Jones never departed. Though he recognized and appreciated the conveniences and higher ideals that came with the increased settlement his love for nature kept him a pioneer to the end. There were but two instances in the past half century when he did not join his companions for a month in the wilds seeking big game. Only last fall he accompanied them to the lakes on the borders of Canada for a chase and strange as it may seem it was one of the most successful of his long experience and he sent home a fine quality of venison to his family and friends. Among the many trophies in his late home is a huge bull moose splendidly mounted.

Reuben Jones was a man who united sound sense with strong convictions and a candid out spoken disposition eminently fitted him to assist in moulding the rude elements of pioneer society into form and consistency. How much this community owes to him and such as he is beyond our estimation, but his life and that of his good wife and their sons and daughters has proved a helpful element in making Clarke county fit to be home of thousands of the present generation and those who may succeed them. Suffice it to say that Reuben Jones lived nobly and died peacefully in his year of maturity. The Stern Reaper found him "as a shuck of corn fully ripe for the harvest," and now a monument of good deeds remains in the memories of a bereaved family and a host of friends and neighbors.