CHARACTER
Anna Mary Jones
Gender	Female
Birth	March 17, 1878[1] Virginia, USA[2]
Death	May 16, 1912[1]
Nationality	American
Profession(s)	Homemaker
Allegiance(s)	Jones family

"She was the sweetest, smartest, most wonderful woman who ever lived."

―Indiana Jones^[src]

Anna Mary Jones was the mother of Henry Jones, Jr. and Susie Jones, and the wife of Professor Henry Walton Jones, Sr. Although Susie died young, Anna served as bridge for the relationship between her husband and son.

After traveling the world on a lecture tour with her family between 1908 and 1910 — which saw her fidelity waver and son almost dying — she succumbed to scarlet fever in the early half of 1912.

Over the following years, Anna posthumously became the mother-in-law of Deirdre Campbell Jones and Marion Ravenwood as well as grandmother to Indiana's daughter and Mutt Williams.

BiographyEdit

Anna Mary Jones^[1] was born of a wealthy family in Virginia on March 17, 1878. She had at least one sister.

When she grew up, Anna met and fell in love with an Oxford University graduate named Henry Jones whom she eventually married in 1898 and kept a home with in New Haven, Connecticut. The following year she gave birth to a son, Henry, named after his father, at their new home in Princeton, New Jersey. The pair had a second child, Susie, but her strength was poor. Susie died at an early age.^[3]

Soon after Henry Jr's birth, Anna gifted her son with Indiana, an Alaskan Malamute whose name Junior would later take in 1905. The senior Henry, meanwhile, had become a successful professor at Princeton University and his books had garnered him enough attention to be invited on a two year world lecture tour. He accepted, and Anna and her family set out to travel the world in 1908.^[4]

Later that year in Italy, she faced a crisis of fidelity as Giacomo Puccini took advantage of the toll her husband's constant absences were taking and Anna found herself being drawn to the opera composer. However, she ultimately stuck to her vows, jilting the suitor at the very same train station where Professor Jones was returning. Henry was overjoyed at seeing his wife had come to greet him and her faith remained.^[5]

Later on the tour in 1910 in Russia, Indiana ran away after causing a scene at a wedding at their hosts' estate. Anna had to both worry about Indiana, and started caring for Indy's tutor, Miss Helen Seymour, who began to get ill. Concern for Miss Seymour's health prompted her to consider letting Henry continue toward Greece without them once Indiana was found, but the group managed to stick together for the train ride to Odessa and the voyage to Athens. In Athens, a trip to the Parthenon was cut short as Anna felt compelled to return to tend to the ailing tutor. Anna also received word that her sister was in town, and planned a trip to a spa with Miss Seymour and her sister, persuading Henry take their son to Kalambaka - and hoping that the two would become more attached as father and son.^[6]

The tour then took Anna and her family to Benares, India before a visit to China found Anna at her son's bedside when he was near death from a bout of typhoid fever.^[3]

After the family's return to America, Anna and Henry visited New Orleans with their son during his twelfth year and found they had to drag the jazz aficionado away from Preservation Hall.^[7] In 1912, the Joneses were invited to Miss Seymour's home. However, Indiana went alone as Anna and Henry were otherwise preoccupied.^[8] At some point, Anna became ill and contracted scarlet fever.^[1] Not wanting to worry her husband, she kept him unaware of the illness.^[9] She died of complications with the fever on May 16, 1912 at the age of 34.^[10] While Henry and Indiana would much later argue whether Anna ever understood and sympathised with her husband's obsession with the Holy Grail, her widower mantained that she did.^[11]

Behind the scenesEdit

Anna Jones was portrayed by actress Ruth de Sosa in The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade writer Jeffrey Boam brought Indiana Jones's mother into the second revision of the script (then simply known as Indy III) in which the character is named Margaret. When Indiana returns home with the Cross of Coronado, Margaret shoos him away as his father, Henry Jones, Sr. is on the telephone.^[12] In the final film, Margaret doesn't appear and isn't referenced by name.

The Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure came with a replica of Henry Sr.'s grail diary, in which Henry Jones referred to his wife as "Mary".^[13] However, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles later firmly established the character's first name as "Anna". Indiana Jones: The Ultimate Guide and The Lost Journal of Indiana Jones combined the two names as "Anna Mary Jones".

Although The World of Indiana Jones states that the character died of scarlet fever, it is contradicted in new footage shot for The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles 1999 re-edit, where Indiana explains she died of influenza.^[14] The former is confirmed in the Ultimate Guide as dying "of complications from" scarlet fever, as well as by the franchise's continuity keeper, Leland Chee.^[15]

AppearancesEdit

• The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles – "Young Indiana Jones and the Curse of the Jackal" (First appearance) → My First Adventure
• The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles – "Florence, May 1908" → The Perils of Cupid
• The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles – "Paris, September 1908" → Passion for Life
• The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles – "Vienna, November 1908" → The Perils of Cupid
• The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles – "British East Africa, September 1909" → Passion for Life
• The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles – "Young Indiana Jones: Travels with Father" → Travels with Father
• The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles – "Benares, January 1910" → Journey of Radiance
• The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles – "Peking, March 1910" → Journey of Radiance
• Young Indiana Jones and the Titanic Adventure (Indirect mention)
• Young Indiana Jones and the Pirates' Loot (Mentioned only)
• Indiana Jones Jr et le Fantôme du Klondike (Mentioned only)
• Young Indiana Jones and the Journey to the Underworld (Mentioned only)
• The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones – Spring Break Adventure (Mentioned only)
• The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles – "London, May 1916" → Love's Sweet Song (Mentioned only)
• The Mata Hari Affair (Mentioned only)
• The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles – "Petrograd, July 1917" → Adventures in the Secret Service (Mentioned only)
• The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones – Winds of Change (Pictured only)
• The Roaring Twenties (Indirect mention)
• Indiana Jones and the Peril at Delphi (Mentioned only)
• Indiana Jones and the Dance of the Giants (Mentioned only)
• Raiders of the Lost Ark (First mentioned)
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Mentioned only)
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade novel (Mentioned only)
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade comic (Mentioned only)
• Indiana Jones and the Golden Fleece (Indirect mention)

SourcesEdit

• Grail Diary
• The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles trading cards
• The World of Indiana Jones
• Raiders of the Lost Ark Sourcebook
•  Indiana Jones' Marshall College entry on IndianaJones.com (backup link on Archive.org)
• The Lost Journal of Indiana Jones
• Indiana Jones: The Ultimate Guide

Notes and referencesEdit