Lucy Jane Angeline Morse, known as "Jenny" in her younger years, and "Jane" later on, was the oldest child of John Wiley "Bull" Morse and Sally Whitmire Morse, born in the Gum Slough community of Buna, Texas on June 25, 1876. She had five sisters and three brothers. When she was eleven, her six-year old brother, William Elbert, passed away. Buried about a mile from the homestead on a hill near a plot of ground that his father farmed, his grave became the first in what is today the Morse Cemetery. When Jane was sixteen, her mother passed away. For two years, until her father remarried, she became the "mother" of her younger siblings and the primary housekeeper.
Jane and her twin sisters, Ruth and Ann, the three oldest, began to take washing and ironing in from workers for Kirby Lumber who had come to labor at the logging fronts. One of those workers, Henry, lodged with a neighbor, and within weeks, he and Jane, a quite beautiful young woman, had set a wedding date. Jane's younger sister, Cassie, and her friend Maude Strawther, decided to snoop around Henry's boarding room while he was at work and discovered there a letter from his wife and children. Jane's Daddy had words with the young man when he came to call that evening. Henry packed up his bags on his horse and galloped away.
The Morse family had been members of the Antioch Primitive Baptist Church in Buna, Texas, for many years. Jane's grandfather, John Morse, was the church secretary there from 1862 to 1874. Jane's stepmother, Frances Dunn, was the daughter of David and Sally Dunn, who became members sometime before 1866. Through this connection, Jane met her future husband, David Amy Olds, who was the nephew of her stepmother. On June 2, 1901, at the age of 24, Jane married Amy Olds. They had nine children, Gilbert, Garland Jake, Dollie, Ruth, Wallace, Johnnie, Verdie Dessie, and the twins, Essie and Lessie. Amy and Jane's first home was near her folks in the Gum Slough Community, south of Buna. Several years later, they relocated to where Amy Olds grew up, and built a small log cabin on part of his grandparents' land.
In about 1912, Arthur Dixon, the twelve year old son of Amy's first cousin, John Dixon, came to live with them. His mother had passed away, and his father, unable to care for him and his two younger siblings, placed them in an orphanage in Beaumont. Arthur ran away and walked the sixty-plus miles back to Jasper, showing up on Jane's doorstep. He became a member of the family and lived with them until he joined the Navy.
In 1913, Amy and Jane, with four sons and two daughters ranging in age from one to eleven years old, traveled by wagon and team to a logging front near Manning in Angelina County. Virgin pine was being felled in East Texas, and Amy took a job with the company as a mule-tender and blacksmith. The family settled into a boxcar provided by the company at the logging front, where they spent a little over a year. During this time, they saved enough money to purchase a larger house that had been built on the old Dunn home place by Jane's younger brother, Durham Morse, who married Amy's Aunt Missouri Dunn. Amy and Jane's three youngest children were born while they lived in this home.
In 1921, Jane and Amy bought another house in the area, tore it down and re-built it on their land a hundred yards or so east of their current cabin. Later, they acquired a smaller house and attached it as a kitchen. The two houses were connected by a covered, enclosed ramp. A full length front porch with a water shelf at one end was a favorite family gathering place. Jane's yard was enclosed by a picket fence, and she kept it filled with flowers. Jane's husband had a small blacksmith shop to bring in a little money, and they farmed on the 30 acres that they owned. In those days, living off of the land was the norm for most country folks. For Jane and Amy, there was no telephone, no automobile, no electricity. Water was fetched from a nearby spring.
Jane was a self-educated woman who loved to read anything that came her way. She placed a high value on education, and all of her children walked the three miles to attend the little school at Erin any time it was in session. Many of their classmates were kept out of school at harvest or planting times to help out, but not the Olds children. One of Jane's sons, Wallace, recalled "Mother educated us with a pineknot -- meaning she would have used one on us if we hadn't gone!" According to Wallace, Jane taught her children respect for each other and simply did not allow quarrelling, foul language or discontent.
Most of Jane's kin still lived in the Gum Slough Community near Buna, Texas, where she had grown up, and she visited as often as she could. She would not hesitate to load up the children in a covered wagon and make the thirty-or-so mile journey. Her granddaughter, Garland Ruth Olds Horn, remembered the story of one eventful return trip. They were crossing a small creek that had no bridge, but it had rained a lot, and a little four-foot gator had claimed the stream where they needed to cross. The team Jane was driving wanted no part of that gator and refused to go forward. After several tries laying the strap to the horses, the team still would not budge. Knowing that dark would catch them before they got home if they were delayed longer, Jane climbed down from the wagon and looked about for a weapon of some sort. She spied a small "rose cone" pine knot. Tucking her long skirt up out of the way, she waded in and attacked the gator. She stunned him with one lick right between the eyes, then whacked him a couple more times to be sure, before grasping him by the tail and dragging him out of the path.
This resourceful, intelligent, and inquisitive woman became a mid-wife for the whole area, and learned to treat many ailments and wounds. She collected roots and herbs to make healing teas and tonics. One of those she treated was her husband, Amy, whose health had started to fail. In February, 1936, just shortly after their youngest children, Essie and Lessie, who were twins, turned 17, Jane lost her husband. In November of the same year, tragedy struck again when her daughter Ruth, her husband William Ener, and their eight year old son, Dolphus, were in a car accident. William and Dolphus were killed, and Ruth, after a lengthy hospital stay, moved back in with Jane. Tragedy struck again in 1952, when Jane's oldest son, Gilbert, committed suicide.
Jane Olds is remembered by those who knew her as a gentle, kind, and soft-spoken woman. She cared for many people during her life. When her husband's cousin, John Dixon, came down with cancer in his old age, Jane took him in and cared for him until his death. Jane was always a family oriented person. In the last decades of her life, her brothers and sisters would gather at her home regularly for reunions, and the children and grandchildren have many memories of playing in the yard or in the white sand driveway. In her later years she would routinely sit in a rocking chair on her front porch, Bible in hand. Her daughter, Dollie, lived close by and visited nearly every evening. Dollie often spoke of those visits when they sat on the porch. She said that, invariably, after just rocking and looking for a while, Jane would say, "You know, Doll, sometimes I just wonder what it's all about."
When Arthur Dixon, who had been raised by Jane as a son, attended her funeral in 1969, he told the family he wanted to be buried next to her, the woman who had taken him in and become a mother to him. When he was killed in a car wreck in Memphis, Tennessee, just two years later, his wish was granted. The Olds Cemetery, where they are buried, is on land that Jane and Amy owned, and was part of the original homestead of his grandparents, David and Sally Dunn.
Jane and her twin sisters, Ruth and Ann, the three oldest, began to take washing and ironing in from workers for Kirby Lumber who had come to labor at the logging fronts. One of those workers, Henry, lodged with a neighbor, and within weeks, he and Jane, a quite beautiful young woman, had set a wedding date. Jane's younger sister, Cassie, and her friend Maude Strawther, decided to snoop around Henry's boarding room while he was at work and discovered there a letter from his wife and children. Jane's Daddy had words with the young man when he came to call that evening. Henry packed up his bags on his horse and galloped away.
The Morse family had been members of the Antioch Primitive Baptist Church in Buna, Texas, for many years. Jane's grandfather, John Morse, was the church secretary there from 1862 to 1874. Jane's stepmother, Frances Dunn, was the daughter of David and Sally Dunn, who became members sometime before 1866. Through this connection, Jane met her future husband, David Amy Olds, who was the nephew of her stepmother. On June 2, 1901, at the age of 24, Jane married Amy Olds. They had nine children, Gilbert, Garland Jake, Dollie, Ruth, Wallace, Johnnie, Verdie Dessie, and the twins, Essie and Lessie. Amy and Jane's first home was near her folks in the Gum Slough Community, south of Buna. Several years later, they relocated to where Amy Olds grew up, and built a small log cabin on part of his grandparents' land.
In about 1912, Arthur Dixon, the twelve year old son of Amy's first cousin, John Dixon, came to live with them. His mother had passed away, and his father, unable to care for him and his two younger siblings, placed them in an orphanage in Beaumont. Arthur ran away and walked the sixty-plus miles back to Jasper, showing up on Jane's doorstep. He became a member of the family and lived with them until he joined the Navy.
In 1913, Amy and Jane, with four sons and two daughters ranging in age from one to eleven years old, traveled by wagon and team to a logging front near Manning in Angelina County. Virgin pine was being felled in East Texas, and Amy took a job with the company as a mule-tender and blacksmith. The family settled into a boxcar provided by the company at the logging front, where they spent a little over a year. During this time, they saved enough money to purchase a larger house that had been built on the old Dunn home place by Jane's younger brother, Durham Morse, who married Amy's Aunt Missouri Dunn. Amy and Jane's three youngest children were born while they lived in this home.
In 1921, Jane and Amy bought another house in the area, tore it down and re-built it on their land a hundred yards or so east of their current cabin. Later, they acquired a smaller house and attached it as a kitchen. The two houses were connected by a covered, enclosed ramp. A full length front porch with a water shelf at one end was a favorite family gathering place. Jane's yard was enclosed by a picket fence, and she kept it filled with flowers. Jane's husband had a small blacksmith shop to bring in a little money, and they farmed on the 30 acres that they owned. In those days, living off of the land was the norm for most country folks. For Jane and Amy, there was no telephone, no automobile, no electricity. Water was fetched from a nearby spring.
Jane was a self-educated woman who loved to read anything that came her way. She placed a high value on education, and all of her children walked the three miles to attend the little school at Erin any time it was in session. Many of their classmates were kept out of school at harvest or planting times to help out, but not the Olds children. One of Jane's sons, Wallace, recalled "Mother educated us with a pineknot -- meaning she would have used one on us if we hadn't gone!" According to Wallace, Jane taught her children respect for each other and simply did not allow quarrelling, foul language or discontent.
Most of Jane's kin still lived in the Gum Slough Community near Buna, Texas, where she had grown up, and she visited as often as she could. She would not hesitate to load up the children in a covered wagon and make the thirty-or-so mile journey. Her granddaughter, Garland Ruth Olds Horn, remembered the story of one eventful return trip. They were crossing a small creek that had no bridge, but it had rained a lot, and a little four-foot gator had claimed the stream where they needed to cross. The team Jane was driving wanted no part of that gator and refused to go forward. After several tries laying the strap to the horses, the team still would not budge. Knowing that dark would catch them before they got home if they were delayed longer, Jane climbed down from the wagon and looked about for a weapon of some sort. She spied a small "rose cone" pine knot. Tucking her long skirt up out of the way, she waded in and attacked the gator. She stunned him with one lick right between the eyes, then whacked him a couple more times to be sure, before grasping him by the tail and dragging him out of the path.
This resourceful, intelligent, and inquisitive woman became a mid-wife for the whole area, and learned to treat many ailments and wounds. She collected roots and herbs to make healing teas and tonics. One of those she treated was her husband, Amy, whose health had started to fail. In February, 1936, just shortly after their youngest children, Essie and Lessie, who were twins, turned 17, Jane lost her husband. In November of the same year, tragedy struck again when her daughter Ruth, her husband William Ener, and their eight year old son, Dolphus, were in a car accident. William and Dolphus were killed, and Ruth, after a lengthy hospital stay, moved back in with Jane. Tragedy struck again in 1952, when Jane's oldest son, Gilbert, committed suicide.
Jane Olds is remembered by those who knew her as a gentle, kind, and soft-spoken woman. She cared for many people during her life. When her husband's cousin, John Dixon, came down with cancer in his old age, Jane took him in and cared for him until his death. Jane was always a family oriented person. In the last decades of her life, her brothers and sisters would gather at her home regularly for reunions, and the children and grandchildren have many memories of playing in the yard or in the white sand driveway. In her later years she would routinely sit in a rocking chair on her front porch, Bible in hand. Her daughter, Dollie, lived close by and visited nearly every evening. Dollie often spoke of those visits when they sat on the porch. She said that, invariably, after just rocking and looking for a while, Jane would say, "You know, Doll, sometimes I just wonder what it's all about."
When Arthur Dixon, who had been raised by Jane as a son, attended her funeral in 1969, he told the family he wanted to be buried next to her, the woman who had taken him in and become a mother to him. When he was killed in a car wreck in Memphis, Tennessee, just two years later, his wish was granted. The Olds Cemetery, where they are buried, is on land that Jane and Amy owned, and was part of the original homestead of his grandparents, David and Sally Dunn.
Lucy Jane Angeline Morse, known as "Jenny" in her younger years, and "Jane" later on, was the oldest child of John Wiley "Bull" Morse and Sally Whitmire Morse, born in the Gum Slough community of Buna, Texas on June 25, 1876. She had five sisters and three brothers. When she was eleven, her six-year old brother, William Elbert, passed away. Buried about a mile from the homestead on a hill near a plot of ground that his father farmed, his grave became the first in what is today the Morse Cemetery. When Jane was sixteen, her mother passed away. For two years, until her father remarried, she became the "mother" of her younger siblings and the primary housekeeper.
Jane and her twin sisters, Ruth and Ann, the three oldest, began to take washing and ironing in from workers for Kirby Lumber who had come to labor at the logging fronts. One of those workers, Henry, lodged with a neighbor, and within weeks, he and Jane, a quite beautiful young woman, had set a wedding date. Jane's younger sister, Cassie, and her friend Maude Strawther, decided to snoop around Henry's boarding room while he was at work and discovered there a letter from his wife and children. Jane's Daddy had words with the young man when he came to call that evening. Henry packed up his bags on his horse and galloped away.
The Morse family had been members of the Antioch Primitive Baptist Church in Buna, Texas, for many years. Jane's grandfather, John Morse, was the church secretary there from 1862 to 1874. Jane's stepmother, Frances Dunn, was the daughter of David and Sally Dunn, who became members sometime before 1866. Through this connection, Jane met her future husband, David Amy Olds, who was the nephew of her stepmother. On June 2, 1901, at the age of 24, Jane married Amy Olds. They had nine children, Gilbert, Garland Jake, Dollie, Ruth, Wallace, Johnnie, Verdie Dessie, and the twins, Essie and Lessie. Amy and Jane's first home was near her folks in the Gum Slough Community, south of Buna. Several years later, they relocated to where Amy Olds grew up, and built a small log cabin on part of his grandparents' land.
In about 1912, Arthur Dixon, the twelve year old son of Amy's first cousin, John Dixon, came to live with them. His mother had passed away, and his father, unable to care for him and his two younger siblings, placed them in an orphanage in Beaumont. Arthur ran away and walked the sixty-plus miles back to Jasper, showing up on Jane's doorstep. He became a member of the family and lived with them until he joined the Navy.
In 1913, Amy and Jane, with four sons and two daughters ranging in age from one to eleven years old, traveled by wagon and team to a logging front near Manning in Angelina County. Virgin pine was being felled in East Texas, and Amy took a job with the company as a mule-tender and blacksmith. The family settled into a boxcar provided by the company at the logging front, where they spent a little over a year. During this time, they saved enough money to purchase a larger house that had been built on the old Dunn home place by Jane's younger brother, Durham Morse, who married Amy's Aunt Missouri Dunn. Amy and Jane's three youngest children were born while they lived in this home.
In 1921, Jane and Amy bought another house in the area, tore it down and re-built it on their land a hundred yards or so east of their current cabin. Later, they acquired a smaller house and attached it as a kitchen. The two houses were connected by a covered, enclosed ramp. A full length front porch with a water shelf at one end was a favorite family gathering place. Jane's yard was enclosed by a picket fence, and she kept it filled with flowers. Jane's husband had a small blacksmith shop to bring in a little money, and they farmed on the 30 acres that they owned. In those days, living off of the land was the norm for most country folks. For Jane and Amy, there was no telephone, no automobile, no electricity. Water was fetched from a nearby spring.
Jane was a self-educated woman who loved to read anything that came her way. She placed a high value on education, and all of her children walked the three miles to attend the little school at Erin any time it was in session. Many of their classmates were kept out of school at harvest or planting times to help out, but not the Olds children. One of Jane's sons, Wallace, recalled "Mother educated us with a pineknot -- meaning she would have used one on us if we hadn't gone!" According to Wallace, Jane taught her children respect for each other and simply did not allow quarrelling, foul language or discontent.
Most of Jane's kin still lived in the Gum Slough Community near Buna, Texas, where she had grown up, and she visited as often as she could. She would not hesitate to load up the children in a covered wagon and make the thirty-or-so mile journey. Her granddaughter, Garland Ruth Olds Horn, remembered the story of one eventful return trip. They were crossing a small creek that had no bridge, but it had rained a lot, and a little four-foot gator had claimed the stream where they needed to cross. The team Jane was driving wanted no part of that gator and refused to go forward. After several tries laying the strap to the horses, the team still would not budge. Knowing that dark would catch them before they got home if they were delayed longer, Jane climbed down from the wagon and looked about for a weapon of some sort. She spied a small "rose cone" pine knot. Tucking her long skirt up out of the way, she waded in and attacked the gator. She stunned him with one lick right between the eyes, then whacked him a couple more times to be sure, before grasping him by the tail and dragging him out of the path.
This resourceful, intelligent, and inquisitive woman became a mid-wife for the whole area, and learned to treat many ailments and wounds. She collected roots and herbs to make healing teas and tonics. One of those she treated was her husband, Amy, whose health had started to fail. In February, 1936, just shortly after their youngest children, Essie and Lessie, who were twins, turned 17, Jane lost her husband. In November of the same year, tragedy struck again when her daughter Ruth, her husband William Ener, and their eight year old son, Dolphus, were in a car accident. William and Dolphus were killed, and Ruth, after a lengthy hospital stay, moved back in with Jane. Tragedy struck again in 1952, when Jane's oldest son, Gilbert, committed suicide.
Jane Olds is remembered by those who knew her as a gentle, kind, and soft-spoken woman. She cared for many people during her life. When her husband's cousin, John Dixon, came down with cancer in his old age, Jane took him in and cared for him until his death. Jane was always a family oriented person. In the last decades of her life, her brothers and sisters would gather at her home regularly for reunions, and the children and grandchildren have many memories of playing in the yard or in the white sand driveway. In her later years she would routinely sit in a rocking chair on her front porch, Bible in hand. Her daughter, Dollie, lived close by and visited nearly every evening. Dollie often spoke of those visits when they sat on the porch. She said that, invariably, after just rocking and looking for a while, Jane would say, "You know, Doll, sometimes I just wonder what it's all about."
When Arthur Dixon, who had been raised by Jane as a son, attended her funeral in 1969, he told the family he wanted to be buried next to her, the woman who had taken him in and become a mother to him. When he was killed in a car wreck in Memphis, Tennessee, just two years later, his wish was granted. The Olds Cemetery, where they are buried, is on land that Jane and Amy owned, and was part of the original homestead of his grandparents, David and Sally Dunn.
Jane and her twin sisters, Ruth and Ann, the three oldest, began to take washing and ironing in from workers for Kirby Lumber who had come to labor at the logging fronts. One of those workers, Henry, lodged with a neighbor, and within weeks, he and Jane, a quite beautiful young woman, had set a wedding date. Jane's younger sister, Cassie, and her friend Maude Strawther, decided to snoop around Henry's boarding room while he was at work and discovered there a letter from his wife and children. Jane's Daddy had words with the young man when he came to call that evening. Henry packed up his bags on his horse and galloped away.
The Morse family had been members of the Antioch Primitive Baptist Church in Buna, Texas, for many years. Jane's grandfather, John Morse, was the church secretary there from 1862 to 1874. Jane's stepmother, Frances Dunn, was the daughter of David and Sally Dunn, who became members sometime before 1866. Through this connection, Jane met her future husband, David Amy Olds, who was the nephew of her stepmother. On June 2, 1901, at the age of 24, Jane married Amy Olds. They had nine children, Gilbert, Garland Jake, Dollie, Ruth, Wallace, Johnnie, Verdie Dessie, and the twins, Essie and Lessie. Amy and Jane's first home was near her folks in the Gum Slough Community, south of Buna. Several years later, they relocated to where Amy Olds grew up, and built a small log cabin on part of his grandparents' land.
In about 1912, Arthur Dixon, the twelve year old son of Amy's first cousin, John Dixon, came to live with them. His mother had passed away, and his father, unable to care for him and his two younger siblings, placed them in an orphanage in Beaumont. Arthur ran away and walked the sixty-plus miles back to Jasper, showing up on Jane's doorstep. He became a member of the family and lived with them until he joined the Navy.
In 1913, Amy and Jane, with four sons and two daughters ranging in age from one to eleven years old, traveled by wagon and team to a logging front near Manning in Angelina County. Virgin pine was being felled in East Texas, and Amy took a job with the company as a mule-tender and blacksmith. The family settled into a boxcar provided by the company at the logging front, where they spent a little over a year. During this time, they saved enough money to purchase a larger house that had been built on the old Dunn home place by Jane's younger brother, Durham Morse, who married Amy's Aunt Missouri Dunn. Amy and Jane's three youngest children were born while they lived in this home.
In 1921, Jane and Amy bought another house in the area, tore it down and re-built it on their land a hundred yards or so east of their current cabin. Later, they acquired a smaller house and attached it as a kitchen. The two houses were connected by a covered, enclosed ramp. A full length front porch with a water shelf at one end was a favorite family gathering place. Jane's yard was enclosed by a picket fence, and she kept it filled with flowers. Jane's husband had a small blacksmith shop to bring in a little money, and they farmed on the 30 acres that they owned. In those days, living off of the land was the norm for most country folks. For Jane and Amy, there was no telephone, no automobile, no electricity. Water was fetched from a nearby spring.
Jane was a self-educated woman who loved to read anything that came her way. She placed a high value on education, and all of her children walked the three miles to attend the little school at Erin any time it was in session. Many of their classmates were kept out of school at harvest or planting times to help out, but not the Olds children. One of Jane's sons, Wallace, recalled "Mother educated us with a pineknot -- meaning she would have used one on us if we hadn't gone!" According to Wallace, Jane taught her children respect for each other and simply did not allow quarrelling, foul language or discontent.
Most of Jane's kin still lived in the Gum Slough Community near Buna, Texas, where she had grown up, and she visited as often as she could. She would not hesitate to load up the children in a covered wagon and make the thirty-or-so mile journey. Her granddaughter, Garland Ruth Olds Horn, remembered the story of one eventful return trip. They were crossing a small creek that had no bridge, but it had rained a lot, and a little four-foot gator had claimed the stream where they needed to cross. The team Jane was driving wanted no part of that gator and refused to go forward. After several tries laying the strap to the horses, the team still would not budge. Knowing that dark would catch them before they got home if they were delayed longer, Jane climbed down from the wagon and looked about for a weapon of some sort. She spied a small "rose cone" pine knot. Tucking her long skirt up out of the way, she waded in and attacked the gator. She stunned him with one lick right between the eyes, then whacked him a couple more times to be sure, before grasping him by the tail and dragging him out of the path.
This resourceful, intelligent, and inquisitive woman became a mid-wife for the whole area, and learned to treat many ailments and wounds. She collected roots and herbs to make healing teas and tonics. One of those she treated was her husband, Amy, whose health had started to fail. In February, 1936, just shortly after their youngest children, Essie and Lessie, who were twins, turned 17, Jane lost her husband. In November of the same year, tragedy struck again when her daughter Ruth, her husband William Ener, and their eight year old son, Dolphus, were in a car accident. William and Dolphus were killed, and Ruth, after a lengthy hospital stay, moved back in with Jane. Tragedy struck again in 1952, when Jane's oldest son, Gilbert, committed suicide.
Jane Olds is remembered by those who knew her as a gentle, kind, and soft-spoken woman. She cared for many people during her life. When her husband's cousin, John Dixon, came down with cancer in his old age, Jane took him in and cared for him until his death. Jane was always a family oriented person. In the last decades of her life, her brothers and sisters would gather at her home regularly for reunions, and the children and grandchildren have many memories of playing in the yard or in the white sand driveway. In her later years she would routinely sit in a rocking chair on her front porch, Bible in hand. Her daughter, Dollie, lived close by and visited nearly every evening. Dollie often spoke of those visits when they sat on the porch. She said that, invariably, after just rocking and looking for a while, Jane would say, "You know, Doll, sometimes I just wonder what it's all about."
When Arthur Dixon, who had been raised by Jane as a son, attended her funeral in 1969, he told the family he wanted to be buried next to her, the woman who had taken him in and become a mother to him. When he was killed in a car wreck in Memphis, Tennessee, just two years later, his wish was granted. The Olds Cemetery, where they are buried, is on land that Jane and Amy owned, and was part of the original homestead of his grandparents, David and Sally Dunn.
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