Margaret

The picture on the obituary page is very poignant. A young woman, dark hair pulled into a low bun at the neck, sits quietly with her two young sons, eyes gazing with serene confidence at the photographer before her. She is Margaret Lloyd-Jones, firstborn daughter of Mallie and Richard, who came with excitement to the New World Wales, only to see her first two sons precede her in death.

And yet Margaret was never, by any account, a bitter woman. Rather, she was " Aunt Margaret the Peace-maker". Gentle. Reasoning. The voice of calm in the midst of Jones turbulence.

Born January 13th, 1835 in Llandyssul, Wales and named for Richard's remarkable mother Margaret Enoch (Jones), our Margaret would have been nearly nine when the tears and embraces of friends and relatives sent the small family off to its future.

One can well imagine that the growing Margaret was the prime distaff helper to Mallie, "the little mother", who had exchanged the familiar hills and valleys, language and loving friends of Wales for life as a pioneer wife and mother. Certainly, Mallie's lifelong love of the beautiful was echoed by her daughter. We are told Mallie gathered flower seeds from her native Wales to beautify her unknown American home. Aunt Margaret's homes, even in the most unlikely soils, blazed with native flowers and carefully tended herbs, a colorful splash of beauty that eased the heart and elevated the spirit.

We know little of Margaret's first marriage. Her husband, Thomas Evans, was a Spring Green man and the young couple lived in Old Helena before settling at York, Fillmore county near the Iowa line of Minnesota. There they lived the life of true pioneers, there their two sons, Orren and Charles, were born, and there Thomas Evans died, leaving Margaret a young widow with two small sons to care for.

By this time the Lloyd-Joneses had placed their mark on "the V alley" and it was to that refuge that Margaret returned.

In 1873 the second "Jones" of her name appeared as she married Thomas Jones of Arena, a widower with growing daughters .As there was already a "Thomas" in the Lloyd- Jones family, her new husband was dubbed "Uncle Jones", and descendants of his line live in Arena to this day, always " welcome "connections and additions to the lines from Richard and Mallie.

This union with Uncle Jones led to one of (Margaret's sister) Aunt Jennie's favorite riddles: "My eldest sister is my youngest brother's mother-in-law". Enos Lloyd-Jones, the youngest of the clan, was married to Eleanor, the eldest daughter of Uncle Jones.

Tragedy struck Margaret again when 23 year old Charlie Evans, her youngest (1860- 1883), drowned trying to rescue a companion who had fallen through the ice of Lake Pepin. One saw written in the snow the two sets of footprints, the abrupt hole in the ice, the garments (Charlie's) thrown off by the would- be-rescuer, the sad, unmarked emptiness surrounding the site thereafter.

Only three years later, Margaret's 28-year-old son (1858 -1886), Orren Evans, succumbed to throat cancer, leaving a wife, Sarah Lavinia Sims, and a five-month-old daughter, Orrena, who lived her life as a librarian and died unwed.

Annie Jones Williams stands In front of the cottage she shared with her step-mother, Margaret.

When "Uncle Jones" passed away in 1892, Margaret and her widowed step-daughter Annie Jones Williams built a cottage on an acre of Enos' land opposite Hillside. That charming gambrel-roofed cottage remains for all to see and is the focus of Mary Jane Hamilton's current research Bunny Cussler (Enos line) believes that the home did not originally have an indoor bathroom. Does anyone else remember? The photo above was taken before the porch was enclosed. Mary Jane is anxious to discover more details of the original floor plan and furnishings. A 1910 census shows a Thomas L. Jones listed as a grandson living with the women. He would not have been a grandson of Margaret's but could have been a grandson from "Uncle Jones"' side. Or perhaps the census taker was merely sloppy, (it happened). Boarders for Hillside Home School often overflowed into nearby family homes and a likely young lad might have been helpful to the older ladies with chores, snow shoveling and the like. Does anyone have an idea who Thomas L. might have been?

The Aunt Margaret of Maginel Wright Barney's memory lived a peaceful life after the turmoil of her losses. As she became older, her thick Welsh accent developed a quaver and her hands were palsied, but she appeared elegant in the simplest garments and her voice of reason and peace was heard with appreciation, if not always attention.

January 11, 1914, two days shy of her 79th birthday, Margaret Lloyd- Jones Evans Jones closed her eyes and her once-promising line came to an end. The obituary published in the Home News of January 22, 1911 said: "Mrs. Jones was one of the world's quiet personalities of sober judgment and keen human sympathies. She lived in and for the community and gave to its life her best effort. Her two sons died in early manhood but her loss only broadened her sympathy and love for all those with whom she came in contact. Until failing strength prevented she was always active in the social and charitable activities of the community, and to the end of her life kept the supervision of the services in the family chapel."

Aunt Margaret

(Jan. 13, 1835-Jan. 11,1914)

In our comments on the family lines we tend to forget Aunt Margaret because we have no current representatives of the line to speak for her. We owe her some words.

Aunt Margaret was born in Wales, the third child of Richard and Mallie. As a nine-year-old she came with her parents to Utica in 1844 and thence to Ixonia in 1845. By the time she married Thomas Evans the family had moved to Spring Green and she was 21. The young couple settled briefly in Helena, now represented by the cemetery above the Visitors Center but then still surviving as a mining and lumber town. They soon set out for the “West”, that is, York, Minnesota, just north of Iowa line. They had two sons: Orren T. Evans was born June 23, 1858 and Charles H. Evans was born September 6, 1860. Thomas died in 1862, and Margaret moved back to her parents’ home by then at Hillside. She lived there until 1873, when she married Thomas Jones of Arena. “Uncle Jones” died in 1892, and Margaret returned to Hillside, where she lived in a cottage near the school with her stepdaughter, Mrs. Annie Williams (Aunt Annie). An obituary notes that she supervised services at Unity Chapel and was always a part of “social and charitable activities of the community.” Services were conducted by Uncle Jenk.

Two connections with our general story should be noted. Both of the Evans boys died young. The younger, Charles, unmarried, died first. He had lived in the Valley among the Lloyd-Joneses for 11 years and then went with is mother to live in Arena. In 1879 he entered a Normal School program at River Forest. He took his degree in 1883 and became school principal at Pepin, Wisconsin. On December 3 he had been ice-skating with “the young Methodist minister”, who fell through the ice. Charles in an effort to save his companion also drowned. Uncle Jenk, who conducted the memorial, spoke of the loss with great sadness, for many expected Charles to join the clergy and certainly to write more articles for Unity magazine. “May it be that the twenty-three years without a mis-spent day, measured by the standards of realities, comprehend something of the fullness of threescore and ten; and mayhap the fall of the youthful standard bearer will nerve other hands to seize the colors and carry them along.” The peaceful Uncle Jenk still offered the military metaphors from his service with the Union army.

Orren Evans married Sadie (Sarah?) Sims of Dodgeville. Although he was apparently a picture of health, he really had throat cancer. It was first misdiagnosed, but with Uncle Jenk’s help he saw a specialist in Chicago and was told that he had but a short time to live. However, because his wife was in “a delicate condition” no one was told, and he went about his work as a bookkeeper as though nothing was amiss. Their daughter, Orrena Louise Evans, was born in 1886, just a little before he died. The obituary writer dwelt at length on the pathos of the situation. Uncle Jenk conducted the services and commented on the fortitude of the young father. Orrena Evans became a librarian in Ohio.

The other connection to Margaret’s story is that when she became the third wife of Uncle Jones, she also became the future step-mother of her 20 year old brother Enos, who six years later married Eleanor Jones, Uncle Jones’ oldest child by his second wife, Margaret Morris. A slow look at that sentence will suggest why this relationship became the basis of a family riddle/joke. It also suggests why later members of the Enos line sometimes are confused about the Lloyd-Jones family and the Jones family. The latter is often represented at our gatherings by Grant Jones of Arena, and (indeed) at one of our reunions the Enos line had a picnic on the Grant Jones farm. Fortunately he and Martha Ewald have been gathering information about the Joneses to add to that assembled years ago by Chester Lloyd-Jones.

Thomas Jones was born to John and Margaret Jones in Denbigh (Mold?), North Wales about a dozen miles from Chester, October 14, 1819, 20 years after Richard Ll Jones was born near Pryn Gwyn in Cardiganshire. The family emigrated to Stueben NY in 1840 (or 1837.) In 1844 Thomas, the eldest of six children, went to Wisconsin to “spy out the land.” The whole family then moved to Blue Mounds. Thomas married Elizabeth Edwards and had two daughters, one of whom died in infancy. (The surviving daughter, Margaret Ann, was brought up by her grandparents.) In 1850 he went to California in the gold rush, while his three younger brothers still living did timbering in Wisconsin, floating logs down the Wisconsin river to Arena. According to Thomas Robert Jones ( his only son, the third child by his second wife, Margaret Morris, and thus Eleanor’s brother) he came back from California with $2000, an amount much less than his brothers had made on timber.

On the trip west he and three neighboring men (one a relative of Margaret Morris) went out along the Platte with a train of ox teams, crossed the Snake River at a hazardous ford in Idaho, spent 4 years in California, and then returned by way of Nicaragua at a time when England and the U. S. were quarreling about a possible canal. “An American canal company” was operating a transit service across the isthmus and that was probably the route home. Thomas then married Margaret Morris (1835-1871) of Barneveld and settled for the rest of his life in Arena. His daughter by Elizabeth Edwards, Margaret Ann, married William John Roberts and moved to Arena, too. When Margaret Morris Jones died, two of her eight children had already died, the oldest (Eleanor) was only 17, and four of the others were under ten. It is perhaps no wonder that Thomas sought a third wife in Margaret Lloyd-Jones Evans. He may just have liked the name Margaret. When he died in 1892 Aunt Margaret returned to Hillside with Aunt Annie, Eleanor’s younger sister (by two years).

In short, Jones and Lloyd-Jones were closely entwined. I remind you in passing, however, that the Jones of Lloyd-Jones was the name Richard brought with him from Wales. His father was John Enoch, so he was literally John's. Mallie was a Thomas because that was her father’s given name, and he was a James because his father was James Griffith.