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Nancy Bellzona's Picture Book
The Joneses - Juda Jones Bockius


Juda Jones BuckiusJUDA JONES BOCKIUS, HENRY BOCKIUS

Children of Juda and Henry, left to right: Buddy,

Alfred, Blanche, Loretta (Babe).

Juda was a sister to Joseph Hubbard Jones, and daughter of William Stephens Jones.

Those few who remember her to this day speak of her as a vibrant, strong athletic woman. She rode horses as well and as easily as any man. She rode side saddle in order to wear her long skirts as she rode.

There are finer pictures of her and her family but this in the cotton fields show their strength and willingness to work. If anyone has ever picked cotton they know what a torturous chore it was. The burrs on the hull of the cotton can well leave one's hands bloody from the task.

To some extent it may have been this woman who paved the way for the Joneses to be accepted by the Osage. She was a woman as strong in her attitudes as her physical life. She began to be friendly with various unsavory rough characters in the area. Due to this she picked up information regarding plots and schemes to murder Indian women for their wealth. As she ran to report these things she had stumbled upon she was shot. While she was in a car, she was run off the road to try to make it look like an accident. The people who found her called Bellzona and her son Lee Otis, who was a child at the time. As Lee, son of Joseph Herbert Jones, walked over to where she was on the road, she pulled her blouse back and showed him the gunshot in her side. He carried the event all his life, never telling it, until just before he died when he labeled these pictures. Why? The Joneses are most loyal to their children. Probably, he felt it was to protect them from the knowledge of the horrid happening. Since the whole family is no longer living, he must have felt it was time to divulge the truth.

It is an interesting observation to note she showed Lee, who was a child and her nephew, but didn't show Bellzona, her sister-in-law. The times in Oklahoma were perilous and dangerous. One never knew who was involved with the schemes to possess the oil wealth of the Indian.

Bill Hale is a name that became infamous because of his part in the bombings of Indian homes, and murders all to possess their wealth. His picture is shown in the old news clippings. These were the things Juda learned before they had been carried out. Babe, Loretta, Juda's daughter, married a man in Denver, Colorado who owned hotels. If she is still living no contact has been made with her.

Buddy is the one whose wife was the cook for the Joneses when Bertha died.


Alfred "Alfie" Bockius

    This photograph of "Alfie"  Juda Jones Bockius's oldest child is a good description of the man. I had an opportunity to meet him when he was an older man and I was still a girl. He was visiting at the ranch house. At the time I had no idea about his connection to the family, no knowledge of Juda, his mother, as Grandfather Joseph Jones's sister, or anything else about him. However, I was impressed with him as a person. He was very much in control of his world around him, it seemed. When he spoke his words were clear and he was careful to take the time to wait on a person's comments to make sure they understood what he was saying. I remember him using his large hands in gestures to illustrate a point he was trying to make.  He was sitting in a large, over-stuffed, comfortable chair and his attitude was very much like it is in this picture, what we would call in slang today as "laid-back."  When I met him there were no remnants of a cowboy attire. He wore a crisp shirt and soft stylish slacks but I remember his clothing fitting his large, athletic looking,  frame, well.  I, even though youthful, could see the man had the respect of the family.  He was comfortable in his surroundings, much like he might have been at home and we were the visitors. Of course, his early loss of his mother would have made him comfortable in the home of  the descendants of his mother, Juda's brother, Joseph.  He had probably spent many hours there as a youth.


Henry Bockius

    For all my life I have known nothing about this man, Henry Bockius, except his name. The family always mispronounced it as "Buckius."  After these many years, almost 70, in fact, via this computer, I heard from a descendant of his. She gave me the correct spelling. I then went back to the photograph and, sure enough, softly written in pencil was the correct spelling, "Bockius."

    Dad wrote the names on the back of these photographs the year he died in 1986 with a pen and he wrote it just as he had always misspronounced it, "Buckus."  Henry's descendant, Linda Hauns, tells me this man's family was originally from Pennsylvania. I'm sure there will be many interesting things to learn about this Bockius family.  The descendant was glad to hear about his family. She said it made the dry genealogy facts come alive for her.  I've discovered it isn't a very good thing to assume anything about these old photographs. I believed that since Juda or Blanche, her daughter, were not in this photograph Juda was no longer living and maybe, Blanche was married. Henry has a look of suspicious cautiousness and the children have a saddness about their faces, it seems to me. The times were so hard though, that alone could have caused their countenances to be the way they were in the this photograph.


Juda Jones Bockius

    Juda, "Aunt Jude,"  is dressed here and on her way to church, probably.  These folks were so poor it was hard for them to dress for church. In agreement with their southern ancestor's ways, who were able to stitch up clothing in a hurry,  from whatever fabric was available their poverty didn't keep them from always having something to wear to a meeting.  Probably the only expenditure here would have been Babe's patent leather shoes and Jude's purse. She seems to be allowing the purse and shoes to be obvious as if to say, in her mind,   "you see,  I can afford to buy something, here."  It was true they were very good with sewing up outfits even to the men's suits.  I find it interesting to sse the style for the men's clothing, circa 1916, in Henry's pictures show the ties and shirts matching in color value, just as might be done in this day and time, the year of 2005.


 

 


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