Frances Ruth Jones, daughter of Jonathan R. and Nancy (McIntire) West, was born in Washington County, Arkansas, in 1849, the year of the California gold rush (see Jonathan R. West).  She had clear memories of the Civil War, the assassination of President Lincoln, and of her family’s being forced to leave their home in Arkansas and go to Missouri because of renegade Indians.  At age seventeen she married Russell Benjamin Jones (November 4, 1838 - June 11, 1891) in Hartford, Kansas, on February 7, 1866.  They eventually moved to Chalk Mountain, Texas, where Russell died, leaving her with two small farms and six children.  As years passed most of the children married and left home.  Edna and her mother continued to make their home together.  Edna married James H. Childress (October 1, 1879 - July 12, 1942), November 15, 1914.  In 1919, they moved to Coleman.  Edna was a skillful artist, milliner, seamstress, flower and vegetable gardener, and a wonderful cook.  Jim enjoyed working with a lathe.  He was in San Antonio learning techniques in its use while preparing for a defense job during World War II when he suffered a heart attack and died.  Mrs. Jones was a very capable person.  When she was young she learned from necessity to spin thread, weave and dye cloth; to make patterns, cut out and sew clothes by hand; to make candles, first spinning the wick, then mixing tallow with bees-wax, and finally molding; to dry fruit, peas and beans for winter; to knit, quilt, and garden, as well as to do other essentials of those early days.

Ruth, Edna, and Jim were devout Christians and were members of the First Methodist Church. Ruth especially enjoyed her association with the members of the Philathea Class.  After the death of her mother and husband, Edna continued to live in the home until she was ninety-three.  Glaucoma had dimmed her sight until it was no longer safe for her to live alone.  She went to Glen Rose, to stay, first in a boarding house, then in a nursing home where she died at the age of one hundred one.  She, her husband Jim, and her mother, Ruth are all buried in Coleman.