Jane's parents are William Rowley and Ann Jewell. She is the youngest of 15 children born to William. Her father had been previously married and raised eight children with his first wife, Ann Taylor. When she died, he married Ann Jewell who had worked for the couple. In the next thirteen years, he fathered seven more children. William died just eight months after Jane's birth.
Her parents had been quite well-to-do until shortly after they joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints disaster struck. Two years of crop failures coupled with the persecution that came with membership in their new church left them penniless. They were forced to sell the land, their home, and most of their belongings. The stress of it all cost William his life. Ann was left a widow with seven young children and the youngest daughter from William's first marriage to make a living for. She was an excellent seamstress and the older (though still young) children got jobs. They saved every penny they could for the goal was to immigrate from England to Utah. Finally when Jane was eight years old, with the help of the Perpetual Immigration Fund, they left England. After a harrowing trip across the Atlantic Ocean and an equally harrowing train ride to Iowa City, they started the trip of their life across the plains of America. The year was 1856, they were to travel by handcart. It was already late in the season to be starting and the handcarts were not ready for them. The decision was made to go anyway, with handcarts made of green wood, and try to beat the winter storms.
Somehow, by the grace of God and a mother's faith, Ann Jewell and her seven children made it through as members of the Willie Handcart Company. Jane and her older brother, Thomas, had an experience one day of getting too far behind the company because of their play. They got caught on the wrong side of a river crossing and had to wait almost until darkness before they were rescued. They stayed closer to their mother after that. One night, as supplies dwindled and with her children so hungry, Ann remembered two very hard sea biscuits in her luggage. She put the biscuits in a dutch oven and filled it with water. Praying over it and trusting God, she put the oven in the fire. Later when she opened the oven it was filled with food, enough to feed her family that evening.
When they reached the Salt Lake Valley in November 1856, the older children took jobs where they also had a place to live. Ann and the younger children were sent to Nephi where a man came to Ann offering to marry her and care for her children. He also paid the debt to the Immigration fund. Although he died a year later, the help he gave Ann was immeasurable.
Jane had moved with her mother and new husband from Nephi to Parowan. Here she grew to young womanhood. She married Charles Albert Connelley in 1864 when she was sixteen. Charles was an Alabama native, 32 years old, and a Confederate sympathizer during the Civil War. He changed his name and moved west. He had joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints the year before he married Jane. He was a school teacher and a farmer. Their first few years of marriage saw them moving nearly every year as Charles sought teaching contracts. He farmed in the summers. About 1870 they settled in Leeds, Utah, north of Saint George and west of Cedar City. Charles got a contract with the US mail to establish a post office in Leeds and became the postmaster. He was no longer dependent on teaching contracts. They built a nice home and stayed in Leeds raising their family there. Charles bought a small flock of sheep and he bought Jane the first sewing machine in the community.
Jane and Charles became parents to twelve children: Emmerina Susanna, William Albert (died in infancy), Charles Orson, Mary Jane, Anna Elizabeth, John Larkin, Margaret Louise, Isadora Sarah, George Henry, Kate May, Frank James (died when 11 years old), and Thomas Richard. One year Jane worked herself into ill health taking care of her family and contracted typhoid fever. Charles loaded the wagon with a bed for Jane, arranged for someone in the community to take care of his business affairs, and he and the seven children, took the long wagon ride to Parowan so that Jane's mother could care for her and nurse her back to health. It took months for Jane to regain her health and strength and return to Leeds and her family.
About 1896, with some of the older children married, Charles and Jane and the younger children moved to the Muddy River in southern Nevada and settled in Logandale. They lived there several years and then moved to Chloride, Arizona at the turn of the century. Charles passed away in February 1904. He was 72 years old. Jane was 56. She would live another 26 years.
After all her children married, Jane lived briefly with one child and then another in Arizona, Utah, Idaho, California, and Nevada. Her children reported that Jane was always a comfort and aid wherever she went. She was happiest when making clothes for her grandchildren or doing something special for family members. In a tribute to Jane by her children they wrote, "She was a dear, quiet little soul and loved by many. She was a good wife and a gentle mother. Her memory is very sacred."
At age 82, Jane was living with a daughter, Dora Connelley Crider, in Los Angeles, and was seemingly in good health. Within hours she developed severe pains in her head, became unconscious, and died suddenly, suffering little. She passed on October 8, 1930 and was buried at Inglewood. She was the last born of her siblings and the last to die.