Mary Lou Jones, an older half-sister of our father, Charles F. Jones, an aunt to my current generation.
The only photo discovered of her so far is her sitting for a Jones family photograph in Harrison, Arkansas around 1905 – 1906 if I have the photo dated reasonably close. The following is a close up of her cropped from that family photo.
Mary Lou Jones, Later Ramsey
1873 -1913
Probably about the age of 32 in the Photo
As is the case with so many of the facts regarding our family history be it the history of the Jones family or the McGinnis clan, only so much can be reconstructed based on public records or vaguely recalled anecdotal information. So what follows is a description of what can be defined regarding Mary Lou’s life only from easily obtained public records and documents.
Her birth is recorded in the Jones Family Bible-
Mary Lou Jones, eldest daughter of A.H. Jones and E.A. Jones his first wife was born June 26, 1873
Two Mothers for Mary Lou, Only to Become a Mother to Her Siblings, Making Her Essentially the Third Mother of the Overall Family-
Her father had re-married in late December of 1879 after the death of her mother in March of the same year. Her stepmother Martha Moulder, now Jones, is the grandmother of our current generation, my generation. Mary Lou was but six years old at the time of her mother’s death. Essentially she was raised by her stepmother Martha. Martha gave birth to nine children when she died the same year of the birth of our Aunt Ruth in 1894. Mary Lou was 21 years of age when her stepmother died meaning in all likelihood she now became the surrogate mother to many of her step brothers and sisters.
This list of children in the household other than herself now included two siblings born of her own Mother, Esther, two years younger, born in 1875, and Brother Samuel, five years younger, born in 1875, then 16 years old. Also included are the eight living children of her stepmother, with the oldest being my Father, Charles, 13 years old, and Ruth, the youngest born that same year.
The next census year of 1900 reveals eleven individuals in the household of A.H. Jones including himself. A large family by any estimate, and certainly a huge responsibility for the eldest daughter to have to shoulder at such a young age. We will never know just what her role was in entirety, we can only speculate. It was not uncommon at the time for older daughters to be cast into such a role however and one can assume she certainly had a large influence on the younger children especially.
The following family photo taken in Harrison sometime around the 1905 to 1907 time period truly hints at her position in the family being seated in the front row near her father:
The Jones Family of Harrison, Arkansas
Circa 1905-1907
Back Row, left to right: Pearl (most likely), Bill, Martha or Mattie (most likely) Grady, Eula, Charles.Front row, Ruth, A.H. Jones, Granddaughter Mae Ruth Rutledge, Mary Lou, Albert.
Note the identity of Grady and Albert is subject to change. They look so much alike at this age making it very difficult to be really certain but after several years of looking at this photograph, Albert in the front row right is most likely.
The photo had become rather damaged over the years particularly on the face of Charles Jones. A novice attempt to digitally repair the damage to the photo is shown above. It is far from perfect.
Two children, Esther and Samuel had already left home by this time as evidenced by their not being included in the picture. Esther, another subject for more research had died some four years earlier in 1901 in Renton, Washington leaving behind two daughters. Esther’s youngest child, Mae Ruth Rutledge, was sometime later sent to live with her Grandfather Alfred in Harrison meaning that now young Mary Lou, at the age of 33, also had the responsibility of raising a niece. The whereabouts of her other niece as well as the father remains undiscovered at the present time. That niece remained a close member of the family throughout her life. She also settled in Bremerton when her Grandfather gave up the family farm in Harrison and moved to Washington State in 1912 to live out his life among his children. The timeline of the arrivals in Bremerton suggests that Samuel, the eldest son, was the influence behind the decision to leave Arkansas.
It should be noted that the granddaughter, Mae Ruth Rutledge, attended Dad’s funeral in 1972 and signed the funeral register as “Ernie and Mae Orchard”, her married name. I have no recall of seeing the woman at the time or at any time in my life, but she obviously was there or viewed the remains prior to the funeral.
Mary Lou’s Marriage and a Rather Soon Divorce-
Nothing regarding her life survives until the notation of her marriage in the Bible in 1909:
Mary L. Jones- Eldest daughter of A.H. Jones and E.A. Jones his 1st wife was married to- S.P. Ramsey at Harrison, Arkansas, October 17, 1909. By O.B. Murphy, J.P.
Mary would have been 36 year of age at the time of the marriage. Samuel Ramsey, apparently a widower with many children at home, was nine years older than Mary. Mary was an attractive woman but perhaps her years at home helping to raise her siblings found her to be an aging spinster when she finally did marry. Were all the eligible bachelors of the area long gone and she felt that to marry into a pre-made family was her only choice? Perhaps a reasonable assumption.
This was approximately two to four years following the family photograph shown here. Mary did not live long after her marriage and now that a copy of her death certificate has been obtained it states that sometime between her marriage in 1909 in Arkansas and her death in Bremerton in 1913 she had divorced her husband Samuel P. Ramsey. A look at a rather large census entry for the 1910 census for the Ramsey household might suggest a reason for the divorce, but that is only speculation. It obviously was a second marriage for Samuel Ramsey and perhaps Mary Lou found it an environment she no longer wanted to be a part of. The census page enumerated on April 16, 1910 follows here:
The Ramsey family Mary Lou married into was also a large pre-made family and Mary Lou just may have felt she had jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire. Online census searches bring no record of any of the Ramsey family in the 1920 census, certainly not of the father. He may have died during that period. Possible entries for some of the children have been traced down but that really is a subject for other families to pursue.
The Birth of Her Son-
To piece this together even more one has to return to the family Bible and note that Mary Lou had given birth to one child during her short marriage. The Bible states the following:
Garland Alfred Ramsey, son of Sam P. Ramsey and Mary L. his wife was born September 19, 1910 at Western Grove, Arkansas
The Death of Garland Alfred Ramsey-
Mary Lou was pregnant at the time of the Arkansas census in April of 1910. Sometime between the birth of her son in September of 1910, a year after her marriage, and the child’s death in Bremerton in 1912, Mary Lou divorced her husband and had come west to settle in Bremerton with her child and to be among all her family members, all now having left Arkansas by this time. The notation for the child’s death from the family Bible is as follows:
Garland Ramsey, Infant son of Sam Ramsey and Mary, his second wife died at the age of 2 years and 11 days, September 30, 1912, at 7 O’clock and was buried in Ivy Green Cemetery, Bremerton, Washington, October 1, 1912
The death certificate for the child reveals a primary and a contributing cause of his death. The primary cause in medical terminology and difficult to read states “Gastritis and (unreadable) Colitis”. Part of the colitis term is unreadable. The contributing cause explains it all however as it states: “Food Intoxication, Probable”. The term probable certainly adds confusion but for the most part it appears to have been caused by food poisoning.
Timing of the Family’s Migration to Washington State-
The Bremerton or Charleston city directories of 1910 do no list the presence of the patriarch, A.H. Jones or any of his family other than Samuel. This coincides with the obituary notation for our grandfather stating he arrived in Bremerton in 1912, obviously after the publication of the directory. The child’s death in Bremerton suggests that the family may have arrived around the middle of the year. I am making the assumption that Mary Lou may very well have accompanied her father to Bremerton making the location for her divorce in Arkansas.
Mary Lou was now 49 years old, and now on her own but living with her father and siblings, those un-married siblings that were still living with their father. The city directory for 1913-1914 shows living in the household of our Grandfather A.H. Jones, Albert, Grady, Eula and Ruth, ranging in ages from 30 to 19. Ruth married and left home in 1914, Eula in 1915 and Grady married sometime between 1914 and the death of his father in 1922. Assumedly the 1913 city directory entry was taken after the death of Mary Lou in March of that year.
Mary Lou’s Illness and Death-
The next date of record for Mary Lou of course is that of her death in Bremerton in 1913 about six months following the death of her only child. It had to have been a terrible shock to the entire family, for as suggested she was not only a sister but to some, even a mother figure. She had been living in Bremerton probably for less than a year. If she had arrived earlier than 1912, the year the majority of the family arrived, she surely would have been found in some record as living with a sibling. No directories reveal her presence earlier than 1912. Being that her son died in Bremerton it tends to establish 1912 as the year she came west.
Her death certificate has recently been acquired and it does explain the circumstances of her death and it appears to have happened rather suddenly. Apparently she had been under treatment for about two months that eventually required surgery. The reason of death, “Surgical shock- following abdominal surgery”. Apparently she was suffering from appendicitis and I suspect that in 1913 any surgery was a serious matter and perhaps that explains the two months of treatment. A search of the internet reveals that the first successful appendectomy surgeries began in the late 1890’s, but some 20 years before Mary Lou’s procedure. That is a relatively short time for a new surgical procedure to become well developed and it just might be that in 1913 an appendectomy was very serious and was used as a last resort. All speculation of course but it is a distinct possibility that Mary Lou was very ill and it became necessary to perform surgery in order to save her life.
As can be seen on the copy of her death certificate she died of surgical shock. A very faint entry below reveals the word appendicitis. To me that is the root cause of her illness. The rest of that entry as well as the entry regarding secondary causes are beyond my skills of reading medical terminology. I will leave that that task to others.
Mary died at the relatively young age of 39 years, 8 months, 3 days old. As noted on the certificate she is also buried in Bremerton, in Ivy Green Cemetery. It has been many years since I visited the Jones family plot in that cemetery and at the time I was not into the details of family history and I have no pictures or even much recall as to all that are buried in the plot or near by. I think it is reasonable to assume that Mary Lou lies somewhere near her father Alfred H. Jones, her son Garland Alfred Ramsey, a brother, Bill, a subject for a later posting still being researched, and her future sister-in-law, Pearl Baker Jones.
This is all that can be gathered regarding our Aunt Mary Lou Jones using what records that have survived. Her story was completely unknown to me as I grew up and I am pleased that at least something of her life can now be told.
If ever anyone might have the opportunity to once again visit Ivy Green Cemetery in Bremerton, new pictures of all the family grave markers would be greatly appreciated in order to imbed them within an overall family history constantly in the process of research and documentation.
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