Margaret Benson Jones
BIRTH 4 Oct 1808
Greenbrier County, West Virginia, USA
DEATH 5 Jun 1890 (aged 81)
Hanover, Jefferson County, Indiana, USA
BURIAL
Hanover Cemetery
Hanover, Jefferson County, Indiana, USA
The Madison Daily Herald
7 June 1890
IN MEMORIAM
"There is none
In all this cold and hollow world, no fount
Of deep, strong, deathless love, save that within
A mother's heart."
Mrs. Margaret Jones, the venerable mother of Lin C. Jones, died of apoplexy at her home in Hanover, Ind., June 4th, 1890. Mrs. Jones was in her eighty-second year and had resided in Hanover since 1845.
Her maiden name was Benson, and she was born in Greenbrier county, West Virginia, near White Sulphur Springs, and grew to womanhood amid the beautiful and picturesque scenery of that famous region. When in her 20th year she was united to Mr. John Jones, of Virginia, and lived a happy and contented life, with her family in their pleasant mountain home.
In her fifteenth year she became a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church and during the remainder of her life--sixty-seven years--was a devoted and consistent Christian. She was not a dress-parade member of the Church--a Sunday Christian, but in her own, quiet, dignified, womanly way, she lived her faith and exemplified in her daily walk and conversation the "substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen."
Our departed friend was filled with virtues unnumbered, and every groan from the suffering rended her tender heart. Charity and benevolence were conspicuous traits in her character, and she always spoke a kind word for the wayward, and the poor never left her door unfed. She fully realized that there is nothing desirable on earth that is not labeled on the inside Christian Charity, the sum of all earthly goodness in man.
In this connection how true are the words of Horace Mann: "The soul of the truly benevolent man does not seem to reside much in its own body. It's life to a great extent is a mere reflex of the lives of others. It migrates into their bodies and identifying its existence with their existence, finds its own happiness in increasing and prolonging their pleasures, in extinguishing or solacing their pains."
The writer has been for many years an intimate friend of the deceased, and can truthfully say that if there ever was a purely unselfish wife, mother, neighbor and friend--a woman who sunk self in her sedulous devotion to family, friends and duty--Margaret Jones was that woman.
She idolized her own, and grandchildren, and entered heartily into all their joys and sorrows, rejoiced when they were prosperous and happy, and sorrowed when misfortune and death came to mar their cheerful homes.
Her life was long and useful, Length of days having been granted her, as to the devout of old, and the evening of her life was calm and peaceful as she lingered between sunshine and the gloaming awaiting the Master's summons.
She had survived her husband, and all but three of her children, and frequently spoke of the life to come and the narrow line of demarcation which separated her from the shadowy river which flows forever to the unknown sea.
Death had no terrors for her, but was looked upon as the "golden key that opens the palace of eternity." That death which we in our blindness regret; but it is but the "gray eve between two shining days--the day of the past and the immortal day of the eternity of the future."
This, should, indeed, be a great consolation. For it is this faith in the goodness of God which will build for us a bridge across the gulf of death and land our thoughts peacefully on the farther side.
"Yet Love will dream and Faith will trust,
(Since He who knows our need is just)
That somehow, somewhere meet we must;
Alas for him who never sees--
The stars shine through his cypress tree!
Who, hopeless who lays his dead away,
Nor looks to see the breaking day
Across the mournful marbles play!
Who hath not learned in hours of faith
The truth to sense and flesh unknown,
That Life is ever lord of Death
And Love can never lose its own."
W.E.B.
Hanover, Ind. June 6th 1890
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/65807179/margaret-jones
