Florence Augusta Jones

JONES, TALMAN

Posted By: S. Ferrall - IAGenWeb volunteer
Date: 4/9/2014 at 15:45:27

Florence Augusta Jones
by John Talman

To foresee that this lady is destined yet to take honorable rank among the genuine singers of the West and of America, requires less the subtle aid of prophecy than the faculty of properly gauging the possibilities of the future by the evidences of the present and the crucial tests of the past. Her verse reveals an unstudied grace, a spontaneity, a warmth and a charming tenderness which declare her a faithful interpreter of the Muses.

Florence Augusta Jones, now living at Hampton, Iowa, was born August 20, 1861, near Madison, Wis. She is of Welsh and Scottish parentage, inherited literary predilections from both parents, and has been a verse-maker from childhood.

Ever since the age of sixteen, Miss Jones has devoted herself to that noble but too often underrated vocation, teaching. She is concededly a most competent instructor, and is greatly beloved by her pupils.

Though by nature liberally endowed with those amiable womanly qualities which secure the love of friends and the esteem of all, she cares nothing for what is known as "society" "My home, my work and my books are everything to me," she has said.

Miss Jones' temperament inclines to the melancholy, though experiencing sudden and frequent transitions to hope, that mainspring of human success and happiness. She writes much, being a contributor to thirty or more newspapers and other periodicals, and the most striking peculiarity of her methods of composition is the fact that rain or twilight is required to bring forth her best work. Her highest inspiration finds birth when Nature's face is clouded, and then the desire to embody her thoughts in verse becomes all but irresistible.

Miss Jones is possessed of accomplishments outside of, yet akin to the realm of poetry. She is skillful with the brush, and the possessor of a fine contralto voice, which she cultivates with care. She is tall, of good figure, with rich wavy masses of auburn hair, gray eyes, and one of those sweet, pleasant faces which constitute an important fraction of what sunshine we of this rather unsatisfying world are privileged to enjoy.

~The Magazine of Poetry, a Quarterly Review; Illustrated; Charles Wells Moulton, publisher; Buffalo, N.Y.; Vol IV, No. 2, April 1892; pg 185
~The book index credits her photo to Bates, Hampton, Iowa

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