Mary Jane Ainsworth (and Jarvis Johnson)

Alicia Burk - Linda Flake - Dolores Jordan - Gladys Stevenson - Sarah Adalaide Johnson - Mary Jane Ainsworth (1854-1916)

Family of Jarvis Johnson Sr.: Top row: Myrtal, Hazel, Jarvis Jr., Cynthia  2nd row: Sarah Adelaide, Rettie, Mary Jane Ainsworth Johnson, Joseph, Owen   Front Row: Wallace, Ruby     Iin the framed picture : Jarvis Johnson Sr   died: January 28 1898

When Mary Jane Ainsworth Johnson was a little girl in England, her father was an inventor. He worked hard and long and invented the first weaving machine. Because he was poor, he had a partner who furnished all the money while Grandfather did all the work. After the partner stole the patent for the weaving machine, Grandfather lost his mind and had to go the sanitarium. His wife was left with three children, our grandmother Mary Jane and her two older brothers. Mary Jane’s mother had to go to work to earn money to feed the family. Mary Jane’s brothers were old enough to go to school, but Mary Jane was locked into the house all day long and took care of herself. Mary Jane’s mother joined the Church and decided to come to America with her children. Before they left England to go to Utah, they visited their father in the sanitarium to say good-bye. He told them how happy he was that they were going to Utah and then he picked up stones from the ground and gave each child a stone. He thought the stones were money and told each child how much money he was giving them and instructed them to spend it wisely. Mary Jane was eight years old when they left England and crossed the ocean in a boat. One day, she fell overboard but was rescued and brought safely back on board. After arriving in Nauvoo, they crossed the plains. Along the way,

Mary Jane and her brothers picked up buffalo chips for the evening fire. One day as they were laughing and running along, collecting buffalo chips, the children realized they were lost. They couldn’t see anyone around and they didn’t know which way to go to find the wagon train. Mary Jane began to cry. “A lovely lady came to them and said, ‘Why are you crying, dear?’ ‘We’ve lost the wagon train and don’t know where to go.’ And she said, ‘Oh, don’t cry anymore. I’ll take you.’ So she took them until they could see the fire of the evening camp. When she showed them the fire and said, ‘Now go to the fire and that’s your camp,’ they ran quickly without looking to see where the dear lady went or to thank her and when they came into camp the men were just getting up a possy to go look for them. They told their story and the elders told her that this was surely an angel of the Lord had that helped them because they were so far away from any civilization that it couldn’t have been a human person. She always remembered this and told us this so that we would have faith if we got lost and would pray to the Lord.” Mary Jane’s mother married again when she reached Utah, but she was ill with heart trouble and died when Mary Jane was 16. Mary Jane now had nowhere to live, so she went to work for Jarvis Johnson. Jarvis Johnson brought many people with handcarts across the plains and was a widower with 12 children. Mary Jane kept house for him for a year, and after a year was over, the children loved her so much that they begged her to marry their father so that she would never have to leave them. So Mary Jane married Jarvis when she was 17 years old. She gave birth to 10 children and raised all 22 children. She also raised one granddaughter whose mother died when the baby was one-year-old. Mary Jane lived until she was 60 and did much genealogy. As she was canvassing door-to-door to make ends meet, a lady was about to throw out a book but gave it to Mary Jane. It was a record of her Ainsworth ancestors, so Mary Jane did much temple work. “I loved and honored her very much. I always wanted to be just like her.”

Source: Cassette-tape interview with Gladys Stevenson Jordan, by John Rogers Burk, 1971

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Mary Jane Ainsworth with granddaughter Deborah Goodsell

In the middle of the eighteenth century there lived in Staffordshire, England, a worthy couple, Joseph Ainsworth and his wife Mary Huff. They were a religious, God-fearing couple and when the Gospel was firsttaken to England by Apostle Heber C. Kimball, they were converted and becamemembers of the Church on July 4, 1854. Mary Jane was born July 4, 1853. Two older brothers, Joseph and James, also blessed their union. When Mary Jane was two years old her father died. Shortly after his death twin boys were born, but they only lived about three weeks. The father was an inventor and died of shock when his partner stole the patent to his invention which he had spent the best years of his life making ready for use.

Jane was baptized at age eight. One month later the family left England in a sailing vessel to cast their lot with the Saints of God, to share their difficulties, and enjoy their great blessings. They were five weeks on the ocean and their mother was ill all the time. Jane enjoyed the trip, though one day she nearly fell overboard and was saved by a sailor. They had for food only some corn beef and a small cake of white bread once a week. They landed at Castle Grade, New York, then went by sail and boat to Council Bluffs, Iowa. They crossed the plains by ox team in Captain Henrey W. Miller’s Company,leaving Florence, Nebraska, August 8, with sixty wagons and 665 emigrants. Theyarrived in Salt Lake City October 17. The company suffered much from sicknessand about 28 persons died on the journey. Their mother was ill all the way andthe children walked the entire distance. One day when it was nearly evening and time to camp, Jane and her younger brother, Jim, began, as was their custom, to gather buffalo chips for the campfire. Jim was putting some in a sack, while those Jane gathered she carried in her apron. They were so intent upon theirwork that they did not notice that the teams had gone far ahead and had disappeared from sight. Darkness came on and the wolves were howling all around. It was only natural that this boy of ten and girl of eight should be very much afraid. Remembering the counsel of their mother, who was a very prayerful woman, they sent an earnest and faithful prayer to their Father to keep them from harm and to guide them safely to the company. Shortly they saw an old lady who said, “Don’t cry my little dears, I’ll take you to the camp.Follow me.” When they were nearly there, not being a member of their camp, she disappeared. Their mother told them it was their guardian angel, for what mortal being would be there on that trackless waste so far from human habitation alone at night.

After arriving in Utah, Jane went out to service in the home of a Sister Willis at 50 cents a week and board. She was the mother-in-law of Joseph A. Young. Jane’s mother was an invalid for three years, which necessitated the children doing all they could to provide for themselves andher. When they had been there about three years her mother married Robert Wilson. They moved to a farm in Mill Creek. About a year later Robert Wilson was mortally wounded in a runaway and died in about a week, suffering untold agony. The doctor came once and dressed the wounds. Jane and her brother caredfor him the rest of the time, sitting up with him every night. The day he died their wheat stocks, hay, and everything they had burned to the ground. The shock of losing everything they had and her husband’s death was too much for the already weakened body of the little mother. She died a week later. She passed to her final rest in October 1866. Her last words to her daughter were, “My dear, never leave the Gospel, ‘tis true, and I want to meet you on the other side.” She was a wise mother. Young as her daughter was, she had taught her the secrets of her own being, which was a great safety to her when she was left alone in the world.

Brother Wilson was a silk spinner, but there being nothing in that line to do here, he was willing to work at anything. Besides farming,he and his wife’s sons made the poles for the first meeting house at Mill Creek.

After her mother’s death, Jane worked at one time for $1.50 a week milking thirteen cows night and morning, besides her other work. She later stayed with a Sister White who was very kind to her. Through her own efforts and with the help of Sister White, she learned to read well and to write a fair hand. She was always a great reader, thus accumulating considerable knowledge.

When her older brother was eighteen, he was called to fight in the Black Hawk War. In the spring of 1869 they moved north to Brigham City.Although only fifteen years old, she went to keep house for Jarvis Johnson. He had 12 children who loved her so much they persuaded her to marry their father.

During the first year of her marriage, she spun yarn enough to make fifteen yards of cloth, enough for the children’s clothes. She knit for the family summer and winter, even making suits for her husband and his sons.She also sewed for others. She was a very prayerful woman and earnestly prayedfor wisdom to guide her in her duties of wife and mother. Her prayers must havebeen answered because every one of her husband’s children lived at home until they were married. She was the mother of 10 children, four sons and six girls.Two children died with appendicitis, each at the age of 21. When her second child, Addie, was born, she had typhoid fever. The doctor said she could not live, but through the faith and prayers of her husband, Brother Adolph Madsen and other friends, she was restored to health and strength.

The spring after her marriage she became a member of the Relief Society. When the Retrenchment Association was first organized, Sister Minnie J. Snow was president, and Jane was chosen as a counselor. When the city was divided into wards, she was chosen counselor of the fourth ward.

The Johnson family moved to a farm in Beaver in the spring of 1880. While there she was president of the Primary 20 years and a teacher in Relief Society. She did most of her knitting going to and coming from her meetings. She was in four run-aways,being thrown out three times, but never having a limb or skin broken.

Her husband died when her baby was one year old and nine months. She had two married children and eight at home. Before his death he said to her, “Mamma, I leave you in the hands of the Lord. You will never want for any of the comforts of life. The Lord will always provide for you for what you have done for me and mine, and I shall always pray for you.” About a year after his death she moved to Logan. She went out nursing the sick for about four years, then she rented a house with 20 rooms and kept a boarding house for three years. Her health became broken so she took up canvassing. She did better financially at this than anything she had yet tried.

Jane helped prepare many bodies for burial, often making the clothes for them. She did endowments for about 300 and has been baptized for many more. She has a genealogy for about 1,700 of the Ainsworth family. In 1915 she had eight living children, 37 living grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren, all faithful members of the Church.

On a visit to the home of Brother Madison, he said to her, “Sister Johnson, when you get to the other side and relate your earthly experiences people will gladly sit and listen.” We certainly believe this true, for who does not love to listen to the rich experience of an unselfish life. Sister Johnson certainly had a life devoted to others and to the work of God. Truly the greatest lives are the lives of service, for did not the Great Teacher say,“The servant of all is the greatest of all. He who would be greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven, let him be the least and the servant of all.”

--by her granddaughter, Gladys Stevenson Jordan (typewritten papers transcribed by Alicia)

 

Children of Jarvis Johnson and Mary Jane Ainsworth:                     / Sarah Adalaide Johnson

Tin type photo 1877

Sarah Adalaide Johnson (born Jan 18 1873) 

Jarvis Johnson ( born sept 27 1876) 

Mary Emereta Johnson (Retty) (born February 6 1871)