I had always heard that my mom’s great-grandfather was a minister, and now , I have a photo of him and some colleagues. My mom’s cousin Mary was kind enough to go through some photos and found this one.
David Jones is on the far right, seated with the cane. The other fellows appear to have on clerical collars. I am guessing this is some sort of clerical meeting. It looks like a tent in the background. In all the census records I have found on David Jones, it lists him as blind. He was born in 1849 to William Jones and Mary Polly Boylan. He was one of eight children, three brothers and four sisters. He names my great-grandmother after a sibling, Letitia. He married Mary Catherine Steadman in about 1876 and were in the 1880 census living with David’s parents in Mercer county, Pennsylvania. In the 1860 census, the two families did not live a far distance from each other. He was still not a minister in 1870, so I assume it was soon after he became ordained. I heard he was a traveling minister. In the 1870 census, the Jones family lived near Mary Catherine Steadman’s grandparents, the Boylans. Perhaps they met there, at a church social! They later moved to Venango county and then to Allegheny county. David E. Jones died in 1923 in the Mayfair community of Allegheny county. I have not found the death record or burial. I have also no record of his wife, or children except for my great-grandmother Ethel Letisia Jones. But, I have no idea where she obtained the information.
