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Sarah Jane Gray
1865 -1961

    Jane came to Kansas from KY in a covered wagon when she was 4. There were still Indians roaming the countryside & they often stopped & asked for food. One time an Indian woman wanted to trade for Sarah Jane! Jane attended Salt Creek School.

    In her later years, she was a very small woman with steel gray hair in a bun on top of her head. She almost always had a long bib apron pinned to her dress. She had hundreds of flowers & loved roses especially. She had a large garden and canned. She also did sewing for family & neighbors. She was still making quilts when she died at age 96.

    George and Jane lived in Cherryvale, KS when they were first married but in 1899 Jane’s dad bought a small house east of Brooks Station, KS and deeded it and a few acres to them. They lived there the rest of their lives.  Both of them loved to sing.


Newpaper Article....from Neodesha Newspaper April 1961


    By coincidence, April 18 also the birthday of another woman of the Neodesha vicinity who can look back a long way. On that day Sarah Jane will be 96. And, unless some unforseen happening prevents it, Sarah Jane will arise with the sun and, as has been her custom these many years, bake a pan of brown-top biscuits for breakfast ----in her wood-burning cook stove.

    I have not heard what is planned for the rest of the day at her house, but if it wasn't her birthday Sarah Jane probably would spend the daylight hours sewing or quilting, and perhaps help some in the garden. When twilight falls around her farm home, Sarah Jane will light the coal oil lamps in the house--just as she has done most every day since she was married--near three-fourths of a century ago. Sarah Jane doesn't pay much attention to the new-fangled gadgets most people have in their homes; in fact, her only real concession to the modern pattern of living has been the use of a refrigerator--instead of the well--to cool her food-stuffs.  And then, too, the lamps do have mantles, instead of the old-fashioned flat wicks---

    Sarah Jane is the widow of George Housley, well known country blacksmith, who passed away in 1939. She and her son, Carlos, live in a small house on the county line road east of Brooks station. Mrs. Housleys parents, Mr. and Mrs. Sylvester Gray, were pioneer settlers in Montgomery county, having taken a claim on Salt creek in 1869, when Sarah Jane was but three years of age.

    They came from Carter County, KY. Chief White Hair's Osage tribesmen were occupants of the Verdigris valley then, and Mrs. Housley recalls the Indians from her early childhood. A lifetime of work under plain and simple living conditions may have its "drawbacks" in the minds of some people, but not so with Sarah Jane. There may be a better way of life---but she just hasn't noticed anybody who is happier than she is.

This information contributed by Jean M.Labrie
email address: http://skyways.lib.ks.us/kansas/genweb/montgome/jlabrie@in-motion.net
uploaded Aug 1998

KSGENWEB INTERNET GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In keeping with the KSGenWeb policy of providing free information on the Internet, this data may be used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages cannot be reproduced in any format for profit or other gain. Copying of the files within by non-commercial individuals and libraries is encouraged. Any other use, including publication, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission by electronic, mechanical, or other means requires the written approval of the file's author.