Jones married a fisherman, William F. Smith, on May 5, 1948. Although she had nine children with Smith, they did not learn to speak Eyak due to the
social stigma associated with it at the time. She moved to
Anchorage in the 1970s. So that a record of the Eyak language would survive, she worked with linguist
Michael E. Krauss, who compiled a dictionary and grammar of it. Her last older sibling died in the 1990s. Afterwards, Jones became politically active, and on two occasions she spoke at the
United Nations on the issues of peace and indigenous languages. She was also active regarding environmental Indian issues, including
clearcutting. Jones suffered from
alcoholism earlier in her life, but gave up drinking while in her early 50s; She died of natural causes on January 21, 2008, at age 89 at her home in Anchorage. ==See also==