JOSEPH ANCE JONES

The following bio was taken from page 264 of the book entitled "Rusk County History" compiled and edited and used with permission of the Rusk County Historical Commission.

Transcribed by Shirley Koym

Submitted by Gloria Briley Mayfield, Cemeteries of Texas

The Jones family name is of Welsh origin and has been prominent in England for many centuries. Records show that the first arrival in the New World by the names of Jones was Lewis Jones, who came from County Berk, England in 1620 and settled in Watertown, Massachusetts. In later years, branches of the family were established in other colonies, as well as in Nova Scotia and parts of Canada. Today the descendants are scattered throughout our land.

According to our records in 1866 my father, Joseph Ance Jones, was born to the family that migrated to Georgia. There he met my mother, Mary Ann Grindle, who was of Irish descent. They were married on October 1, 1893. Soon after the birth of their fourth child in 1900, they heard rumors that Texas was a promised land "flowing with milk and honey." Being tired of the hills of Georgia, they packed their belongings and came to Texas to join my maternal grandparents who had come to Texas at an earlier date. By 1913 three additional children were born, making a total of seven children.

My father soon found "the milk and honey" were not flowing so freely, as he had to work very hard clearing and tending land as a sharecropper to make a living for his growing family. Perhaps the hard work contributed to his early death in 1922 at the age of fifty-six.

The two boys of the family, with the help of the girls helped my mother carry on. We all liked living in the country and often walked through the fields and woodlands. We began to notice numerous egg-shaped rocks and someone said, "I’ve heard there is oil to be found where that kind of rock is located." One day in 1930 we noticed an unusual number of cars traveling the country road by our house. An acquaintance slowed down long enough to shout, "Oil! Dad Joiner has struck oil!" Afterwards, it was like the world had gone mad. People were trying to buy oil rights and land cheaply, to sell high. Roughnecks flocked to the new oil field. Parents warned their children not to mix and mingle with those "old roughnecks."

The years flew by and on March 18, 1937; the New London School explosion rocked the community, killing two hundred ninety students, teachers, and visitors. Everyone gathered to help sift the debris for bodies. The tenderhearted natives were falling by the wayside with faint hearts, while those tough "old roughnecks" worked endlessly and tirelessly helping many children to survive.

Today, you can’t tell the natives from the newcomers. Our children are married to their children. On July 3, 1931, I married one of those roughnecks, James Britton Sims, who died July 2, 1945.

James left two children, Bobbie Joe Ann and Rebecca Janice. Jo Anne married Vernon Barrett Jones, and Rebecca married Jimmy Pat Horn. There is one grandson, James Seaborn Jones, and one step-granddaughter, Jimmie Kay Horn.

Submitted by Dollie Jones Sims