The year was 1918. A dreadful outbreak of influenza was
sweeping our nation, indeed the entire world. World War I was coming to an end
and by November when the peace treaty was signed with Germany
our troops overseas would be looking homeward, only to arrive to the deadly
threat of the “Spanish Flu”.
Eliza Jane Holcroft of Choctaw, Oklahoma, was fifty-one years old and worn out.
The mother of thirteen children, she buried her husband of thirty-one years,
James Archibald Jones, in 1917. She buried her oldest daughter, Nellie Grace, mother of two small boys,
when Nellie was only twenty-three years old.
Eliza knew hard times. Now her second-oldest daughter, Nora Olive, was pregnant
with her fourth child and living in far off Moffat County,
Colorado, with her husband Tom Smith and
their three other children.
Tom, Nora, and family were homesteading in Bear
Valley, north and west of Craig,
out in the boonies, but Tom brought Nora into Craig for the impending birth of
the child. I’m sure she would have benefited from her mother’s presence and
from the letter that Eliza wrote to Nora, I know that her mother wanted to be
there. I’ll let the letter speak for itself.
“Choctaw, Oklahoma
August 4, 1918
My Dear Daughter and family;
I will try to answer your always gladly received letter that
come to hand some time ago. We are all well at present. I have a very sore
finger so I can hardly write. We have had a houseful of company today so I
didn’t get to go to S.S. (Sunday School?)
They come after peaches, we let go three bushels today. Have sold 30 dollars
worth so far. We are getting 2 dollars a bushel here at the place. We could get
2.50 in the city but we have such a few I guess we will sell them all here at
the place.
Well, Nora, I have made my settlement with the court and I
am so short of money that I do not feel like it would be right for me to take
all the money we have to come out there and I would not have enough to make the
round trip so I guess I will have to wait awhile. I know it looks like if I
come at all I ought to come now but we are needing rain awful bad and don’t
know if we will make a crop to speak of and I have the children to think of
besides myself, but in spite of all of this I would sure like to come first on
your account, as I do not think I am interested in the land proposition out
there as much as I was. It would take at least three hundred dollars to take us
out there and it would take me a long time to earn that much money and I think
if we do not farm next year that the money I would spend out there would start
me in a little business of my own. Surely you will come home sometime this fall
or winter. Well Nora if I knew we would make a good crop I would run the risk
and come out there but I don’t know and we haven’t hardly any fruit like we had
last year. I sure do wish you could have come out here. I would have been able
to get by. Bertha (Nora’s younger sister)
would stay while you were down. I have not been as stout this summer as
usual and it seemed like the work just piled up and I couldn’t get it done. No,
we don’t have any vegetables except spuds and corn and cowpeas. Our tomatoes
are late so they are not ripening very fast. We had a few for dinner sliced.
Well Nora I am glad you have company. Maybe you won’t be so lonesome. Try to
get all of the enjoyment out of your company that you can.
Monday morn the 5th . I will finish my letter. I
am heartily ashamed of not writing sooner but it seems like there never was
quite as much to do but the peaches will soon be out of the way. Labe
(Nora’s younger brother) came back
yesterday. He had been gone ever since before the 4th of July. Tell
Ola (Nora’s oldest child) Goldie (Nora’s youngest sister) has taken her
first music lesson. She will take half a lesson at a time and twice a week. My
finger is no better. I am a little afraid of a felon. I must close. Be sure to
write soon and I will do better next time. I am as ever your loving mother. E J
Jones”
Nora gave birth to her last child whom she named Jennie
Frances Smith on September 12, 1918.
In a weakened state from childbirth Nora succumed to the flu and died on October 23, 1918; she was buried in
Craig. I’ve been told that it was Bertha, Nora’s sister four years younger, who
came out to Colorado when Nora
died, not E. J. Bertha may have expected to take little Frances back to
“civilized” Oklahoma with her but Tom entrusted Frances’ care to his parents,
Frank and Fannie Smith. They lived within shouting distance of Tom and his
older children out in Bear Valley.
Eliza Jane Jones never forgave Tom Smith for the death of
her daughter, Nora. Perhaps she believed that if Nora had traveled to Oklahoma
for the birth of her child she would not have died. Perhaps grief and loss
overwhelmed her. Her anger and unforgiving attitude resulted in a break with
all of Nora’s children that lasted until she died in 1950. After that, one of E. J.'s children, Nova, I believe, reached out to Frances
and a friendship developed between several of Nora’s children and their aunts and uncles.
It didn’t make up for all the years lost, thirty-two years of no contact, but
it brought comfort and closure to some.
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