Mary P. Jayne was long-time Baptist missionary to the American Indians, particularly the Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Pawnee. She dedicated her life to directing American Indians, particularly in Oklahoma, along the Jesus Road.

Jayne grew up in Iowa in the Baptist heritage, though there was no church nearby. Her parents owned “an old brown book of Indian stories. By the dim light of the oil lamp she pored over the incidents that told of the life of the Red Man, and there grew in her heart a great love for that people and a longing to see the scenes pictured in the stories.” Later teaching at a small school in Nebraska, “her path to the school . . . led her over the very ground on which Cheyennes, Arapahoes and Pawnees had fought their battles since time immemorial, and down through a wooded ravine their fallen warriors were buried. It was a daily echo of the call to take the gospel to the Indians.” She taught in Iowa from 1891 to 1893 and worked as a missionary in Chicago before attending the Baptist Missionary Training School. From 1896 to 1913, she was a missionary to the Cheyennes and Arapahoes of western Oklahoma, working with Robert Hamilton. The day she first joined Hamilton to visit the Indians, it seemed to her “like a picture from her old brown book come to life”; “she felt as if she, too, were in a story, for it was awfully hard to realize that at last her dreams of telling the story of Jesus to the Indians was a reality.” Work among the Cheyennes was difficult in part because of their poverty and anguish, and difficulty in letting go of the old ways. It required perseverance and stamina; Jayne worked among the Cheyenne and Arapaho for almost twenty years, then worked among the Pawnees and Otoes of north-central Oklahoma until 1924; during this time she also “was director of the Christian work in the Chilocco Indian School.”

In 1924 she moved to Bacone, where she became Barnett Hall matron. Her room at Barnett had a library that “is one of the most valuable in existence on Indian history and tradition. By those who know, she is accounted one of the best informed persons on Indian life and history.” Jayne was a dormitory matron for boys of Barnett Hall. According to one story, printed in the Bacone Indian in 1929, the Barnett boys were constantly sneaking about after hours, getting together to tell funny stories and laugh. “Suddenly a weird whisper comes from the lookout, ‘Miss Jayne.’ the words fairly crackle and hiss down the hall. As if by magic, the hall is empty. Boys vanish into the nearest doorways like rats into their holes. Once inside, they seek refuge in bed, behind doors, in closets and any other available places. Woe be unto the poor lad who is caught in the hall. Such a tongue-lashing as he does get!” Miss Jayne dealt with boys from numerous tribes.

Jayne retired from her work at Bacone in 1933, moving to California to try to rebuild her failing health. The traveling Red Men’s Glee Club of the College visited her in the summer 1934; homesick, she returned to Bacone in January, 1935, to live in a small two room house that was newly built by her. Immediately upon arriving, she suffered illness requiring hospitalization. She recovered to live two more years, dying January 5, 1937; she was buried in the Bacone cemetery. The funeral was in the Bacone chapel, conducted by President Weeks, with the students singing her favorite hymns. Of the pallbearers—Lewis Rhodd, Roy Gourd, Acee Blue Eagle, Jack White, Richard and Harvey West—Rhodd, Gourd, and Blue Eagle were former students, now faculty at Bacone, while the latter three “were sons of Cheyenne and Arapaho parents whom she had served in earlier years.”

She left “a considerable sum” of her savings “to the Home Mission Society for the training of Indian youth at Bacone College”; her valuable papers recounting her days as a missionary in Oklahoma were preserved in the Indian Room of the Bacone College library.

The above narrative is taken from Marking the Jesus Road: Bacone College through the Years, newly republished in January 2026 and available on Amazon at Marking the Jesus Road: Bacone College through the Years: Lawson, Dr. Russell Matthew: 9780977244805: Amazon.com: Books