Mary Frances (Harris) Jones (bef. 1829 - 1930)

Born before 28 Feb 1829 in Cork, County Cork, Ireland

Wife of George E. Jones — married about 1861 in Memphis, Shelby, Tennessee, United States [uncertain]

Died 30 Nov 1930 after age 101 in Silver Spring, Montgomery County, Maryland, United States of America

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Biography

Mary (Harris) Jones is Notable.

Mary (Harris) Jones has Irish ancestors.

Mary G. Harris Jones, known as Mother Jones, was an Irish-born American schoolteacher and dressmaker who became a prominent organized labor representative, community organizer, and activist. She helped coordinate major strikes and co-founded the Industrial Workers of the World.

Born and raised in Cork’s Shandon neighborhood, Mary Harris’ family fled the Great Famine and landed in Toronto Canada in the middle of the 19th century. In her early 20s, she moved to Memphis, married a union iron-molder named George Jones, had four children, then lost them all in a yellow fever epidemic. She came back to Chicago, then was burned out in the Chicago Fire. Rather than give up, she got involved in the labor movement, and late in the 19th century, an old woman, she invented Mother Jones, the fearless organizer of workers everywhere.

Mary Harris Jones was driven from her native Ireland by the potato famine when she was a teenager, then watched her husband and four children die during a yellow fever epidemic just after the Civil War.^[1][2] She lost her dressmaking business in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.^[1][2] In her life time, she would become known to the American Government as the "grandmother of agitators", the "most dangerous woman in America"^[3] with a reputation as a fearless fighter for workers rights.

Her family left Ireland for the United States, then went to Canada.^[2] She returned to the states to teach school in Monroe, Michigan.^[2] In 1861^[4] she married George E. Jones, who was born in 1835 and died of yellow fever in Memphis, Tennessee on 13 Oct 1867.^[5] He was a moulder by trade^[6][4] Of this time in her life she says-

I went back to teaching again, this time in Memphis, Tennessee. Here I was married in 1861. My husband was an iron moulder^[6] and a member of the Iron Moulders' Union.

In 1867, a fever epidemic swept Memphis. Its victims were mainly among the poor and the workers. The rich and the well-to-do fled the city. Schools and churches were closed. People were not permitted to enter the house of a yellow fever victim without permits. The poor could not afford nurses. Across the street from me, ten persons lay dead from the plague. The dead surrounded us. They were buried at night quickly and without ceremony. All about my house I could hear weeping and the cries of delirium. One by one, my four little children sickened and died. I washed their little bodies and got them ready for burial. My husband caught the fever and died. I sat alone through nights of grief. No one came to me. No one could. Other homes were as stricken as was mine. All day long, all night long, I heard the grating of the wheels of the death cart.^[4][7]

It was Mother Jones's decision to visit the West Virginia Coal Mines to talk about miner's rights that led to Frank Keeney's working with the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) to organize West Virginia Coal Miners. She traveled to Matewan, West Virginia at the height of the mine workers turmoil there and spoke with miners personally in June of 1920.^[1][8]

Mother Jones was the last of her family about whom anything is known, writes The Evening Star at the time of her death. Her last relative, a brother, a prominent Catholic priest and educator in Canada, died March 5, 1923.^[7]

Mother Jones died quietly at 11:55pm at a farmhouse near Silver Spring, Maryland on 30 Nov 1930.^[7][9] Services were held at St. Gabriel's Catholic Church on December 4th and she was buried in Union Miners' Cemetery in Mount Olive, Macoupin County, Illinois.^[7][10]

Timeline

Note, this was created from two merged profiles and I realize that the formatting and layout are not ideal. Please feel free to improve this and cite references. (I have a copy of the Gorn book sent by the author, for reference)

birth:

Richard was married to his first wife Margaret Swiney on 17 Feb 1828 in the Roman Catholic Church at Inchigeelagh Parish, County Cork, Ireland.^[11] The couple had a daughter, Mary Harris, who was christened in the church there on 29 Feb 1829.^[12] As Mary herself, in her autobiography states she was born in 1830, the evidence supports her being this daughter of Richard and his first wife, Margaret. Mary further states:

My father, Richard Harris, came to America in 1835, and as soon as he had become an American citizen he sent for his family. His work as a laborer with railway construction crews took him to Toronto, Canada. Here I was brought up but always as the child of an American citizen. Of that citizenship I have ever been proud.^[4]

Note: there is no Feb 29th that year. DOB is likely Feb 1829 or earlier.

passport application says May 1 1830 Richard leaving Ireland for America in 1835 then sending for his family means it is impossible for a child born in 1837 in Ireland to have been his, therefore we must assume the online pages giving a birth much later than that Mary states for herself cannot be correct.

• 1837

baptized

St. Mary'S Church- Now Known As North Chapel in The Shandon Area

1853 http://biographi.ca/en/bio/harris_william_richard_15E.html

Family settled in Canada as early as 1853

abt 1858

normal school in York, Ontario

1859

Mary received an education in Toronto at the Toronto Normal School, which was tuition-free and even paid a stipend to each student of one dollar per week for every semester completed. Mary did not graduate from the Toronto Normal School, but she was able to undergo enough training to occupy a teaching position at a convent in Monroe, Michigan, on 31 August 1859 at the age of 23.[4]

Mary Harris listed as 23 years old birth year was 1837-1838 despite her later statements to the contrary.

1860 convent school in Monroe, MI She was paid eight dollars per month, but the school was described as a "depressing place".

When I found the 1861 Canada census entry and the previous 1850 Vermont one for Richard Harris, her early timeline really seems to fall apart. She states in her autobiography that she came to the US in 1835 with her mother and siblings after her father came here earlier.

If she was, indeed, born in 1830 this could not be. The 1861 census shows her to be 23 years old, named Marie, and absent from home. If she had been living away from home for an extended time in Michigan, Chicago, and Tennessee, would she still have been listed with the family? Her parents were married in February of 1834 in County Cork. That solves that. Mary, the second child, was baptised 1 August 1837. She was hired to teach at the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary School in Monroe, MI on 31 August 1859.

In the IGI from familysearch.com is found the marriage of George E Jones and Mary Frances Harris on 18 Dec 1860 in Memphis, Shelby, TN. No name of submitter. Whoever it was believed Mary was born in May of 1830, however. The children born to them are also listed in the IGI as Catherine, 1862, Elizabeth, 1863, Terence, 1865, and Mary, 1866, but lists them as dying in 1866, not 1867.

aft 1860

After tiring of her assumed profession, she moved first to Chicago and then to Memphis, where in 1861 she married George E. Jones, a member and organizer of the National Union of Iron Moulders,[7] which later became the International Molders and Foundry Workers Union of North America, which represented workers who specialized in building and repairing steam engines, mills, and other manufactured goods.[8] Considering that Mary's husband was providing enough income to support the household, she altered her labor to housekeeping.

1861

dressmaker in Chicago, listed as "absent" in 1861 Canada census The Canada 1861 census shows Richard 48, Ellen, 38, Richard Jr, 27, Marie, 23, Catherine, 19, Ellen Jr, 16, William, 13.

about October 1861

Holly Springs, MS

aft 1867 dressmaker in Chicago

1920

passport app

She was denounced from the floor of the Senate. Hear Coolidge's speech about labor and the economy from the White House grounds 1924. The first presidential film with sound recording.

The biography written by Elliott J Gorn goes into the ambiguity of Mary's early years and how she seems to have rewritten them.

Elliott Gorn has found the church birth registers, however, from little pieces I can see of the book (I'm going to have to go to the library, I see!) and shows that Mary, the youngest was born 18 Jan 1867.

1930 census - age 99, married at age 18. If this is true and she was born in 1830, she was married in 1848. If she is off by 7 years, it would be 1856, indicating she was married before George Jones, or she had some other reason to lie about her marriage, or, she forgot her own story.

The only two George Jones' I found in Tennessee in 1860 were 13 and 10. I didn't find Mary Harris, born 1837 or 1830 in 1860.

I didn't find any widowed Mary Jones born in Ireland in any year in Chicago in 1870. Didn't find any widowed Mary Jones born in Ireland in Illinois in 1880. The only Mary Jones born in Ireland in May 1830 in the 1900 census immigrated in 1885.

In 1920 she obtained a passport to visit Mexico and listed her place of residence as Washington, DC. I found no Mary Jones born 1830 or born Ireland there in 1920.

1920 Washington DC

No proof in census records but listed on 1920 passport app as place of residence

28Dec 1920

U.S. Passport Applications, 1795-1925

for a visit to Mexico

Name: Mary Jones Birth Date: 1 May 1830 Birth Place: Cork, Ireland Age: 90 Gender: Female Passport Issue Date: 28 Dec 1920 Passport Includes a Photo: Yes Residence: Washington, District of Columbia Spouse Name: George Jones Spouse Birth Place: United States

1930 Beltsville, MD

1930 Census Road leading to Tacoma Park Beltsville, MD Mary A. Jones as a guest with Walter B. & Lillian M. Burgess

Death

30 Nov 1930 Hyattsville, Prince George's, Maryland, USA

Burial

Mount Olive, AL Union Miners’ Cemetery

Quotes

• Mother Jones was often accused of being an “unladylike.” Her response was, A lady is the last thing on earth I want to be. Capitalists sidetrack the women into clubs and make ladies of them.

• Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.^[13]

• I have no home except where there is struggle.^[1]

• My address is like my shoes. It travels with me. I abide where there is a fight against wrong.^[13]

• No matter what the fight, don’t be ladylike! God almighty made women and the Rockefeller gang of thieves made the ladies.^[14]

• I asked a man in prison once how he happened to be there and he said he had stolen a pair of shoes. I told him if he had stolen a railroad he would be a United States Senator.^[13]

• The employment of children is doing more to fill prisons, insane asylums, almshouses, reformatories, slums, and gin shops than all the efforts of reformers are doing to improve society.^[13]
• Fact: Obituary (01 Dec 1930) Utah, United States

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3} The Mine Wars. PBS Documentary. Film Posse Inc production for American Experience. 2016.
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3} The Charleston Evening Post. Charleston, SC. 01 Dec 1930. fp
3. ↑ Key People in Labor History: Mother Jones (1837–1930), AFL-CIO
4. ↑ ^{4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3} The Autobiography of Mother Jones. Mary Harris Jones.Chicago, IL. Charles H. Kerr & Company. 1925.
5. ↑ Memphis, Tennessee Death Register, 1867, p115.
6. ↑ ^{6.0 6.1} Halpin's City Directory, 1867, Memphis, Tennesee. p150.
7. ↑ ^{7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3} The Evening Star. Washington, DC. 01 Dec 1930, fp & pA4
8. ↑ "Judge Begins Investigation of West Virginia Shooting". The Boston Herald. 22 Jun 1920. Boston, MA.
9. ↑ Cleveland Plain Dealer. Cleveland, Ohio. 07 Dec 1930. Art Gravure Section.
10. ↑ Find A Grave: Memorial #552].
11. ↑ "Ireland Marriages, 1619-1898," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FGJJ-4YD : 12 December 2014), Richard Harris and Mgt. Swiney, 17 Feb 1828; citing Roman Catholic,Inchigeelagh Parish,Cork,Ireland, reference ; FHL microfilm 823,808.
12. ↑ "Ireland Births and Baptisms, 1620-1881," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:F5YM-7XS : 8 December 2014), Mary Harris, ; citing ROMAN CATHOLIC,INCHIGEELAGH PARISH,CORK,IRELAND, reference ; FHL microfilm 823,804, 823,808.
13. ↑ ^{13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3} Good Reads Author Quotes.
14. ↑ Women's History, Mother Jones Quotes

• Mother Jones Biography Activist (1830–1930)
• Mary Harris Jones. Formative years.
• Women Public Speakers in the United States, 1800-1925. A bio- critical sourcebook. Edited by Karlyn Kohrs Campbell. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1993. (WomPubS 1800)
• The Autobiography of Mother Jones. Mary Harris Jones.Chicago, IL. Charles H. Kerr & Company. 1925. p.11.
• "Utah, Obituaries from Utah Newspapers, 1850-2005," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVSY-6WM8 : 17 March 2018), Mother Jones, 01 Dec 1930; citing Salt Lake Telegram 12, The University of Utah. J. Willard Marriott Library, Salt Lake City.
• The Canton Repository. Canton, OH. 01 Dec 1920, fp.
• The Evening News. San Diego, CA. 01 Dec 1930. p4A.
• The Springfield Daily Republican. Springfield, MA. 02 Dec 1930. p2.
• Wikipedia: Mary Harris Jones
• This WikiTree profile is referenced from Wikidata: Item Q107082, en:Wikipedia
• Eric Arnesen, A Tarnished Icon, Reviews in American History, Vol. 30, No. 1, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Mar 2002, pp. 88-92

Research on Mother Jones and Her Family Submitted by Marilyn Hamill

Mother Jones and the Presidential Election of 1924

1871 Canadian Census Ontario William Harris Mother Jones' brother

See Also:

• Wikipedia: Mother Jones
• Autobiography of Mother Jones by Mother Jones. Online at Project Gutenburg. Public Domain, USA.

• National Women's Hall of Fame, inducted 1984.