Though the day of change may be long deferred, it must come.

My paternal grandmother's parents, the blacksmith and the newspaperwoman.

George L. Jones, 26 January 1834 to 1 April 1931.  He lived to the age of 97.

Born in Wisconsin, he was the fifth of 14 children and the eldest son.

Part of the story of his life is described in "Pathways", a family history written by his son, Edgar James Jones.

At the age of 24 in 1858 George L. Jones joined a group with five other young men and went to Texas.  At the outbreak of the civil war his companions entered the rebel army but he made his escape to the north leaving several hundred dollars worth of property which he lost.  He enlisted as a private in the Union army (Company K, 30th Wisconsin Infantry), served three years and was mustered out an orderly sergeant.  He had eleven relatives who served in the Union army.

Pension records show that he was when enlisted 28 years of age, had blue eyes, black hair, dark complexion, was 5 feet 9 inches in height and was by occupation a farmer.

After the war he moved to Bloomer, Wisconsin, where he operated a blacksmith and wagon shop until 1880 when his health failed after which he engaged in newspaper work.  In June 1869, in Bloomer, he married Sarah Jane Jackson, the widow of Walter Gage and the mother of a daughter, Hattie.  His wife later assumed the name Jennie Jones.  They had eight children, only three of whom lived to adulthood.  They were John E. Jones, E. James Jones and Sylvia Melissa, my grandmother.

George L. Jones became a member of the Greenback Party and attended the National Convention in Indianapolis in 1876.  He was one of three on a committee who drafted the first platform of the party.  One of the other two was former Governor of Ohio, James B. Weaver.

The couple founded the weekly Bloomer Workman in July 1880 and operated the newspaper until it was sold in May 1886.

Three of the couple's children died of diptheria within eleven days in early 1882 and another died of the same disease in 1883.  Jennie was in 1883 pregnant with her youngest child, Sylvia Melissa, who was born May 15, 1883.  Less than a month later Jennie died of an overdose of laudanum on June 9, 1883, a death considered at the time to be a suicide.

George L. later lived at Weblake, Burnett County, Wisconsin where the Official Report of Burnett County Board of Immigration, Concerning the Resources of Burnett County, Wisconsin, published in 1902, described his life as having "an excellent opportunity to engage in the raising of cranberries and at the present time the spring brooks on his farm are filled with hundreds of speckled trout.  The visitor who stops there for a few hours wonders how any man can live in a great city after having seen how Jones and his family enjoy the pleasures of backwoods life."

In 1903 his daughter Sylvia married George Eugene Miller.  The third child of that union was my father.  Their fourth child was my Aunt Jane.

George L. entered an Old Soldier's Home in Orting, Washington, in 1915 and died there on April 1, 1931.  During his last years in the Old Soldier's Home he sent his Civil War pension each month to his granddaughter, Jane Miller, so that she was able to attend college where she was educated to become a teacher.

Sarah Jane Jackson Jones, known to the family as Jennie.  Born 1 March 1840, died 9 June 1883.

Jennie's great great granddaughter Emily Melissa Elvecrog Miller was born 100 years to the day after her death.  Also, Jennie's granddaughter and Emily's grand-aunt Jane Ruth Miller Brockett was born 28 years to the day after her death.

During the time that George L. and Jennie Jones operated the Bloomer Workman the following editorial entitled "No Looking Back", written by Jennie, was published in the newspaper:

"It was forty years from the inception of the anti-slavery movement in the United States to the achievement of success.  The struggle resulted in the freeing of four million or more people from one form of slavery, only to plunge them into another form of bondage.  Comparing the magnitude of issues involved, it would not be strange if the present contest for the liberation of labor should require a century of patient, sacrificing effort.  Men who live for themselves alone will not engage in such an undertaking.  They will do what the Tories did in the Revolution - stand by the powers that be and gather the crumbs that fall from the tables of their masters.  No faint-hearted followers after success need apply for a place in the ranks of men who are seeking exact justice for the masses of people.

The struggle will be too long and too fierce.  But brave, unselfish men who appreciate liberty and equal rights will not falter or turn back though they are assured the generations shall come and go before the complete triumph of the principles for which they are contending.  What nonsense to talk about a cause dying or being dead!  What better work can we do than to protest against the tide of injustice toward the masses of people - although there be no prospect that we shall gain the power to right these wrongs in our day and generation?  No!  A thousand times no!  We are right, and though the day of change may be long deferred, it must come."

-Jennie Jones, Bloomer Workman, December 28, 1882.