Annie Laura Jones

Annie Laura
daughter of
R. W. & I. W. Jones
born
Sept. 13, 1889
died Sept. 14, 1889

Robert
Weston
son of
R. W. & I. W. Jones
born
Mar. 10, 1891
died
Apr. 18, 1891

Photo Credit: Rosa G. Gonzales

---

Biography

This small child lived only a mater of a day according to her tombstone.  Her memorial testifies that she is the daughter of R. W. and L. W. Jones.  She is named for her mother, Laura W. Jones, and was born on 13 September 1889.  Though her father was a well respected doctor, he was unable to save this little life that ended the following day, 14 September 1889.  Dr. Robert W. Jones was born in Ohio on 14 February 1848 to Dr. Hiram G. Jones and Nancy Jane Woods who were married in Adams County, Ohio on 4 August 1846.  Hiram was a pioneer physician in the community of Evansville, Indiana; and his son Robert may have decided early to follow his father into that honorable profession.  In 1880 Robert is listed with his father and stepmother and their children in Evansville (Vanderburgh County federal census p. 435).  Already Robert was practicing the medial profession along side his father.  Sometime in the mid-1880s Robert W. Jones married and moved to south Texas with his new wife Laura, possibly in conjunction with the continuing Ropes Boom.  In February 1888, the Caller announced the birth of a young son who presumably survived since there is no gravestone marking a Jones child who was born in 1888.  The paper reports the family's visit to San Diego where Dr. Jones took part in a shooting contest with the local Gun Club and visited the C. K. Gravis family.  Robert and wife Laura also became a part of the local society and religious community, received into the First Presbyterian Church as members in March of 1889.  Apparently the family was well respected in the community as Dr. Jones was also an officer in the local lodge of the fraternal order known as the Ancient Order of United Workmen.  However, the young family suffered some serious tragedies as little Annie died within a day of birth, only to be followed to the grave in December of 1890 by her father, and then a few months later in April of 1891 another brother.  It seems that subsequent to this the widow Laura Jones and whatever children still survived, presumably at least the son born in 1888, moved elsewhere, possibly to put the painful memories of their losses in Corpus Christi behind her.  Little Annie Laura, her brother Robert Weston Jones, and their father Robert W. Jones all rest in Old Bayview Cemetery where their mother had put to rest daughter, husband and then a son in 1889, 1890, and 1891.

 

Research and transcription: Michael A. Howell