THE WAUPACA COUNTY POST

September 5, 1991

 

WHEN THEN WAS NOW

By Wayne A. Guyant

 

            Many people pick up a nickname sometime in their lifetime.  Maybe the nickname was Red, due to the color of their hair, or possibly by an occupation such as a dealer in cranberries.  One such was Cranberry Jones.

            When I was still in high school, I had the misfortune of cutting a deep gash in my leg with an axe, while cutting wood.  Consequently I walked with a limp for some time.  At the time there was a man whom some of you may remember. He was Louie Seavy, who had a wooden leg, and he walked with a limp, so I picked up the nickname of Louie.  You might say that I acquired my nickname by accident.

            The rest of the story you might also say, is about the Jones boys.  The following is taken from the obituary of Ansel Jones, better known as “Cranberry Jones.”  He passed away at the home of his son, Eugene, on February 10, 1910, at the ripe age of 95 years.

            He was born in Cayauga County, NY, in 1915.  In 1849 he came to Wisconsin with his new bride, Helen Schell, whom he had married in New York.  They arrived in Waupaca County sometimes in the 1850’s and purchased land in Sections 31 and 32, in the Township of Farmington.  The homestead farm is located near the entrance to the Hartman Creek State Park.

            Ansel Jones was engaged in farming until the 1880s.  In his earlier years he was engaged in lumbering for several winters, and he dealt in cranberries quite extensively, and from this derived his name of “Cranberry Jones.”

            Mr. and Mrs. Jones had seven children; two died at an early age – Ernest L. and Josephine. The five who grew to adulthood were Clinton, Neil, Herbert, Eugene and Edith, who married W. A. Hartman.  The mother, Mrs. Ansel (Helen) Jones passed away January 9, 1887.  Ansel Cranberry Jones lived a full life, and died on the homestead.  All are buried in the Pleasant Valley Cemetery.

            His obituary quotes that in business he valued his word from man-to-man, both physically and mentally, but in his declining years he was nearly blind.

            The rest of the story will follow Eugene Jones’ family.  The other brothers left home to make their fortunes in the West.

            Actually, Eugene Jones’ proper name was Ansel Eugene Jones. On November 25, 1880 he married Lorn Ann Perry and they had two sons, Thad H. and J. Paul.  Both were veterans of World War I.

            When Gene and Lola, as they were always called, began their married life together, they were harnessed with a little less than nothing.  Their farm, with only an old ramshackle house, and a big mortgage, was Gene Jones’ start in farming.  But with youth and a great ambition he paid off the mortgage and built a nice new farm home.

            Gene Jones was a great lover of music.  In his early youth he began taking music lessons on the organ, but his quick ear for music betrayed him into playing by ear instead of by note.

            His ability to improve on accompaniments, both to human voice and to other instruments, let him to join with the neighboring family of Truman Hartman and sons, who were known far and wide as “Hartman’s String Band,” wit Gene Jones at the melodeon.  They were in big demand for dances through-out the country.  Later Gene took up with the violin, and with one or the other of his brothers playing the melodeon, he struck out on his own and became an accomplished performer on the violin.

            Gene Jones passed away December 28, 1928, and Lola, his wife, passed away December 1, 1940. They are buried in the Waupaca Cemetery.  One part of Gene Jones’ obituary states that he had many virtues and some faults, “but let us remember the virtues and bury the faults with his worn-out body in the grave.”

            Thad H. Jones, a son, also had musical talent.  He ran his own Jones Music Company in Waupaca, at 116 North Main Street.  He was a piano tuner and repaired organs. In his ads he advertised selling New Home sewing machines.  He served in World War I, and finally went to the Tomahawk area, where he stayed.

            J. Paul Jones, better remembered as Paul Jones, was born May 9, 1893, in the Town of Farming-ton, on the old homestead, and on October 14, 1925, he was married to Irene Kain, in Chicago, IL.  They had no children.

            Paul Jones was the Waupaca Police Chief from 1937 to July of 1944, and went on to be the super-intendent of the Waupaca County Hospital at Weyauwega from July 1, 1944 to March 1, 1966.  His wife, Irene, was the matron.  Together they were responsible for many improvements at the hospital, that made the place a better place for the inmates to live.  Mr. Jones was likely by everyone who knew him.

            After retiring in 1964, Mr. and Mrs. Jones retired to the old homestead farm near the Chain o’ Lakes and the Hartman Creek State Park.  Here he could be seen driving his tractor after both legs had been amputated.  Both Paul and Thad had diabetes and had lost both legs to this dreaded disease.

            My father was born and raised on the farm adjacent, to the north, of the Jones farm, and he spend many hours playing with the Jones boys.

            It was some time after Paul Jones had retired, when Dad was talking to him about his brother Thad, who also had lost both legs, when Paul Jones remarked that “you might say that the Jones boys don’t have a leg to stand on.”

            One story that I remember my father telling was about when they were kids, over to the Jones place playing with Paul and Thad.  Their parents were away, so the kids thought up some deviltry.  Grandpa Ansel Jones was home, his eyesight was bad, so the boys threw small stones at the house roof. It made quite a noise, and Grandpa Jones would come out of the house and yell at them.  Boys can be cruel at times.