By her daughter, Sarah S. Ward
Beatrice Fortune Smith Jones was born February 22, 1858 at Spanish Fork, Utah, the daughter of John Smith and Sophia Fortune Smith. Her parents were born in Scotland. They left Scotland to come to this country with their two older children, a boy and a girl, on the ship, Clara Wheeler. The little girl died on the sea of black measles and was buried in the sea. The family arrived in New Orleans Nov. 17, 1854 and finally reached Spanish Fork in 1858.
My mother’s father was a miner by trade and worked in the mines in Scotland where he contracted asthma in a severe storm which caused his death at the age of 51, leaving a wife and seven small children without much means of support. They had a very small farm, a few hives of bees, and a few fruit trees. My mother was the third child and oldest girl in the family and she worked by her mother’s side continually in all things that she could do to help support the family. They raised what they could on the farm and gleaned wheat on other people’s farms to get their flour for the year. They also gathered vegetables on shares such as potatoes, squash, onions, carrots, etc. for their winter food.
They would gather fruit such as plums, peaches, apricots and apples, cut them and dry them. Mother picked wool, helped to card it into bats which was spun into cloth and made into clothing for the family. They also sold what honey they could spare. As mother grew older she went to work in the homes of the more well to do and brought her wages for the family’s support. She worked in Spanish Fork, Springville and Benjamin and was an excellent housekeeper. Her opportunities for schooling were very limited as her time was spent in helping to support the family but she would get in a week or two now and again during the year. She took all the schooling that she could get and set about to educate herself. She loved good books, music and art. She loved to sew and was very good in needlecraft.
She was always of a deep religious nature and took her part in church activities.
She was married to Lewis Daniel Jones of Spanish Fork in the old Endowment House in Salt Lake City, Utah, by Daniel H. Wells on March 16, 1882. They lived in Spanish Fork for a short time and then moved to Samaria, Idaho, where they lived in the home of Thomas Roberts. Here their first and only boy was born. He lived but a few hours.
From Samaria they moved to Pleasant View, Idaho where my father had taken up a homestead. They set about to establish a home. When my mother left Spanish Fork for Samaria, they brought a cow along which was trailed behind the wagon. This cow was a wedding present to her. When they came to Pleasant View they sold the cow to buy them a stove. They also had a bedstead that they bought. The rest of the furniture such as the cupboard, tables, chest-of-drawers, etc. was homemade by my father. I have often heard her speak with pride of her first furniture and of the care my father took to make them look nice.
Their first girl was born in Pleasant View in 1884. In the year 1888 my father was called to Logan to act as assistant recorder in the Logan Temple. For one year he worked there and the family moved to Logan, living in the home of Henry Peck of Malad. While living in Logan my mother spent most of her time doing endowment work for the dead in the Temple.
They moved back to their home in Pleasant View in June, 1889 where they lived until 1892 when she moved with her husband to Washakie, my father having been called to teach there at the Indian school. The family lived at Washakie for six years, going back to their farm at Pleasant View in the summer. While at Washakie her youngest daughter was born in November, 1892.
Mother took an active part in church work at Washakie, helping in the different organizations for the Indians, helping father in every way she could. The Indians were very friendly and nice to us and my parents enjoyed their work there. In June, 1898, the family moved back to Pleasant View. After moving there my mother held many positions in that ward. She was first counselor to Jana M. Hughes in the first Primary Association of that ward; first counselor to Elizabeth Stayner in the YLMIA, and president of the Relief Society from May, 1905, until she moved to Malad in the spring of 1909. She was also a Relief Society teacher in Pleasant View and a Relief Society block teacher in Malad up to the time of her death, Jan. 21, 1921.
She was a devout Latter Day Saint, full of faith and zeal, very ambitious, very exact, and always willing to give service wherever needed although she had very poor health all her life. She was the mother of three children. She also raised a niece, her sister’s baby, from the time she was born until her own death.