As a youngster Jessie, a dark haired women of small build, worked as a cook and house keeper for a number of area farmers. She was active in church groups in Illinois and later in Iowa. She was a member of Opal Camp No. 3815, Royal Neighbors of America of Marble Rock, Iowa. As many women of the time were, she was handy with a needle and thread. Some of her needles were carved from elk bone by her husband, Grant.

After moving to the Kamiah, Idaho area she suffered greatly from tuberculosis. She left home October 7, 1910 for Colorado Springs, Colorado to enter a sanitarium with hopes that her health would improve. The train to Colorado had to make connections in Spokane, Washington. In a letter home she tells of the terrible struggle she had in Spokane because of her weakening condition. A young women with a Y.W.C.A. badge, "see right away I was sick and tired out" . As Jessie debarked from the train the women helped carry her grip and helped her find food and lodging. Jessie was too weak to undo the pin in the back of the dress that her mother had helped her with that morning before she left. Jessie wrote, "I worked an hour and cried twice I felt so bad". As you read her letter you can sense that her spirits seem to have fallen to an all time low as she struggled with the dress, endured the pain in her side where the doctor had treated her with plaster, dealt with the difficulties of leaving her husband and children (including the new baby), and thought about the uncertainties of what lay ahead.

Although, she tried to remain hopeful, she showed little if any signs of improvement and was sent back to her home in Idaho to spend her last remaining days with her family. The funeral services were held at her home. She is buried in Kidder Ridge Cemetery (now called Willow Ridge Cemetery) in Idaho County a few miles outside of Kamiah, Idaho by her son, Bennie, and near to where her parent's graves would later be located.