BIRTH: 20 Jul 1857 • Nacogdoches County, Texas, USA
DEATH: 22 Jul 1928 • Hawley, Jones, Texas, USA
FATHER: Andrew Jackson Burk (1832–1900)
MOTHER: Martha Louise Dykes (1832–1905)
SPOUSE 1st: John Marion Gregory (1852–1891)
When Mary Jane Burk was born on July 20, 1857, in Nacogdoches, Texas, her father, Andrew, was 25, and her mother, Martha, was 25. She had four sons and three daughters with John Marion Gregory. She then married Jesse Winslow Chism and they had three children together. She died on July 22, 1928, in Hawley, Texas, at the age of 71, and was buried in Anson, Texas.
The Life of Mary Jane Burk
A Frontier Woman Who Held Two Families Together
Mary Jane Burk was born on 20 July 1857 in Texas, the daughter of Andrew Jackson “Jack” Burk and Martha Louise Dykes, members of the early Texas families who carved homesteads out of raw prairie and timberland. She grew up in a world where survival depended on hard work, kinship, and the steady hands of women who kept households running while men labored in the fields or on the roads. From her mother she learned the rhythms of frontier life — cooking over open fires, tending gardens, caring for younger siblings — and from her father she inherited the Burk family’s stubborn resilience.
In the early 1870s, Mary Jane married John Marion Gregory, a young Alabama‑born teamster who had come to Texas with his family after the Civil War. Together they built a home in Milam County, raising a large family in the cotton country of central Texas. Over the next two decades, Mary Jane gave birth to seven children: William Pinkney, Mary Edna, John Riley, Wesley Cleburn, George Burk, Pearl Quintella, and Hulda L. Gregory. Their home was full — full of work, full of noise, full of the ordinary joys and hardships of frontier life. John’s work as a freight hauler kept him on the road for long stretches, and Mary Jane managed the household with the quiet competence expected of women of her time.
Tragedy struck in 1891, when John died suddenly at just thirty‑eight. Family tradition holds that he was killed in a freight‑wagon accident, thrown from his team when the horses spooked on the rough Texas roads. Whether or not the details can be proven, the effect on Mary Jane was unmistakable: she was left a widow with seven children, the youngest still small. Many women in her position remarried quickly out of necessity, and Mary Jane was no exception. On 8 October 1893, she married Jesse W. Chism, a Texas‑born farmer and stockman. With him she began a second chapter of her life — one that blended her Gregory children with the three Chism children she would bear: Andrew Jackson Chism (named for her father), Jesse James Chism, and Anna Mary Jane Chism.
The 1900 census captures this blended household in motion: Gregory children and Chism children under one roof, Mary Jane at the center of it all, and Jesse working to support a family that had more than doubled in size. They lived in several Texas counties over the years — Milam, Coleman, Palo Pinto, and finally Jones County, near Hawley, where many of her children eventually settled. Mary Jane’s life in these years was defined by constancy: cooking, sewing, tending gardens, nursing sick children, and keeping peace in a home where step‑siblings grew up side by side.
By the 1920s, Mary Jane was an aging matriarch surrounded by children and grandchildren scattered across Texas, New Mexico, and California. She lived her final years in Hawley, close to the families of her Gregory and Chism children. On 22 July 1928, she died at the age of seventy‑one, her death certificate listing her as Mary Jane Chisum, wife of Jesse and daughter of Jack Burk and Martha Dykes. She was buried in Hawley Cemetery, not far from the homes of the children she had raised through two marriages, two generations, and a lifetime of frontier change.
Legacy of Mary Jane Burk
Mary Jane’s story is not one of dramatic events or public acclaim. It is the story of a woman who endured loss, remarried for stability, raised ten children in a world that offered little margin for error, and held two families together with the quiet strength that defined so many Texas women of her era. Through her Gregory children and her Chism children — and through the generations that follow — her legacy endures.
Parents
FATHER: Andrew Jackson Burk (1832–1900)
MOTHER: Martha Louise Dykes (1832–1905)Marriages
1st: John Marion Gregory (1852–1891)
2nd: Jesse Winslow Chism (1860–1930) on 8 Oct 1893 in Hill, Texas, USA
Children
- Children with John Marion Gregory
- William Pinkney Gregory (1873–1943) married Mollie Viola Crotwell (1883–1951)
- Mary Edna Gregory (1877–?) married J M Blackwell
- John Riley Gregory (1879–1955) married Dumpus Elizabeth Crotwell (1879–1949)
- Wesley Cleburn Gregory (1883–1948) married Nellie C Barbee (1887-1974)
- George Burk Gregory (1886–1947) married Aby Baber (1887–1979)
- Pearl Quintella Gregory (1889–1954) married William Robert Barbee (1883–1966)
- Hulda L. Gregory (1891–1964) married Percy E Crow (1886-?)
- Children with Jesse Winslow Chism
- Andrew Jackson Chism (1894–1970)
- Jesse James Chism (1897–1941) married Reta Hardin (1899–1963)
- Mary Anna Chism (1900–1936) married James H Hardin (1888-1960)
Documents
- Birth Records
- Texas, U.S., Death Certificates, 1903-1982 > Name: Mary Jane Chison; Gender: Female; Race: White; Death Age: 71; Birth Date: 20 Jul 1857; Birth Place: Texas
- Marrage records
- Texas, U.S., County Marriage Records, 1817-1965 > Name: M J Gregory; Gender: Female; Marriage Date: 8 Oct 1893; Marriage Place: Hill, Texas, USA; Spouse: J W Chism; Film Number: 000985127
- Death records
- Texas, U.S., Death Certificates, 1903-1982 > Name: Mary Jane Chison; Gender: Female; Race: White; Death Age: 71; Birth Date: 20 Jul 1857; Birth Place: Texas; Death Date: 22 Jul 1928; Death Place: Hawley, Jones, Texas, USA; Father: Jack Burk; Mother: Dykes
- Texas, U.S., Death Index, 1903-2000 > Name: Mary Jene Chism; Death Date: 22 Jul 1928; Death Place: Jones, Texas, USA; Certificate Number: 31427
- Find a Grave > Birth: 20 Jul 1857; Nacogdoches County, Texas, USA; Death: 22 Jul 1928 (aged 71), Hawley, Jones County, Texas, USA
- Burial: Mount Hope Cemetery, Anson, Jones County, Texas, USA
- Census Records
- 1860 United States Federal Census > Texas > Nacogdoches > Beat 8 > Mary J Burk (3) living with parents A J Burk (26) and Martha Burk (29) and sibling Candis A Burk (7)
- 1880 United States Federal Census > Texas > Robertson > Not Stated > 139 > Name:
J.M. Gregory (27, farmer) and wife M.J. Gregory (22) and children W.P. Gregory (5), W.E. Gregory (3) and J.R. Gregory (1) - 1900 United States Federal Census > Texas > Milam > Justice Precinct 04 > District 0073 > Jessie W Chisson (40), Mary J Chisson, (42), Andsen J Chisson (5), Jessie J Chisson (2), Wesley C Gregory (17), George B Gregory (13), Pearlie G Gregory (11), Hndie L Gregory (8), Cadaes Blackwell (6, step-granddaughter)
- 1910 United States Federal Census Page 2> Texas > Coleman > Justice Precinct 4 > District 0132 > Jessie W Chinn (50), Mary J Chinn (52), Jack A Chinn (15), James J Chinn (12), Anna W Chinn (9), George B Gregory (23), Huda L Gregory (18), Kandace Blackwell (16, step-granddaughter)
- 1920 United States Federal Census > Texas > Palo Pinto > Justice Precinct 3 > District 0191 > Mary Chism (62) and Jesse W Chism (59, laborer) Jim Chism (22) living with Percy E Crow (34). Hulda Crow (28), Addie Crow (5), Alice Crow (2), Jessie Crow (1)
- Other
- U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007 > Name: James M Gregory;
Gender: Male; Spouse: Mary Burk; Child: John Riley Gregory - U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007 > Name: Mairon Gregory; Gender: Male; Spouse: Mary J Burk; Child: Pearl Quintella Barbee
- U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007 > Name: James M Gregory;
Relation of Mary Jane Burk to Karen Edgar: great-grandmother
Page last updated May 21, 2026
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