Dates

• Existence: 1876 - 1928

Biography

Grace Morris Allen Jones, educator, was born in Keokuk, Iowa on January 7, 1876 and grew up in Burlington, Iowa. In 1902, she established the Grace M. Allen Industrial School in Burlington for African-American students. The school was so successful that white students began to attend. Allen employed both African-American and white teachers. She closed the school in 1906.

In 1912, she married Dr. Laurence Jones, a University of Iowa graduate who founded the Piney Woods Country Life School in Piney Woods, Mississippi. Grace Jones was proficient at fundraising for the Piney Woods School and also taught laundry, sewing, domestic science, weaving and textiles, and basketry courses there. Jones was a member of the Mississippi State Federation of Colored Women's Clubs. As part of her club work, she taught the women of the area about child rearing and nutrition.

Jones was deeply involved in women's issues and was particularly concerned about the welfare of children. She led an effort to establish a training school for African-American children, which resulted in the founding of a school by the Mississippi State Federated Colored Women's Clubs in 1928. That institution, based in Learned, Mississippi, eventually was purchased by the State of Mississippi and renamed Oakley School. Jones was also concerned about health care and sanitation issues, particularly the number of tuberculosis cases among blacks in the same state. In 1923, she organized a state conference on health and welfare.

She died from the after-effects of pneumonia in 1928.

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