“Where Are You From?” Parallel Worlds from Kansas City to Southern California

 

L to R: Anna H. Jones, Walt Disney, Sophia B. Jones
Courtesy Natural History Museum & D23

ELIAS DISNEY

Elias Disney, an Irish Canadian, immigrated to the U.S. about 1878. His came from Bluevale in the Ontario province. By all accounts he led a typical life of marriage, kids, and money-making ventures, along with relocating his entire family when a new opportunity presented itself. 

In 1911 he went to Kansas City where there were plenty other white Canadian emigres. There his youngest son, Chicago-born Walt, a 10-year-old, would spend his adolescent and young adult years until he eventually went to Los Angeles for his own opportunities.

ANNA HOLLAND JONES

In an earlier time – 1892 – 37-year-old Anna Holland Jones arrived in town to be appointed the first black female teacher in the city, and she taught at the only black high school, Lincoln H.S. She was also originally from Ontario, Canada – born in a town called Chatham (today by car would be about 2 ½ hours drive from Bluevale).

The year the Disneys arrived was the year that Anna became the first black principal at Douglass Elementary, the only black school for grades 1 through 6. By then she owned a home at 2444 Montgall Avenue and had several black resident boarders. She was likely the first single black woman to purchase a house in the city.

MONTGALL AVENUE

More needs to be said about Montgall Avenue - named for landowner Rufus Montgall, a slaveowner, who passed away in 1887. Anna’s neighbors were fellow black teachers, therefore the academic black elite lived there following a white exodus on the block. The street was near but not at the center of “Negro Quality Hill” (the black well-to-do geographic counterpart of the white “Quality Hill”). The analyses of historian Margie Carr suggest systemic racism took down the street within a generation.1

BELLEFONTAINE AVENUE

Her cross street was 25^th Street. The Disneys rented at 31^st Street but soon bought a house four blocks away at 3028 Bellefontaine Avenue (but still very close to 31^st Street). Anna’s neighborhood was dangerously far south, nearly encroaching onto the white areas. Before she acquired her own home, she roomed with another black educator family near 14^th Street. As the few black schools have always been at 19^th and as further north as 11^th Street, one can understand the pattern of segregation.2

Walt attended the all-white Benton Elementary School located just below 30^th Street. Racial integration at the school came about 1953, two years before Disneyland opened.

DR. SOPHIA BETHANA JONES & FREDERICKA JONES

For a time, two of Anna’s sisters also came to Kansas City - between 1903 and 1909. *They rented at 1213 Bellefontaine Avenue, near 12^th Street and in close proximity to Anna. The younger sister, Fredericka, was an experienced educator and opened a private day/boarding school. Her older sister, Dr. Sophia, was doubly as experienced in years than her younger sister but in the nursing and medical field. In March, 1905, the sickly Fredericka passed away. City directories show Sophia to have remained in the city until 1909. Census records show that she then left to live with brother George and his family in Ann Arbor, Michigan.3

MONROVIA

*Brother George resettled out west in Monrovia, California about 1914. Anna, Sophia and a third sister, Emily, followed, and they lived at 1301 Shamrock Avenue. *It’s probable that some or all the sisters migrated after 1919, for had they arrived earlier, surely writer Delilah L. Beasley would have included them in her sweeping The Negro Trail Blazers of California, published in 1919.

In Monrovia, once again the sisters were fitted into a predominantly black area. The Second Baptist Church of Monrovia was located on Shamrock in 1906.

Anna may have gone on teaching, and Sophia might have continued to apply her medical expertise (as she was listed in the Board of Medical Examiners in 1932). Since they moved to an agrarian environment, a “mom and pop” citrus-growing business likely provided a livelihood. Their neighbor was Japanese rancher, Shojiro Morimoto.

Still in existence in recent times is an organization founded by Anna in Monrovia: the Anna H. Jones Colored Women’s Club. Anna and Sophia died the same year of 1932 (ages 77 and 75 respectively).

*At the year of their deaths, Walt was well-established in Los Angeles, and his animation talents gained prominence. Mickey Mouse was already popular. Walt fitted easily after moving to the new place - where restrictive real estate covenants did not apply to him.

WHERE ARE YOU FROM?

As Disneyland’s Main Street grew in reverence as a part of America’s identity, the optimism and resilience that emanated from Montgall Avenue slowly faded away. The Disney home on Bellefontaine is on the National Register of Historic Places. *On the contrary, mere blocks away absent is recognition for the singular street where once lived those who worked for the betterment of former slaves and upcoming generations.

Segregation kept long distances against Anna, Elias and Walt though they lived for a long time within four square miles. No one had the chance to find commonality with a question “Where are you from?”

This post stems from a 2024 article of the Natural History Museum from when I was employed there as an archivist and uncovered a small packet of family photographs once belonging to the Jones Family.

1. Importantly, read Kansas City’s Montgall Avenue: Black Leaders and the Street They Called Home, by Margie Carr (University Press of Kansas, 2023). Google Books provide chapters for reading.

2.  Read also “Dissecting the Troost Divide and Racial Segregation in Kansas City” published by Martin City Telegraph, 6/30/2020.

3.  Consult “Searching for the BlackMeccas: the Jones Family” published by the Monrovia Historical Museum, 4/27/2025 to learn about what led the Jones enslaved ancestors to Chatham, Canada, the northern terminus of the Underground Railroad. Learn about Anna’s abundant work in civil rights, suffrage, temperance, and general betterment of women’s lives. See an overview of Dr. Sophia’s accomplishments being the first black woman to attain a medical degree from the University of Michigan medical school. Between the three older sisters combined, they taught at Wilberforce University in Ohio, other historically black colleges, and the Frederick Douglass hospital. Shout out to Dr. Susie Ling for her many years uncovering the lives of African Americans in Monrovia and the San Gabriel Valley.

*Update 3.15.2026: 

Of course, as usual right after I post I discover some of the most pertinent information. "The Incomparable Jones Family" video on YouTube, compiled by the Monrovia Historical Museum and the family historian Renee Cochee:

The move to Monrovia did occur around the year 1919.

Today, Anna Jones' home on Montgall Avenue is recognized on the African American Heritage Trail of Kansas City Missouri, as well as one of the markers on the National Votes for Women Trail.

Sisters Sophia and Fredericka lived with Anna on Montgall Avenue while their respective medical office and boarding school were located at Bellefontaine Avenue.

George Jones was a masterful carpenter and built the house on Shamrock where his family and extended family lived. The Jones impact to southern California is broader - taking into account that George built homes in Whittier for the Quakers.

The Anna H. Jones Scholarship Foundation, founded about 1921, benefited generations of southern Californians, including Monrovia native Ron Husband in 1969, who became the first African American animator at Disney.