Eliza Grew Jones

Infobox Person
name = Eliza Grew Jones

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caption = Missionary to Burma and Siam
birth_date = March 30, 1803
birth_place = Providence, Rhode Island
death_date = March 28, 1838
death_place = Bangkok, Siam

Eliza Grew Jones (March 30, 1803 [cite web |url=http://digilib.bu.edu/sth/cgcm/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&catid=18%3Aj2l&id=53%3Ajones-eliza-grew-1803-1838&Itemid=1 |title= Jones, Eliza Grew 1803-1838 |accessdate=2008-02-24] -March 28, 1838cite book |last=Locke |first=John Goodwin |title=Book of the Lockes: A Genealogical and Historical Record of the Descendants of William Locke, of Woburn. |page=269 |year=1853 |publisher=James Munroe and Company] ) is noted for having created a romanized script for writing the Siamese language, and for creating a Siamese-English dictionary.

Biography

Born Eliza Grew to Rev. Henry Grew, Jones was a native of Providence, Rhode Island. Presaging her future accomplishments, an early school teacher noted that she had an unusual ability in languages, learning Greek without the aid of a teacher. [Sigourney 1851:294,296.]

She married Rev. Dr. John Taylor Jones on July 14, 1830. [cite book |last=Harrison |first=Jerry Norman |title= A Few More Descendants of Lewis Jones, 1603-1684 |page=132 |year=1995 |publisher=Heritage Books |isbn=0788402196] The couple was then appointed by the Baptist Board of Foreign Missions to be missionaries to Burma.

Her first large work was a Siamese-English dictionary that she completed in December 1833, after she had been transferred to Siam. No extant copy is known to exist. Later, she also created a romanized script for writing the Siamese language. She wrote portions of Biblical history in Siamese.

In Burma and Thailand, she gave birth to four children, two of whom died in childhood.

Jones died in Bangkok of cholera on March 28, 1838.

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Notes

Further reading

*"Dana Lee Robert, American Women in Mission: a social history of their thought and practice, Mercer University Press (1997)"
*"Eliza G. Jones, Memoir of Mrs. Eliza G. Jones, Cornell University Library (March 21, 2007)"
*Sigourney, Lydia Howard. 1851. Letters to My Pupils: With Narrative and Biographical Sketches. (Her former teacher wrote of her on pp. 294-302.)