Elizabeth Wheeler Jones Lunnes

Some of the following was taken from an interview I had with my dad about his mother and some comes from her personal history.  Elizabeth Wheeler Jones Lunnen was my paternal grandmother.

     Elizabeth Wheeler Jones was born in Logan, Cache, Utah, United States on July 7, 1915.  She was the daughter and seventh child of John Parsons Jones and Juliette Wheeler.  She had two brothers, Harold and Veldon and four sisters Belva, Delsa, Juliette, and Elmira.  Beth, as her family called her, never knew Juliette and Elmira as they had died before she was born. 

     As a child Beth lived in Idaho and various places in Utah.

     Beth was a mild-mannered woman, very kind and loving.  She was even tempered and didn’t get angry very often.  She lived in a time where there were lots of physical hardships, at least compared to what we have today.  She had difficulties with her eyes growing up and as a result didn’t do very well in school.  She got her first pair of glasses when she was in the fourth grade. 

     Around June of 1931 she met Albert Lester Lunnen who was a good friend of her brother Veldon.  They dated for a while but didn’t go steady.  Times were tough the previous year as Beth’s father had died and they struggled to make ends meet.  It was especially difficult as the nation was in the midst of the Great Depression.  They lived on potatoes and fruit that they picked and canned themselves.  They made a living by washing and ironing the sheets for the nearby hospital.  They didn’t make much, but with help they were able to make do.

     When Beth was eighteen, she and Albert decided to marry and were sealed for time and all eternity on Friday the 13^th of October 1933 in the Salt Lake Temple.  Because Beth and Albert both were reared in homes where there wasn’t much money, they learned how to live on very little.  They lived on about 20 dollars a month with one quarter of that going for rent.

     In Oct 1934 Beth and Albert’s first child, a daughter was born.  They named her Shirley Joyce and called her Joyce.  About a year and a half later their first son was born and they named him John Edmund and called him Jack.  More children followed with a few miscarriages in between.  In April 1944 Beth was a single parent for some time as Albert went to serve in the Navy.  She had to take care of four children on her own.

     After their fifth child was born, Beth’s mother came to live with them.  She was in failing health and was having dreams of her husband and two daughters that died when they were very little.  Not long after she moved in, she passed away.  Jack remembers her talking about the new breakfast cereals and saying how it was like eating wind.  Then in November of the next year Albert’s mother moved in with them.  This was a very stressful time as the little children made her nervous.  It probably didn’t help that she was confined to a wheel chair as she had had both legs amputated.

     It was just after her mother died that Beth’s health started to fail.  She was frequently sick and struggled to care for her children.  She did the best she could.

     About 1951 is when the family moved to a little town in Montana, called Heron.  The previous year had driven through the area and fell in love with the place.  Beth’s brother Harold had moved there and so they tagged along.  They were really roughing it as there was no indoor plumbing to the house.  Jack remembers on time when his dad had to go to the outhouse. He heard something moving in there, so he got flashlight and discovered a porcupine up on the seat. He thought he would lasso it and drag it out and release it. So he lassoed it and in the struggle, the porcupine fell down the hole. So his dad got the 22 rifle and shot it. 

     In June of 1971 Beth suffered a stroke that almost completely paralyzed her.  One day when Jack was visiting her shortly before she passed away, she smiled at him.  To him this said that she loved him and was proud of him. 

      Elizabeth Wheeler Jones Lunnen was a kindhearted woman and leaves a legacy of love to her children, grandchildren and all those following after.