Charles Edward Jones was born in the New York City area in 1862 and spent his youth in the Port Chester/Rye area of Westchester County, New York. After migrating with his parents to Clarence, MO, he married Mary Ellen Cleary there, and the first seven of their 12 children were born in Clarence.
For most of us, however, the Jones family is
inextricably identified with Galena, Kansas.
Charles Edward moved there with his family about 1899. (A 1926 obituary
says he had lived in Galena 27 years; his daughter, Margaret, was the last
born in Clarence, on April 29, 1998, and he is listed in the 1900 census
in Galena on June 15, 1900, so 1899 seems the likeliest choice.)
Precisely why he chose Galena is not known, but it was something of a boom town in those days, part of the Tri-State mining area around Joplin, MO, the country's then-most-important lead and zinc mining region. The photo shown here is of Main Street in Galena in 1898, a year before C.E. Jones arrived.
An obituary says that for 26 of his 27 years
in Galena he worked for the Murdock Hardware company. The photos below
show him and others at the Murdock store in Galena, which stood at the
time on the northwest corner of First and Main streets. Charles Edward
Jones was the bookkeeper, and he appears in the rear of the photo. First,
the whole photo, which shows a great deal of detail of the store.
 |
Then a closeup, showing more of C.E. Jones; he's the one in the back with the goatee and the big "D" over his head. My aunts insisted he never wore a beard till I blew this picture up for them: this photo likely date from the early years of the 20th century, before most of the sisters were born.
Though
C.E. Jones
worked for Murdock the rest of his working life, eventually the store
in Galena closed and he worked thereafter in the firm's store in Baxter
Springs, Kansas, some eight to ten miles away.
Although most of the Joneses I knew tended to really remember only one house, in fact C.E. Jones lived in several in the earliest years in Galena. In the 1900 census, he is listed at 819 Elm Street. In a 1905 City Directory and the 1910 census, he was living with the family at 902 East 5th Street. In a 1916 postcard from Mary Ellen ("Mama") to Margaret Jones from Kansas City, the address is 706 East 5th Street, the same street as the earlier address but a different number.
The family next lived at 514 Washington Avenue. A November 14, 1918 postcard just after Armistice Day from Herb Jones in the Army to his grandmother Jones is addressed to that address, and it was there that the family was living when Mary Ellen died in December of 1918.
Sometime between December of 1918 and the death of Fannie Reilly Jones in February of 1920, the family moved to 710 Galena Avenue. Thus the likeliest date is some time in 1919, after Mary Ellen's death.
This house, at 710 Galena Avenue, remained in
the family for years and is the one most of us associate with the Joneses
in Galena. It was there that the family was living when Charles Edward
Jones married his second wife, Perle Parker, on May 13, 1923. (Perle was
born September 2, 1872, daugher of Isaac and Mary H. Parker.) It was there
that Charles Edward died, October 13, 1926. It was there that the remaining
children remained until they married. And his widow Perle Jones lived there
until her own death on July 2, 1955. It is still standing and is
shown in the color photo as it looked in 1999.
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
More will be written about this house later.
Charles E. and Mary Ellen Jones, and their son
Charles E. Junior, are buried in the family plot in Oak Hill Cemetery about
three miles north of Galena. Perle Parker Jones is buried alongside her
parents in the same cemetery, not with her husband.