Mary P. Rice - 1880-11-24

To:  Mrs Mary Rice, Huntsville, Alabama, from John Jay Johns, 18 November, 1880.

Dear Cousin:

Your letter was the most pleasant surprise I ever had.  It gave me a pleasure I had not anticipated and I can hardly express to you how thankful I am for it.  I have lived so long away off here in the West, out of the range of any of my kin, that I hardly have known any of them personally.  My own immediate family are all dead and gone.  I often feel like a lone pilgrim in a desert land.  A letter like yours is like an oasis in the desert, a cool draught to a thirsty traveller, a sweet word of cheer to a weary heart.  You have ever been fresh in my memory from the time I say you 42 years ago.  I had the pleasure of spending a day or two at your house in 1838 when I was 19 years old.  During my vacation that year I went South and spent a few weeks at Dr. Wharton's, near Huntsville, where my brother Alfred and his wife were spending the summer.  I remember well how delighfully situated you were in your large house.  I remember well how I was impressed with your husband as being a fine talker.  What changes have swept over and around us since then.  All the friends of our youth have left us.  We have had great trials, but our Heavenly Father's hand was in it all.  He has never forsaken us, always a present help in every time of trouble.  By a strange Providence I was led to this great West in 1844, and settled here 20 miles from St. Louis. It is indeed a rich, splendid country.  The only objection is that the climate is rather cold in winter.  When I came here lands were selling for six and eight dollars per acre, and since then the same lands are worth from one hundred to one hundred and fifty dollars per acre.  I went to farming when I came to this country and after five years moved to town for the advantages of schools and merchandise, etc.  Since that time, I have lived in the edge of town, on a lot large enough for lawn, garden, orchard and pastures.  I rent my land in the country.  While I was in college I intended to enter the Gospel ministry, but when I left college my health was so poor that I gave that up and concluded to lead an active out-of-door life and it has been a great advantage to me.  When a young man I was dyspeptic and had bronchitis, but as I become old I enjoy very good health though I am thin and spare.  I have often wondered why my brother and myself were so spare, while my father and mother and most of their families were fleshy.  I think my Grandfather Johns was a spare man, while my grandmother Johns, who was a Glover, was fleshy.  My sister Elisabeth was low and fleshy like the Joneses, though some of the Joneses, your father, my uncle Lewellyn, was a tall man.  I remember seeing him and your mother in 1828 I think, when they were in Virginia.  Though I left Virginia when I was twelve years old, I remember all the old places you spoke of in your letter.  Your Grandfather, Pitman's, Uncle John and James Walker, where I spent many a happy Christmas holiday with dear boys and girls.  Oh! What halcyon days those were.  Dear Old aunt Betsy Walker, what a good, kind, pious old lady she was.  Uncle James Walker's family all went to Tennessee soon after we did.  I spent several years in Memphis with my sister, and the Walkers were in LaGrange and I saw them frequently and afterwards in Memphis.  Take them all together they were the most beautiful set of girls I ever saw.  Lou and I were nearly of the same age and I was in love with her when I was sixteen.  How sad it is that nearly all of them passed away so early.  I am sorry that Cousin Lou is poor.  Though if people are able to make a good living, I believe they are quite as happy as the rich.  Fortunately, money isn't the only source of happiness.  As to myself, I have had the desire of Hagur -- neither poverty nor riches.  The Lord has given me a moderate amount of means and by strict economy I have been able to get along comfortably.  I have had a large family to raise and educate.  I felt if I could educate my children it would be better for them than money.  I have endeavored to train them religiously, for without the religion of Christ what is man or woman in this world of sin and suffering.  I consecrated myself to God when I was only 17 years old and have been an elder in the Presbyterian Church for 38 years.  I have tried in my feeble way to be useful, but it all has been a poor return for the love and kindness of my Heavenly Father to me and mine.  I am very thankful to you for the information about the Winstons.  I knew Edmund Winston very well, have been at his house and also Tom Winston.  I saw Isaac when I was a boy in Virginia.  I remember his fierce, black cross-eyes.  My youngest son, our little "Benjamin", seven years old, I named Winston to preserve the name in the family.  My Uncle John Johns of Virginia married Polly Winston a daughter of old Judge Winston.  Were they related to our Winstons?  I see you have been a great traveller.  I think it would be a great pleasure to see the world.  I have never been able to travel.  My limited means have all been needed, raising and educating a large family of girls and boys.  My boys and girls have travelled in this dountry a good deal--some of them educated in the East.  One of my daughters (named Martha after my mother) has been three years in Philadelphia.  She went ther to stay with her aunt, who was in bad health.  She soon died leaving a little boy, and Mattie's uncle has never permitted her to leave.  He is very wealthy and she manages his establishment and is a mother to his boy.  She visits us every year.  The Mary Johns I spoke of in my letter to Cousin Lou is my brother's widow.  She is still in Denver with her son Will.  She, as you know, is a very interesting woman.  My brother died poor from the War.  The children were well educated and all are doing tolerably well.  She has three daughter and five sons living.  Two sons are in Mississippi, tow in Texas and one in Colorado.  One daughter is in Providence, Rhode Island, married to a Yankee, and one in Texas, and one a young lady with her.  My dear Cousin, I have written you a long letter.  I know you have plenty of leisure to read it.  A long talk with you would be more, much more satisfactory.  You speak of my picture that Cousin Lou has.  That flatters me very much, - and I have grown much older since.  I think I sent her a picture of my daughter, Martha, who is in Philadelphia.  I should be greatly delighted to get a picture of yourself.  I hope you will gratify me in this.  It will take but a few minutes to sit for it.  Have you a likeness of your father and mother?  I should like to get a photograph of them.  I want to ask you a question about the Joneses.  Who was our great grandmother before she was married?  2d - Who was our Grandmother Jones?  Where did the Joneses come from originally?  Were they Welsh?  Your father's name is Welsh.  I shall be glad to have any information about our ancestors you can give.  I had an old negro man my father brought from Virginia who once belonged to old Peter Frandiscus who used to tell me a good deal of the Joneses.  There was one he called "fighting Bill Jones".  And our grandfather, Joel Jones was a famous fighter.  And now dear cousin, may the Lord bless you.  Please write again.  My children read your letter.

For notes on this letter see Copyist's Notes for the John Jay Johns journal.

Tom Almquist sent me the following on Mary Rice in an email, 6 July 1999:

"Mary's name was Mary Pitman Jones, the only daughter of Lewellyn Jones and Nancy Pitman. Mary was born in 1803 in  in Buckingham County Virginia. She married Elisha H Rice in about 1825 in Madison County, Alabama had children Elisha (ca 1826) Joel (ca 1829) Laura (ca 1832)  Amanda (1836) and John H (1842). Elisha died about  1846 . Mary died August 19, 1885 and is buried in Maple Hill Cemetery Huntsville Alabama. Her grave stone says:  'Mary Pitman Rice wife of Elisha H Rice, born in Buckingham County VA 1803 died Aug 19, 1885. Elisha H Rice and children. Lewellen Jones and Nancy Jones parents of Mary P Rice.' She is buried in a section that has numerous other Joneses."