Search just our sites by using our customised search engine

Unique Cottages | Electric Scotland's Classified Directory

Click here to get a Printer Friendly PageSmiley

Nancy Bellzona's Picture Book
The Joneses - Nancy Bellzona Collins Jones, Joseph Hubbard Jones


Nancy Bellzona Collins Jones, Joseph Hubbard Jones and daughter

Nancy Bellzona Collins Jones, Joseph Hubbard Jones and their daughter, Adah Gertrude Jones Wadley.

Joseph Hubbard Jones, Father of Lee Otis Jones, was born March 7, 1863, Valley Springs, Arkansas. He died February 1, 1955 at Tonkawa, Oklahoma, Kay county. Joe  married Belle February 8, 1889 at Harrison, Arkansas, in Boone county. Gertrude may have been around one year old in this picture so that dates the photograph to be circa 1890.  Some of the photographs of her family Bellzona saved go back farther.

Nancy Bellzona Collins Jones was the daughter of Nathaniel Stewart Collins and Elizabeth Ann Brewer Collins. She was born January 8, 1871 in Harrison, Arkansas. She died September 9, 1945 at Foraker, Oklahoma in Osage county, Oklahoma.

Nancy Bellzona, or as she was called, Belle, was a fragile appearing woman of small stature. She was plagued by asthma. There were no remedies for the ailment at that time and it was of even more courage she needed to survive. Maybe, in some strange way the daily fight with the illness gave her the strength of character she needed to conquer the hard life in the early days during homesteading. The second part of her life was equally as demanding and required delicate adjustments to live with the massive wealth her family shared when the oil fields pumped the black gold into the purses of the inexperienced. Her life was one of adjustment, to the driving of an ox cart from Arkansas a day after her marriage  to Joseph,  and then, later on in their marriage,  settling among the Osage's encampment. In this way they  survive the drought that drove so many out of Oklahoma.  She not only adjusted but  readily turned each disadvantage to an advantage. The Native Osage was in a time of transition from their own dress to the non-Indian style of the day.   Gramma Belle sewed shirts in the rich colors and cut of her Scottish background, a style followed today. When the oil wealth isolated her from her neighbors she turned her energies toward her family.

Belle was a woman strong in her belief of  God, not  to any particular formal worship, but in a private daily way of living. She searched the scriptures for answers to her problems. Her old Bible falls apart to the scripture about "How the Iron Did Swim," out of Second Kings, chapter six. Probably, it was a miracle that many of these pioneers did survive. Survive they did and in this way they will be a model for their descendants who are equally faced with greater challenges.

As humans, we tend to remember the good and forget the bad. There is no point in making Belle appear to be a saint. She wasn't. Her attitudes were highly opinionated. She also was a staunch republican. Belle and Joe  had   heated battles,  in their living room,  over politics.  He was just as strong,  a democrat.

Bellzona believed "children should be seen and not heard." Heaven help the child, who challenged her authority. She wasn't cruel, never put a hand on us, but  had a way of letting a child know when they were out of line. If  the method was of the Indian mothers in a “hard-staring us down”  way,  we have to admit; It worked.  What made the discipline tolerable was the fact that all were subject to it,  no matter the age or station. The family called her "the old lady," and, indeed,  she was that.

She had family in Arkansas, Texas and Missouri. Many of them relocated to the area around where she lived in the Osage of Oklahoma. From there they spread out over the state and still have descendants living here.

Only once did she bend in her strict adherence to Puritanical teachings. Gramma Bell deviated from her beliefs in allowing a Christmas tree and gifts under it into her house the last year of her life. A child of eight was old enough to wonder, “what is wrong with Gramma?”

Belle saved the old poem that said, “She would have died for her sons.”

Her daughter-in-law, Velma, who knew her well, commented, “Yes, she would have done that.”


 

 


This comment system requires you to be logged in through either a Disqus account or an account you already have with Google, Twitter, Facebook or Yahoo. In the event you don't have an account with any of these companies then you can create an account with Disqus. All comments are moderated so they won't display until the moderator has approved your comment.

comments powered by Disqus

Quantcast