Women of distinction/Chapter 81
CHAPTER LXXXI.
MISS NANCY JONES.
Nancy Jones was born January 28, 1860, on a farm near Hopkinsville, Christian county, Kentucky. She was the slave of Jack Edmonds and of purely African descent. About the close of the war of the rebellion Nancy and her mother drifted to Memphis, Tennessee, where the American Missionary Association early organized schools for the freedmen. The mother had two ambitions: to buy a home and educate her daughter. By industry, frugality and patience she accomplished both objects. She was familiar with all forms of domestic work, but excelled as a laundress, and for years took in large washings. Sometimes Nancy helped her mother, who assigned her certain pieces as her share of the work and pay. Sometimes she hired out to white families nights and mornings. In this way she attended school at Le Moyne Normal Institute for several years. During one of the revival meetings at this school she was converted and united with the Beal Street Baptist Church. She early expressed the purpose of going to Africa as a missionary, but her friends regarded it as a youthful fancy. She was fond of visiting the sick and providing for the needy. Saturday afternoons she went around the neighborhood inviting children to Sabbath-school. Where they had no suitable clothing she begged half-worn garments from white families and made them over for the children upon condition of attending Sabbath-school. If any children failed to keep their promise Nancy took away the clothing she had given them.
In 1881 she entered Fisk University, and graduated from its normal course in 1886. Her summer vacations were spent in teaching country schools, where she stirred up the farmers to more thrifty ways of managing and their wives to better housekeeping.
In the fall of 1886, Miss Jones offered her services to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions and was accepted. Her mother generously assisted in preparations for the outfit. On the route from Memphis to Boston Miss Jones spoke to several large gatherings of cultivated ladies, and made many warm friends for herself and her work. She sailed from Boston the last of January. At Liverpool she took steamer for Natal by way of Cape Town and reached Inhambane in the spring. At Kambini she joined Mr. and Mrs. B. F. Ousley. She lives by herself in a corrugated iron house (sent from Liverpool in sections) and receives children whom she can persuade to leave the kraals and make a home with her. These she teaches to work, to read, to sew. She also has a day school of forty or fifty children. At first it was difficult to keep them at lessons. If a boy proposed to go fishing the whole band rushed off to the river. Now they are not so wild.
When Mr. and Mrs. Ousley were obliged to return to America for a year Miss Jones bravely remained alone. Once she made an extended trip attended only by natives. Miss Jones has the honor of being the first unmarried colored woman to be commissioned by the American Board.