Mabel Lossing Jones

"Mabel Lossing Jones' influence upon her students has affected the global community. Due to her efforts, hundreds of children received an education, thus ultimately contributing to society in all walks of life."
— Karilyn K. Bonomolo, 1991

Mabel Lossing Jones, born in 1878, spent 42 years as a teacher and administrator in India. A graduate of Upper Iowa University, she was appointed by the Methodist Episcopal Church mission schools to a girls school in Khandwa. Within a year she became its principal. A few years later, Jones was sent to Isabella Thobrun College, the first college for women in India. It was here that she met and married Dr. E. Stanley Jones, also a missionary. Her next move was to Sitapur where she became superintendent of six schools, including a boarding school for Christian boys. It was this school that became the focus of Jones's work in India and on into retirement. She was responsible for introducing women teachers into the school at a time in India when women were not considered qualified to teach boys; other schools throughout India followed her lead. She mastered the Hindi and Urdu languages and script. She served with 10 Hindu and ten Muslim males as the only non-Indian, Christian woman elected to the Sitapur administrative body, a position she held for nearly 20 years. For health reasons, Jones retired in 1945 but continued to seek scholarships for students to the Sitapur Boys Boarding School. At age 90, she was still raising enough funds to send 600 boys to school. She died in 1978. She was inducted into the Iowa Women's Hall of Fame in 1991.