Okay—I’ve done three lines of my family that lived in Maple Hill, Kansas and here is the fourth, The Jones Familiy.

Francis Marion Jones was born near Cincinatti, Ohio to Richard and Love Jones. Wouldn’t you like to have “Love” for a first name??? Francis and his family moved to Geneva Township, near Paw Paw, Michigan in the 1850s. He had received an 8th grade education and as such, he was eligible to take a test and teach in a country school. He passed the test and began teaching in Geneva Township. He would have probably been arrested today, but he took a liking to one of his students, Roxanna Mary Mariah Eaton.

When Roxanna graduated from the eighth grade, he went to her home with “a lead horse” and asked her father for her hand in marriage. That was the custom in that part of the country. Her father and mother agreed, and Francis rode off with Rosanna and they were married that very day by a nearby Justice of the Peace.

Francis became superintendent of schools for Van Buren County, Michigan and then came the Civil War. He volunteered in a Michigan Regiment and was immediately sent south where he fought in some of the biggest battles. He was not wounded, but he got dysentery and was sent to the field hospital in Nashville, Tennessee where he was discharged in a very weakened condition several months later.

Francis returned to Michigan and taught school and farmed. He and Roxanna were eventually the parents of ten children, and in 1869 decided to move to Wabaunsee County, Kansas where Francis rented a farm near Alma, Kansas and taught school. The family returned to Michigan in 1870 and moved back to Wabaunsee County, Kansas in 1871. This time he settled on a small farm in south of Willard, Kansas where he taught at the stone Post Creek School and had a very large garden, selling produce to neighbors.

His son, Leander Emory Jones was my great grandfather, and Leander’s daughter, Mable Rachel (Jones) Clark was my grandmother. She married James Peter Clark and they had two children, Thelma Maree (Clark) Hedges and my father, John Leander “Tim” Clark. James and Mable Clark moved to Maple Hill, Kansas in 1914 and Mable was chief operater of the Maple Hill Central Office (telephone) for 43 years. James Clark was a farmer and horse trader and also maintained area public and private roads. They lived in Maple Hill the remainder of their lives, as did my father, John “Tim” Clark. He married his high school sweetheart, Lucille Corbin, and they remained in Maple Hill all of their lives.

Photo One: Francis Marian Jones
Photo Two: Roxanna Mary Mariah (Eaton) Jones
Photo Three: Leander Emory Jones
Photo Four: Leander’s wife, Hannah Virginia (Miller) Jones and their daughters Mable Rachel and Edith Belle Jones. Hannah died two years after this picture was taken.
Photo Five: Leander E. Jones and his second wife Susanna Jeanetta (Rinehardt) Jones. Jeanetta was post master at Maple Hill for nearly two decades.
Photo Six: Mable Rachel (Jones) and James Peter Clark’s wedding photo – March 15, 1910
Photo Seven: Mable Rachel Clark with children John “Tim” and Thelma (Clark) Hedges on Mable’s 80th birthday.