The girl who became the matriarch
Margaret Jane Lawhead was born 2 July 1872 in Michigan, the daughter of George Washington Lawhead and Emma Mae Stiles.¹
She spent her childhood in Albee Township in Saginaw County, where the family appears in the 1880 census — a farming household with young children and the ordinary rhythms of rural life.²
It did not last.
Her mother died on 6 April 1886.³
Margaret was thirteen years old.
Two months earlier, on 7 February 1886, she had already become a wife.
She married Aaron Jones in Saginaw County while still a child herself.⁴
A mother before she was grown
Before most girls of her generation had left school, Margaret had begun raising a family.
Mathew F. Jones was born 9 November 1887.⁵
Jessie Amelia Jones followed on 7 June 1889.⁶
Rhoda E. Jones was born about 1891.⁷
Three children before she turned twenty.
Over the next twenty-eight years she would give birth to nine more:
Roy Recine (1895)⁸
Ola May (1896)⁹
Archie Jarried (1898)¹⁰
A son born on Christmas Day of 1900 who lived only two weeks¹¹
Herbert Edward (1901)¹²
Oscar Edgar (1904)¹³
Thurlo Edward (1909)¹⁴
Marie Irene (1912)¹⁵
Laverne (1915)¹⁶
Twelve children in all.
The losses that never left her
The records separate the tragedies by years.
A mother does not.
Her infant son died in January 1901.¹¹
Her oldest boy, Mathew, was gone before the 1910 census was taken.¹⁷
And in the summer of 1917 came the loss that changed the shape of her household.
Her daughter Rhoda died in Taymouth Township at the age of twenty-six.¹⁸
She left two small children:
Ralph, not yet four.
Iola, just two.¹⁹
Margaret and Aaron took them in and raised them.
After more than thirty years of child-rearing, Margaret began again.
The same place, the whole life
While her father’s later years were spent in northern Michigan, Margaret remained in Saginaw County for her entire married life.
In 1910 the family was still in Albee Township, with children filling the household.²⁰
By 1920 they were in Taymouth Township.²¹
They were still there in 1930, older now, with the next generation already begun.²²
She did not move on.
She became the constant.
Widowhood
Aaron Jones died on 8 June 1933 in Fosters.²³
They had been married for forty-seven years.
Margaret lived less than three years without him.
She died on 2 February 1936 in Taymouth Township at the age of sixty-three. The death record gives the cause as cardiac failure.²⁴ She was buried beside Aaron in Taymouth Township Cemetery on 5 February.²⁵
Looking at her life as a whole
She was thirteen when she lost her mother.
Thirteen when she married.
Fifteen when she became a mother.
She bore twelve children.
She buried three of them.
She raised two grandchildren as her own.
And she stayed — in the same small Michigan community — while generations spread outward from her.
Some of the women in this family died young.
Margaret did not.
She lived long enough to become the center — the steady place everyone else came from.
Every descendant who comes through her children passes through her life.
Not because her life was dramatic.
Because it endured.
Sources
- Michigan birth records, Margaret Jane Lawhead, 2 July 1872.
- 1880 U.S. census, Albee Township, Saginaw County, Michigan, household of George W. Lawhead.
- Michigan death records, Emma Mae Stiles Lawhead, 6 Apr 1886, Saginaw County.
- Saginaw County, Michigan, marriage record, Margaret J. Lawhead and Aaron Jones, 7 Feb 1886.
- Michigan birth records, Mathew F. Jones, 9 Nov 1887, Albee Township.
- Michigan birth records, Jessie Amelia Jones, 7 Jun 1889, Albee Township.
- Census and death records, Rhoda E. Jones (b. ca. 1891; d. 1917), Taymouth Township.
- Michigan birth records, Roy Recine Jones, 14 Mar 1895, Taymouth Township.
- Michigan birth records, Ola May Jones, 20 Jul 1896, Burt.
- Michigan birth records, Archie Jarried Jones, 19 Sep 1898, Saginaw.
- Michigan birth and death records, unnamed Jones child, 25 Dec 1900 – 8 Jan 1901, Albee Township.
- Michigan birth records, Herbert Edward Jones, 26 Dec 1901, Albee Township.
- Michigan birth records, Oscar Edgar Jones, 2 Jan 1904, Burt.
- Michigan birth records, Thurlo Edward Jones, 19 May 1909, Burt.
- Michigan birth records, Marie Irene Jones, 24 Jan 1912, Taymouth Township.
- Michigan birth records, Laverne Jones, 26 Dec 1915, Burt.
- 1910 U.S. census, Albee Township, Saginaw County, Michigan.
- Michigan death records, Rhoda E. Jones Reikowsky, 25 Jul 1917, Taymouth Township.
- Michigan birth records, Ralph Reikowsky (1913) and Iola Evelyn Reikowsky (1915).
- 1910 U.S. census, Albee Township, Saginaw County, Michigan, household of Aaron Jones.
- 1920 U.S. census, Taymouth Township, Saginaw County, Michigan.
- 1930 U.S. census, Taymouth Township, Saginaw County, Michigan.
- Michigan death records, Aaron Jones, 8 Jun 1933, Fosters, Saginaw County.
- Michigan death records, Margaret Jane Jones, 2 Feb 1936, Taymouth Township; cause: cardiac failure.
- Taymouth Township Cemetery records, Margaret Jane Jones, burial 5 Feb 1936.
- Saginaw County, Michigan, marriage record, Marie Irene Jones and Raymond L. Hickmott, 26 May 1930.