The following information about Grace Jones and Charles Phillip Palmer was written by her oldest daughter, Edith Jane Palmer, and sent to my Mother on January 15, 1973. Grace Jones Palmer was my Grandmother on my Fathers side. (Paul Palmer)  The text is exactly how she wrote it except for some rearrangement 

Grace & Guilford Jones 1887 (Picture provided by Mike White)

Grace Palmer Letter Envelope. (Letter not dated but postmark is Topeka, Kansas June 27, 1941. Grace died there on July 11, 1941)  She was 67. SEE BELOW FOR LINKS TO LTR.

Grace Palmer Letter P1 Grace Palmer Letter P2

Grace Jones Palmer

Palmer, C P ‘Tump’ Amity Store

The following information about Grace Jones and Charles Phillip Palmer was written by her oldest daughter, Edith Jane Palmer, and sent to my Mother on January 15, 1973. Grace Jones Palmer was my Grandmother on my Fathers side. (Paul Palmer)  The text is exactly how she wrote it except for some rearrangement 

“Grace Jones was a school teacher   and a great lover of education and the arts. She was gifted in poetry writing, oil painting, writing generally and was always called upon and helped in any literary or other cultural projects in the community.  She was a great cook and also did needle work and sewed for her family.

Their first child, Ivan, died when 2 years of age.  Their family beginning with the oldest were Edith Jane, born June 7. 1902; William Byron, born August 9, 1904; Charles Paul, born April 26, 1909 (my Father); and Dorothy Jean born March 31. 1911. Edith married Donald Rea; had no children; Byron had one son, William Lamar; Paul, one son, Charles Paul, Jr.; and Dorothy one son Robert Palmer Newman.

Tump and Grace Palmer were Protestants, he belonging to the Methodist Church and she belonging to the Christian Church.  Charles Phillip (my father) was a little under 6 feet, light complexion, keen black eyes and black hair.  He farmed several years or until 1902 then he started a grocery and feed store at Amity and was very prominent and very successful in the community for 25 years until misfortune overtook him. He was first married to Rosa Lambert who died after 2 years at childbirth; no survivors. He then married Grace Jones, the youngest daughter of Dr. Alfred P. Jones and his wife Jane Poindexter Clingman who had a family of 11 children  who were born and raised in the vicinity of Amity and Caddo Gap, Arkansas.

He was a Democrat and an avid politician and frequently entertained political candidates in our home where they enjoyed pork tenderloin, fried chicken, hot biscuits, huckleberry jam, pickled peaches and other good foods.  He was a great believer in a bountiful table and there was seldom a day that we did not have a guest for dinner.  He was very kind to children and dogs and was a lover of fine horses usually having a matched team for the buggy.  He was forever befriending tramps and hobos especially after they had cut him a pile of “kindling” wood.

After the children had grown up and he no longer had the grocery store, he and Grace and Dorothy moved to the farm he had owned for several years on the Caddo River.  After residing there a few years financial reverses were again in evidence and they moved to Louisiana to be near his son Byron near Vivian, LA.

They were married on December 13, 1898. Tump died at Vivian, LA on October 31, 1940. Grace died at Topeka, Kansas on July 11, 1941 while visiting there from her home in Vivian, LA.  She is buried in Jones Cemetery, Amity, Arkansas.”

Compiled by Edith Palmer Rea (1/15/73) Sun City, Arizona

The C. P. Palmer Grocery picture provided by Mike White