My Genealogy Hound

Orville D. Jones, attorney at law, Edina, Mo., was born in Miami County, Ind., April 29, 1840, his parents being William M. and Martha (Robbins) Jones, natives of Kentucky and Indiana. The father immigrated to Illinois in 1852 with his family, and in 1809 removed to Iowa, where he died in Keokuk County, February 23, 1884. The mother died in Indiana, when our subject was quite small, and the father was afterward married to Rachel Bayliss, who, with two sons and five daughters, survives him. By his marriage with our subject’s mother Orville D., Alvin R. and Martha Emma (wife of Howard Lotspeich) are the living children. The subject of this sketch secured a good English education at the common schools of his neighborhood, and finished the same in Heading College, at Abingdon, Ill., graduating there in June, 1870. After that he taught during 1870 and 1871, and then attended the law department of the Iowa City University, one session. In April, 1872, he came to Edina, Mo., where he was admitted to the bar, and commenced the practice of law, at which he has been engaged ever since, meeting good and well-deserved success. Mr. Jones is independent in his political views, advocating currency and land reform. He was a candidate on the Greenback ticket in 1878 for the office of State auditor, and in 1884 was on the same ticket for the office of judge of supreme court. During the latter part of the war he served in the Union Army about five months as a private, in Company D, One Hundred and Thirty-seventh Regiment Illinois Volunteer Infantry. March 29, 1874, he married Mary E. Graves, a native of Vermont, by whom he has had two children: Agnes Pauline and Bertha Josephine. He is one of the most successful practitioners in Edina, and himself and wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church.