By Bertha Jones Thompson and Rachael Jones Rich 

Mary Jane Morse Jones was born in Merthyr Tydfil, Glamorganshire, South Wales, January 26, 1860, a daughter of William and Margaret Evans Morse. She had six sisters and one brother: Ann, Emma, William, Margaret, Rachel, Sarah and Sophia. She came to Utah with her parents and one sister at the age of 3 ½ years. They arrived in Utah, October 4, 1863, and moved directly to Logan, Utah, where they made their home with an uncle, William Davis. 

` In the spring of 1864, her father purchased a lot and made a dug-out for them to live in. It had beds, a fireplace, benches and a table. All the cooking was done over the fireplace. Matches were very scarce so the fire was banked at night, but if it were to go out, her mother would send her to her aunt’s with a rag rolled very tightly and it would be lighted from their fireplace. When she arrived home, her mother would blow up the fire and light the fireplace and their candles, which were made from tallow. 

When Mary Jane was young she went into the fields with her mother to glean wheat after the harvesters and then they would take it to the store or local mill and get flour for bread in exchange. In the fall of 1869, she moved with her family, which consisted of two more children, Emma and William, born at Logan. They moved to Samaria, Oneida County, Idaho, and here, Margaret, Rachel, Sarah and Sophia were born. 

While living in Samaria she met and married Jeremiah Jones in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City, Utah, on January 10, 1878. They returned to Samaria to make their home and Elizabeth Jane, Margaret, William, Sophia and Jeremiah Morse were born. 

They moved to Pleasant View, Oneida County, in 1885, taking up 160 acres of land, and began clearing the sagebrush and preparing the soil for crops. Here in Pleasant View, six more children were born: Bertha, Ebenezer Morse, Rachel, Leah, Mary and Rulon Morse. They lived in two log rooms until 1904 at which time her eight-room frame house was completed and her last baby was born in this home. This was the happiest time in her life although it too was a very humble home. 

Mary Jane was frightened many times by the Indians and she would take her children and hide them in the fields when she saw them coming to their home. Sometimes they would go into the house and take flour or bread and help themselves to vegetables from the garden. Later she and her husband became very good friends with the Indians. 

She did a great deal of sewing and all kinds of handiwork. Her hands were always busy. She was a very hard working woman. She helped make the garden, milked cows, made butter, soap, and also dried fruits and corn. She tended swarms of bees and shared the honey with her neighbors and friends as she did her fruits and vegetables. 

On November 21, 1899, she was called to work in the Pleasant View Ward Relief Society. She was treasurer, then first counselor and president for nine years. Thus she served continuously in the Relief Society for 22 years. Her service in the Church and community cannot be over-stated. No night was too dark or stormy for her to go to another in distress. She was an angel of mercy in sickness and death. Her courage in time of need was unsurpassed. She was calm in the most trying difficulties. There were no undertakers in the community and she not only laid out the dead but administered and cared for the sick. She was a mid-wife, nurse and housekeeper in many critical confinement cases. She was never afraid to enter any home that had a contagious disease and she nor her family ever took a disease from being exposed when she went into a home to help out. 

October 17, 1906, her husband left home to serve as a missionary to England. She and her children, her oldest boy being only 18 years of age, ran the farm and she bought a loom and supplemented her income by weaving carpet, much of which  was done at night after the family had retired, and also after she had already done a very hard day’s work. But she never once complained for she knew that she and her family would be blessed while they were keeping a missionary in the field and that the way would be opened for them to do it. When her husband returned, he often said that he found things at home in better shape than when he left. The family had been greatly blessed. Mary Jane had great faith and was truly a Latter-day Saint. 

In the fall of 1935, she and her husband received a call to work in the Temple from the Malad Stake but her husband took ill and passed away in April 1936, so this wonderful opportunity was never realized. 

After her husband’s death she went to Salt Lake City to live. She passed away December 28, 1953, at the age of 93 in Salt Lake City and was buried in the Pleasantview cemetery. 

She truly lived a good life and has been an outstanding example to all who knew her.