ISAAC N JONES

JONES, MCCULLOUGH, COOPER, KNAPP, ODELL, LUELLEN

Posted By: Dana Roquet (email)
Date: 10/18/2010 at 17:59:56

History of Taylor County Iowa
Published 1981

Jones Family

Isaac Newton Jones was born in Lewiston Illinois, March 16, 1851. He moved to Iowa when very young. Mary Ann McCullough was born near Bloomfield, Iowa, April 4, 1855. She married Isaac Jones, August 18, 1871. They moved to Wayne County where they lived more than twenty years. Eleven children were born. They moved to Taylor County in 1893.

The mother and small children came to New Market by train. The oldest daughter was married and stayed in Wayne County. The father and older sons came by wagon. They drove their cattle across four counties. They rented a farm near New Market. Later they bought the farm.

There were two more babies born, a girl and a boy. When the sons were old enough to do the farm work, their father worked away part time. He bought apples and potatoes by the train car load. He shipped them to different towns and sold them.

When Oklahoma was a new state, the father and son, Alva, went to “homestead” or buy some land. They soon returned to Iowa.

In 1919 Alva and his family moved to Oklahoma where he lived the rest of his life. He passed away May, 1935.

Thirteen children were in this family. All grew up until the oldest was 45 years old and the youngest was 21 years old, then two died 26 days apart. Oliver had the flu and was sick three days and died Dec. 18, 1918. He was 32 years old. Jennie Cooper, 40 years old, died with heart trouble, January 13, 1919.

Oliver had never married. He lived on the farm with his parents and did the farming.
The farm was rented to a young couple. Grandmother moved to New Market where she lived the rest of her life.

The fall of 1921, she went to Allerton to visit her oldest daughter and her son, Tom, and their families. She took sick with the flu and passed away in November at the age of 66. Grandpa lived until October, 1940. He was 89 years old.

This remarkable family grew up when children’s diseases were deadly. There was not a doctor in their home before they moved to Taylor County, just a “mid-wife”.

They raised most of their food. Not one of the fifteen members in their family had cancer. Twelve children married, not one divorced. Two were married twice; their first mate had died.