OZELL DICKENS JONES
Mary Susannah Graham and Richard Newton Dickens married in 1872 and in 1880 were living in Brazos County Texas next to her parents William Alanson "Lance" Graham and Mary Polly Ulmer. Before 1884 they had moved to San Saba County, Algerita community. They had four girls, Alice, Viola, Ozell, and Callie. They had a little boy named Bertis, and then little Aden who died in infancy. In the spring of 1884, measles struck the family. The father Richard died March 28, 1884 and then little Bertis, who had just had his 3rd birthday, died on April 14. My grandmother Callie was just 11 months old and had no memory of her father. Mary Susanna was left to fend for herself on the farm, with 4 little girls to raise. She feared the mob that spread terror in that area for some time. She called for the Texas Rangers to help her. Alice left home at 17 to marry Finis Wade. In 1900 the younger girls (24, 21, and 17) are still at home with their mother, with Alice and Finis living next door. Mary Susanna died in July of 1902.
Ozell Dickens started teaching School at 16 in 1894 with a 3rd grade certificate at $15. per month. She paid $3. room and board - taught 7 years for a total salary of $75. This is information she wrote on back of a school picture of her and her students at Mt. Pleasant, located in San Saba Co. Texas north of Locker. Her younger sister Callie was one of her students in the photo.
On May 26, 1902 at age 23 Ozell married James Benton Jones, a preacher and farmer. The babies came quickly, 8 of them - Ruth in 1903, Otho in 1904, Byron in 1905, Norene in 1906 who died at one month, Lorene in 1908, Mary in 1909, Faye in 1911, and Richard in 1913.
Life was difficult and busy even when Ozell just had 3 children. Here are excerpts from a letter written to her sisters from Milburn, Texas Dec. 17, 1905, when baby Byron was 4 months old.
"My dear sisters:
Will write one letter to all, as I haven’t time to write two. It is now 3 o’clock and we have just ate dinner. I have hardly stopped today. Mr Jones [her husband] left before daylight this morning for Commanche to preach today and tonight. May get back to-night. The children and I have been here all day by ourselves but it hasn’t seemed that long for I have been so busy. Just finished putting away our lard and sausage yesterday about night and I had so much cleaning up to do this morning. We had about 40 gals. of lard. Sold 50 lbs. We ground 150 lbs. into sausage and sold 85 lbs at 12 ½ cents. Five sides of ribs and two backbones brought us over 7 cents. I gave the lady in this old house the heads and feet to do a week’s washing for me. Our big hog was certainly a whopper.
Mr. Jones carried the sausage meat to the market and had it ground. Only cost .75 cents and certainly saved us lots of labor and cleaning up. I have paid for the washing the last three wks. in milk and butter and got about $5.00 cash.
Have sent Ma’s picture off to be enlarged and will pay for it with my milk and butter money. (The portrait of Mary Susanna Dickens that is posted on her findagrave site.) Am going to get me a baby carriage with
my lard. Then I can get out and walk around a little. Haven’t been off the place but once since you all were here....
It’s real hard that you all will be together Xmas, and I can’t be with you, but I can’t see how I could possibly go. Viola, you and Callie be sure and come up here Wed. or Thurs. Will look for you.
The baby [Byron] is doing a great deal better than when you all saw him. We have put him on “Mullins Food” and he digests it well. He has the colic a right smart yet, but is growing faster and sleeps sounder than he did. His bowels move more regular and is much more natural than was ever before in his life. He sleeps on the cot by himself and sleeps much better than when he slept with us. When I get his carriage, I will put him in there to sleep....
Ruth and Otho are well except colds. Otho is fattening like a pig – his arms and legs are nearly as large as Ruth’s now. I never saw a child fatten faster, and is the saucy’s kid in the country. If I tell him to do anything he don’t want to, he says “I tired.”
Alice, I know it’s useless to ask you all to come Xmas week. I hope you all are in your new house by now. Wishing you a pleasant time, and Hoping to see you soon, I am your sister,
Ozelle Jones."
Across the Colorado river in Mills Co. lived the kind scholarly preacher/farmer J.R. Wilmeth. He often crossed over the Regency Bridge and preached in the Algerita community. Sometimes his son Jim Wilmeth Jr. accompanied him. There he met Callie Dickens, fell in love, and married her. They were wed Oct. 11, 1908 in Ozelle Dickens Jones' home at Locker (San Saba Co.) TX. Jim and Callie were both 25 years old. Before Jim married, he built a house about 100 yards from his parents, and brought his bride to live there. Jim and Callie soon had a family - Marie 1909, Ralph 1911, Lillard 1913, Bernice 1915, Lucille 1917, Gene 1920, and baby Howard 1925, who died the following year after choking on cornbread. Jim's older sister Edna lived a mile or so away with her husband Ol and daughter Opal.
It was Christmas 1916 and Ozell brought her children in the buggy over to Callie's and the cousins had a grand time together. It was not the lonely Christmas that Ozell moaned over back in 1905. Ozell had 7, Jim and Callie had 4 by this time, and Edna had one, the oldest.
The family had a sumptious Christmas dinner at Edna's house. It was very cold when the Wilmeths got ready to go back home. That year the Wilmeth family had bought a model T Ford with open sides. They wanted the children to ride as it was so cold. Not all could fit inside so Ozell insisted that she could walk and let all the children ride. She was not feeling well when she got back to Jim’s but she still went to help him milk. She liked Jim a lot. All the girls agreed that Jim was the favorite of the brothers-in-law. Ozell got sicker and sicker and developed pneumonia. The doctor was sent for and said she would not live through the night. He said he never had hated so bad to lose a case -- that sweet young woman with all those children. James Benton Jones, her husband, came when he heard how ill she was. He had her stretched out and measured her for her coffin. Then he went to San Saba for the coffin. She revived and asked for him while he was gone. They could not bear to tell her and kept the coffin hidden in the barn while she lived. She lingered for several days, and people from the community came to help sit up with her. Ozell died on Jan. 8, 1917. Little Faye was only 5, but at 90 still remembered the kind old man with the long white beard that preached her mother's funeral. [James R Wilmeth Sr] JR is the one who married Ozell and James Benton, and now preached her funeral.
After their mother’s death, Mary and Lorene lived with Jim and Callie family for some time and other of the children lived with other relatives. The oldest two stayed with their Dad. James Benton Jones was a good man, but not practical at times, not adept at child care, and had a difficult time in raising his large family. At times the children were with their Jones grandparents. All spent lots of time at Callie’s during summers. Their memories told later all included how good the meals were at Aunt Callie's. But one of Faye's most painful memories occurred after arrived at Ozell’s oldest sister Alice Wade’s house one Christmas, and overhearing through the wall, “What will we do about the Jones kids? We don’t have anything for them.” Faye felt so unwanted. Alice had ten herself, so I’m sure they did not have much for unexpected orphans, these her nieces and nephews.
Byron died in Aug. 1919 at age 14 of blood poisoning. Faye remembers keeping him on the porch, moving him from one end to the other with the sun, trying to keep him cool. She said the night before he died, he sang a religious song all night, in and out of consciousness. She said her Dad kept working in the field all day, trying to handle his grief.
My mother Lucille was born 11 months after Ozell's death, on December 8, 1917. The Jones and Wilmeth kids were more like siblings, having spent so much time together. In 1914 JR Wilmeth had built a new house on the hill in sight of their old 1888 box house. When Ozell's oldest child Ruth married Joe Horton, they lived for some time in the old 1888 house about 100 yards from Jim and Callie's.
My mother and her sisters (while alive) had yearly “cousins reunions” with the Jones girls (and sometimes the boys came) up until the time they were too old to travel.
------------------------------------------------------------
[Taken from interviews with those who were there, and written by Lucille's daughter, Martha Carroll.]
------------------------------------------------------------
Ozell's children--
Ruth Viola (Horton) b. July 1, 1902, d. 1990
Otho Benton Jones Oct. 17, 1903
James Byron Jones Aug. 11, 1905, d. Aug. 19, 1919
Norene b Sept. 30, 1906 d. Oct. 1906
Lorene (Turner) b. July 9, 1908
Mary Elizabeth (Milburn) b. Nov. 29, 1909
Eunice Faye (Godwin) b. Sept. 11, 1911
Richard (Dick) Paul Jones b. Dec. 12, 1913 - d. 2005
Mary Susannah Graham and Richard Newton Dickens married in 1872 and in 1880 were living in Brazos County Texas next to her parents William Alanson "Lance" Graham and Mary Polly Ulmer. Before 1884 they had moved to San Saba County, Algerita community. They had four girls, Alice, Viola, Ozell, and Callie. They had a little boy named Bertis, and then little Aden who died in infancy. In the spring of 1884, measles struck the family. The father Richard died March 28, 1884 and then little Bertis, who had just had his 3rd birthday, died on April 14. My grandmother Callie was just 11 months old and had no memory of her father. Mary Susanna was left to fend for herself on the farm, with 4 little girls to raise. She feared the mob that spread terror in that area for some time. She called for the Texas Rangers to help her. Alice left home at 17 to marry Finis Wade. In 1900 the younger girls (24, 21, and 17) are still at home with their mother, with Alice and Finis living next door. Mary Susanna died in July of 1902.
Ozell Dickens started teaching School at 16 in 1894 with a 3rd grade certificate at $15. per month. She paid $3. room and board - taught 7 years for a total salary of $75. This is information she wrote on back of a school picture of her and her students at Mt. Pleasant, located in San Saba Co. Texas north of Locker. Her younger sister Callie was one of her students in the photo.
On May 26, 1902 at age 23 Ozell married James Benton Jones, a preacher and farmer. The babies came quickly, 8 of them - Ruth in 1903, Otho in 1904, Byron in 1905, Norene in 1906 who died at one month, Lorene in 1908, Mary in 1909, Faye in 1911, and Richard in 1913.
Life was difficult and busy even when Ozell just had 3 children. Here are excerpts from a letter written to her sisters from Milburn, Texas Dec. 17, 1905, when baby Byron was 4 months old.
"My dear sisters:
Will write one letter to all, as I haven’t time to write two. It is now 3 o’clock and we have just ate dinner. I have hardly stopped today. Mr Jones [her husband] left before daylight this morning for Commanche to preach today and tonight. May get back to-night. The children and I have been here all day by ourselves but it hasn’t seemed that long for I have been so busy. Just finished putting away our lard and sausage yesterday about night and I had so much cleaning up to do this morning. We had about 40 gals. of lard. Sold 50 lbs. We ground 150 lbs. into sausage and sold 85 lbs at 12 ½ cents. Five sides of ribs and two backbones brought us over 7 cents. I gave the lady in this old house the heads and feet to do a week’s washing for me. Our big hog was certainly a whopper.
Mr. Jones carried the sausage meat to the market and had it ground. Only cost .75 cents and certainly saved us lots of labor and cleaning up. I have paid for the washing the last three wks. in milk and butter and got about $5.00 cash.
Have sent Ma’s picture off to be enlarged and will pay for it with my milk and butter money. (The portrait of Mary Susanna Dickens that is posted on her findagrave site.) Am going to get me a baby carriage with
my lard. Then I can get out and walk around a little. Haven’t been off the place but once since you all were here....
It’s real hard that you all will be together Xmas, and I can’t be with you, but I can’t see how I could possibly go. Viola, you and Callie be sure and come up here Wed. or Thurs. Will look for you.
The baby [Byron] is doing a great deal better than when you all saw him. We have put him on “Mullins Food” and he digests it well. He has the colic a right smart yet, but is growing faster and sleeps sounder than he did. His bowels move more regular and is much more natural than was ever before in his life. He sleeps on the cot by himself and sleeps much better than when he slept with us. When I get his carriage, I will put him in there to sleep....
Ruth and Otho are well except colds. Otho is fattening like a pig – his arms and legs are nearly as large as Ruth’s now. I never saw a child fatten faster, and is the saucy’s kid in the country. If I tell him to do anything he don’t want to, he says “I tired.”
Alice, I know it’s useless to ask you all to come Xmas week. I hope you all are in your new house by now. Wishing you a pleasant time, and Hoping to see you soon, I am your sister,
Ozelle Jones."
Across the Colorado river in Mills Co. lived the kind scholarly preacher/farmer J.R. Wilmeth. He often crossed over the Regency Bridge and preached in the Algerita community. Sometimes his son Jim Wilmeth Jr. accompanied him. There he met Callie Dickens, fell in love, and married her. They were wed Oct. 11, 1908 in Ozelle Dickens Jones' home at Locker (San Saba Co.) TX. Jim and Callie were both 25 years old. Before Jim married, he built a house about 100 yards from his parents, and brought his bride to live there. Jim and Callie soon had a family - Marie 1909, Ralph 1911, Lillard 1913, Bernice 1915, Lucille 1917, Gene 1920, and baby Howard 1925, who died the following year after choking on cornbread. Jim's older sister Edna lived a mile or so away with her husband Ol and daughter Opal.
It was Christmas 1916 and Ozell brought her children in the buggy over to Callie's and the cousins had a grand time together. It was not the lonely Christmas that Ozell moaned over back in 1905. Ozell had 7, Jim and Callie had 4 by this time, and Edna had one, the oldest.
The family had a sumptious Christmas dinner at Edna's house. It was very cold when the Wilmeths got ready to go back home. That year the Wilmeth family had bought a model T Ford with open sides. They wanted the children to ride as it was so cold. Not all could fit inside so Ozell insisted that she could walk and let all the children ride. She was not feeling well when she got back to Jim’s but she still went to help him milk. She liked Jim a lot. All the girls agreed that Jim was the favorite of the brothers-in-law. Ozell got sicker and sicker and developed pneumonia. The doctor was sent for and said she would not live through the night. He said he never had hated so bad to lose a case -- that sweet young woman with all those children. James Benton Jones, her husband, came when he heard how ill she was. He had her stretched out and measured her for her coffin. Then he went to San Saba for the coffin. She revived and asked for him while he was gone. They could not bear to tell her and kept the coffin hidden in the barn while she lived. She lingered for several days, and people from the community came to help sit up with her. Ozell died on Jan. 8, 1917. Little Faye was only 5, but at 90 still remembered the kind old man with the long white beard that preached her mother's funeral. [James R Wilmeth Sr] JR is the one who married Ozell and James Benton, and now preached her funeral.
After their mother’s death, Mary and Lorene lived with Jim and Callie family for some time and other of the children lived with other relatives. The oldest two stayed with their Dad. James Benton Jones was a good man, but not practical at times, not adept at child care, and had a difficult time in raising his large family. At times the children were with their Jones grandparents. All spent lots of time at Callie’s during summers. Their memories told later all included how good the meals were at Aunt Callie's. But one of Faye's most painful memories occurred after arrived at Ozell’s oldest sister Alice Wade’s house one Christmas, and overhearing through the wall, “What will we do about the Jones kids? We don’t have anything for them.” Faye felt so unwanted. Alice had ten herself, so I’m sure they did not have much for unexpected orphans, these her nieces and nephews.
Byron died in Aug. 1919 at age 14 of blood poisoning. Faye remembers keeping him on the porch, moving him from one end to the other with the sun, trying to keep him cool. She said the night before he died, he sang a religious song all night, in and out of consciousness. She said her Dad kept working in the field all day, trying to handle his grief.
My mother Lucille was born 11 months after Ozell's death, on December 8, 1917. The Jones and Wilmeth kids were more like siblings, having spent so much time together. In 1914 JR Wilmeth had built a new house on the hill in sight of their old 1888 box house. When Ozell's oldest child Ruth married Joe Horton, they lived for some time in the old 1888 house about 100 yards from Jim and Callie's.
My mother and her sisters (while alive) had yearly “cousins reunions” with the Jones girls (and sometimes the boys came) up until the time they were too old to travel.
------------------------------------------------------------
[Taken from interviews with those who were there, and written by Lucille's daughter, Martha Carroll.]
------------------------------------------------------------
Ozell's children--
Ruth Viola (Horton) b. July 1, 1902, d. 1990
Otho Benton Jones Oct. 17, 1903
James Byron Jones Aug. 11, 1905, d. Aug. 19, 1919
Norene b Sept. 30, 1906 d. Oct. 1906
Lorene (Turner) b. July 9, 1908
Mary Elizabeth (Milburn) b. Nov. 29, 1909
Eunice Faye (Godwin) b. Sept. 11, 1911
Richard (Dick) Paul Jones b. Dec. 12, 1913 - d. 2005
OZELL DICKENS JONES
Mary Susannah Graham and Richard Newton Dickens married in 1872 and in 1880 were living in Brazos County Texas next to her parents William Alanson "Lance" Graham and Mary Polly Ulmer. Before 1884 they had moved to San Saba County, Algerita community. They had four girls, Alice, Viola, Ozell, and Callie. They had a little boy named Bertis, and then little Aden who died in infancy. In the spring of 1884, measles struck the family. The father Richard died March 28, 1884 and then little Bertis, who had just had his 3rd birthday, died on April 14. My grandmother Callie was just 11 months old and had no memory of her father. Mary Susanna was left to fend for herself on the farm, with 4 little girls to raise. She feared the mob that spread terror in that area for some time. She called for the Texas Rangers to help her. Alice left home at 17 to marry Finis Wade. In 1900 the younger girls (24, 21, and 17) are still at home with their mother, with Alice and Finis living next door. Mary Susanna died in July of 1902.
Ozell Dickens started teaching School at 16 in 1894 with a 3rd grade certificate at $15. per month. She paid $3. room and board - taught 7 years for a total salary of $75. This is information she wrote on back of a school picture of her and her students at Mt. Pleasant, located in San Saba Co. Texas north of Locker. Her younger sister Callie was one of her students in the photo.
On May 26, 1902 at age 23 Ozell married James Benton Jones, a preacher and farmer. The babies came quickly, 8 of them - Ruth in 1903, Otho in 1904, Byron in 1905, Norene in 1906 who died at one month, Lorene in 1908, Mary in 1909, Faye in 1911, and Richard in 1913.
Life was difficult and busy even when Ozell just had 3 children. Here are excerpts from a letter written to her sisters from Milburn, Texas Dec. 17, 1905, when baby Byron was 4 months old.
"My dear sisters:
Will write one letter to all, as I haven’t time to write two. It is now 3 o’clock and we have just ate dinner. I have hardly stopped today. Mr Jones [her husband] left before daylight this morning for Commanche to preach today and tonight. May get back to-night. The children and I have been here all day by ourselves but it hasn’t seemed that long for I have been so busy. Just finished putting away our lard and sausage yesterday about night and I had so much cleaning up to do this morning. We had about 40 gals. of lard. Sold 50 lbs. We ground 150 lbs. into sausage and sold 85 lbs at 12 ½ cents. Five sides of ribs and two backbones brought us over 7 cents. I gave the lady in this old house the heads and feet to do a week’s washing for me. Our big hog was certainly a whopper.
Mr. Jones carried the sausage meat to the market and had it ground. Only cost .75 cents and certainly saved us lots of labor and cleaning up. I have paid for the washing the last three wks. in milk and butter and got about $5.00 cash.
Have sent Ma’s picture off to be enlarged and will pay for it with my milk and butter money. (The portrait of Mary Susanna Dickens that is posted on her findagrave site.) Am going to get me a baby carriage with
my lard. Then I can get out and walk around a little. Haven’t been off the place but once since you all were here....
It’s real hard that you all will be together Xmas, and I can’t be with you, but I can’t see how I could possibly go. Viola, you and Callie be sure and come up here Wed. or Thurs. Will look for you.
The baby [Byron] is doing a great deal better than when you all saw him. We have put him on “Mullins Food” and he digests it well. He has the colic a right smart yet, but is growing faster and sleeps sounder than he did. His bowels move more regular and is much more natural than was ever before in his life. He sleeps on the cot by himself and sleeps much better than when he slept with us. When I get his carriage, I will put him in there to sleep....
Ruth and Otho are well except colds. Otho is fattening like a pig – his arms and legs are nearly as large as Ruth’s now. I never saw a child fatten faster, and is the saucy’s kid in the country. If I tell him to do anything he don’t want to, he says “I tired.”
Alice, I know it’s useless to ask you all to come Xmas week. I hope you all are in your new house by now. Wishing you a pleasant time, and Hoping to see you soon, I am your sister,
Ozelle Jones."
Across the Colorado river in Mills Co. lived the kind scholarly preacher/farmer J.R. Wilmeth. He often crossed over the Regency Bridge and preached in the Algerita community. Sometimes his son Jim Wilmeth Jr. accompanied him. There he met Callie Dickens, fell in love, and married her. They were wed Oct. 11, 1908 in Ozelle Dickens Jones' home at Locker (San Saba Co.) TX. Jim and Callie were both 25 years old. Before Jim married, he built a house about 100 yards from his parents, and brought his bride to live there. Jim and Callie soon had a family - Marie 1909, Ralph 1911, Lillard 1913, Bernice 1915, Lucille 1917, Gene 1920, and baby Howard 1925, who died the following year after choking on cornbread. Jim's older sister Edna lived a mile or so away with her husband Ol and daughter Opal.
It was Christmas 1916 and Ozell brought her children in the buggy over to Callie's and the cousins had a grand time together. It was not the lonely Christmas that Ozell moaned over back in 1905. Ozell had 7, Jim and Callie had 4 by this time, and Edna had one, the oldest.
The family had a sumptious Christmas dinner at Edna's house. It was very cold when the Wilmeths got ready to go back home. That year the Wilmeth family had bought a model T Ford with open sides. They wanted the children to ride as it was so cold. Not all could fit inside so Ozell insisted that she could walk and let all the children ride. She was not feeling well when she got back to Jim’s but she still went to help him milk. She liked Jim a lot. All the girls agreed that Jim was the favorite of the brothers-in-law. Ozell got sicker and sicker and developed pneumonia. The doctor was sent for and said she would not live through the night. He said he never had hated so bad to lose a case -- that sweet young woman with all those children. James Benton Jones, her husband, came when he heard how ill she was. He had her stretched out and measured her for her coffin. Then he went to San Saba for the coffin. She revived and asked for him while he was gone. They could not bear to tell her and kept the coffin hidden in the barn while she lived. She lingered for several days, and people from the community came to help sit up with her. Ozell died on Jan. 8, 1917. Little Faye was only 5, but at 90 still remembered the kind old man with the long white beard that preached her mother's funeral. [James R Wilmeth Sr] JR is the one who married Ozell and James Benton, and now preached her funeral.
After their mother’s death, Mary and Lorene lived with Jim and Callie family for some time and other of the children lived with other relatives. The oldest two stayed with their Dad. James Benton Jones was a good man, but not practical at times, not adept at child care, and had a difficult time in raising his large family. At times the children were with their Jones grandparents. All spent lots of time at Callie’s during summers. Their memories told later all included how good the meals were at Aunt Callie's. But one of Faye's most painful memories occurred after arrived at Ozell’s oldest sister Alice Wade’s house one Christmas, and overhearing through the wall, “What will we do about the Jones kids? We don’t have anything for them.” Faye felt so unwanted. Alice had ten herself, so I’m sure they did not have much for unexpected orphans, these her nieces and nephews.
Byron died in Aug. 1919 at age 14 of blood poisoning. Faye remembers keeping him on the porch, moving him from one end to the other with the sun, trying to keep him cool. She said the night before he died, he sang a religious song all night, in and out of consciousness. She said her Dad kept working in the field all day, trying to handle his grief.
My mother Lucille was born 11 months after Ozell's death, on December 8, 1917. The Jones and Wilmeth kids were more like siblings, having spent so much time together. In 1914 JR Wilmeth had built a new house on the hill in sight of their old 1888 box house. When Ozell's oldest child Ruth married Joe Horton, they lived for some time in the old 1888 house about 100 yards from Jim and Callie's.
My mother and her sisters (while alive) had yearly “cousins reunions” with the Jones girls (and sometimes the boys came) up until the time they were too old to travel.
------------------------------------------------------------
[Taken from interviews with those who were there, and written by Lucille's daughter, Martha Carroll.]
------------------------------------------------------------
Ozell's children--
Ruth Viola (Horton) b. July 1, 1902, d. 1990
Otho Benton Jones Oct. 17, 1903
James Byron Jones Aug. 11, 1905, d. Aug. 19, 1919
Norene b Sept. 30, 1906 d. Oct. 1906
Lorene (Turner) b. July 9, 1908
Mary Elizabeth (Milburn) b. Nov. 29, 1909
Eunice Faye (Godwin) b. Sept. 11, 1911
Richard (Dick) Paul Jones b. Dec. 12, 1913 - d. 2005
Mary Susannah Graham and Richard Newton Dickens married in 1872 and in 1880 were living in Brazos County Texas next to her parents William Alanson "Lance" Graham and Mary Polly Ulmer. Before 1884 they had moved to San Saba County, Algerita community. They had four girls, Alice, Viola, Ozell, and Callie. They had a little boy named Bertis, and then little Aden who died in infancy. In the spring of 1884, measles struck the family. The father Richard died March 28, 1884 and then little Bertis, who had just had his 3rd birthday, died on April 14. My grandmother Callie was just 11 months old and had no memory of her father. Mary Susanna was left to fend for herself on the farm, with 4 little girls to raise. She feared the mob that spread terror in that area for some time. She called for the Texas Rangers to help her. Alice left home at 17 to marry Finis Wade. In 1900 the younger girls (24, 21, and 17) are still at home with their mother, with Alice and Finis living next door. Mary Susanna died in July of 1902.
Ozell Dickens started teaching School at 16 in 1894 with a 3rd grade certificate at $15. per month. She paid $3. room and board - taught 7 years for a total salary of $75. This is information she wrote on back of a school picture of her and her students at Mt. Pleasant, located in San Saba Co. Texas north of Locker. Her younger sister Callie was one of her students in the photo.
On May 26, 1902 at age 23 Ozell married James Benton Jones, a preacher and farmer. The babies came quickly, 8 of them - Ruth in 1903, Otho in 1904, Byron in 1905, Norene in 1906 who died at one month, Lorene in 1908, Mary in 1909, Faye in 1911, and Richard in 1913.
Life was difficult and busy even when Ozell just had 3 children. Here are excerpts from a letter written to her sisters from Milburn, Texas Dec. 17, 1905, when baby Byron was 4 months old.
"My dear sisters:
Will write one letter to all, as I haven’t time to write two. It is now 3 o’clock and we have just ate dinner. I have hardly stopped today. Mr Jones [her husband] left before daylight this morning for Commanche to preach today and tonight. May get back to-night. The children and I have been here all day by ourselves but it hasn’t seemed that long for I have been so busy. Just finished putting away our lard and sausage yesterday about night and I had so much cleaning up to do this morning. We had about 40 gals. of lard. Sold 50 lbs. We ground 150 lbs. into sausage and sold 85 lbs at 12 ½ cents. Five sides of ribs and two backbones brought us over 7 cents. I gave the lady in this old house the heads and feet to do a week’s washing for me. Our big hog was certainly a whopper.
Mr. Jones carried the sausage meat to the market and had it ground. Only cost .75 cents and certainly saved us lots of labor and cleaning up. I have paid for the washing the last three wks. in milk and butter and got about $5.00 cash.
Have sent Ma’s picture off to be enlarged and will pay for it with my milk and butter money. (The portrait of Mary Susanna Dickens that is posted on her findagrave site.) Am going to get me a baby carriage with
my lard. Then I can get out and walk around a little. Haven’t been off the place but once since you all were here....
It’s real hard that you all will be together Xmas, and I can’t be with you, but I can’t see how I could possibly go. Viola, you and Callie be sure and come up here Wed. or Thurs. Will look for you.
The baby [Byron] is doing a great deal better than when you all saw him. We have put him on “Mullins Food” and he digests it well. He has the colic a right smart yet, but is growing faster and sleeps sounder than he did. His bowels move more regular and is much more natural than was ever before in his life. He sleeps on the cot by himself and sleeps much better than when he slept with us. When I get his carriage, I will put him in there to sleep....
Ruth and Otho are well except colds. Otho is fattening like a pig – his arms and legs are nearly as large as Ruth’s now. I never saw a child fatten faster, and is the saucy’s kid in the country. If I tell him to do anything he don’t want to, he says “I tired.”
Alice, I know it’s useless to ask you all to come Xmas week. I hope you all are in your new house by now. Wishing you a pleasant time, and Hoping to see you soon, I am your sister,
Ozelle Jones."
Across the Colorado river in Mills Co. lived the kind scholarly preacher/farmer J.R. Wilmeth. He often crossed over the Regency Bridge and preached in the Algerita community. Sometimes his son Jim Wilmeth Jr. accompanied him. There he met Callie Dickens, fell in love, and married her. They were wed Oct. 11, 1908 in Ozelle Dickens Jones' home at Locker (San Saba Co.) TX. Jim and Callie were both 25 years old. Before Jim married, he built a house about 100 yards from his parents, and brought his bride to live there. Jim and Callie soon had a family - Marie 1909, Ralph 1911, Lillard 1913, Bernice 1915, Lucille 1917, Gene 1920, and baby Howard 1925, who died the following year after choking on cornbread. Jim's older sister Edna lived a mile or so away with her husband Ol and daughter Opal.
It was Christmas 1916 and Ozell brought her children in the buggy over to Callie's and the cousins had a grand time together. It was not the lonely Christmas that Ozell moaned over back in 1905. Ozell had 7, Jim and Callie had 4 by this time, and Edna had one, the oldest.
The family had a sumptious Christmas dinner at Edna's house. It was very cold when the Wilmeths got ready to go back home. That year the Wilmeth family had bought a model T Ford with open sides. They wanted the children to ride as it was so cold. Not all could fit inside so Ozell insisted that she could walk and let all the children ride. She was not feeling well when she got back to Jim’s but she still went to help him milk. She liked Jim a lot. All the girls agreed that Jim was the favorite of the brothers-in-law. Ozell got sicker and sicker and developed pneumonia. The doctor was sent for and said she would not live through the night. He said he never had hated so bad to lose a case -- that sweet young woman with all those children. James Benton Jones, her husband, came when he heard how ill she was. He had her stretched out and measured her for her coffin. Then he went to San Saba for the coffin. She revived and asked for him while he was gone. They could not bear to tell her and kept the coffin hidden in the barn while she lived. She lingered for several days, and people from the community came to help sit up with her. Ozell died on Jan. 8, 1917. Little Faye was only 5, but at 90 still remembered the kind old man with the long white beard that preached her mother's funeral. [James R Wilmeth Sr] JR is the one who married Ozell and James Benton, and now preached her funeral.
After their mother’s death, Mary and Lorene lived with Jim and Callie family for some time and other of the children lived with other relatives. The oldest two stayed with their Dad. James Benton Jones was a good man, but not practical at times, not adept at child care, and had a difficult time in raising his large family. At times the children were with their Jones grandparents. All spent lots of time at Callie’s during summers. Their memories told later all included how good the meals were at Aunt Callie's. But one of Faye's most painful memories occurred after arrived at Ozell’s oldest sister Alice Wade’s house one Christmas, and overhearing through the wall, “What will we do about the Jones kids? We don’t have anything for them.” Faye felt so unwanted. Alice had ten herself, so I’m sure they did not have much for unexpected orphans, these her nieces and nephews.
Byron died in Aug. 1919 at age 14 of blood poisoning. Faye remembers keeping him on the porch, moving him from one end to the other with the sun, trying to keep him cool. She said the night before he died, he sang a religious song all night, in and out of consciousness. She said her Dad kept working in the field all day, trying to handle his grief.
My mother Lucille was born 11 months after Ozell's death, on December 8, 1917. The Jones and Wilmeth kids were more like siblings, having spent so much time together. In 1914 JR Wilmeth had built a new house on the hill in sight of their old 1888 box house. When Ozell's oldest child Ruth married Joe Horton, they lived for some time in the old 1888 house about 100 yards from Jim and Callie's.
My mother and her sisters (while alive) had yearly “cousins reunions” with the Jones girls (and sometimes the boys came) up until the time they were too old to travel.
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[Taken from interviews with those who were there, and written by Lucille's daughter, Martha Carroll.]
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Ozell's children--
Ruth Viola (Horton) b. July 1, 1902, d. 1990
Otho Benton Jones Oct. 17, 1903
James Byron Jones Aug. 11, 1905, d. Aug. 19, 1919
Norene b Sept. 30, 1906 d. Oct. 1906
Lorene (Turner) b. July 9, 1908
Mary Elizabeth (Milburn) b. Nov. 29, 1909
Eunice Faye (Godwin) b. Sept. 11, 1911
Richard (Dick) Paul Jones b. Dec. 12, 1913 - d. 2005
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