Jennie May Peckham Wright died in 1921

After spending time following the wrong Jennie down the wrong paths I decided to spend some additional time examining her family members. I knew that her husband George was buried at Graceland in Chicago and wondered if she might be too, but that was a dead-end. I knew that her cousin, Helen Wooster Peckham, lived and taught in Berkeley, California. So when I found a possible match for Jennie in San Francisco, I thought I had found her.

 

A California death record for Jennie M Wright, born 1855 and died 1907 seemed a match. But

reviewing that fact that her mother died in Chicago in 1912 made me wonder. Yes, I found the two living together in Chicago in the 1910 census, so that San Francisco death record was someone else. I could find no Chicago death record for Jennie, so I really wasn't sure what had happened to her.

It was my return to her father, Robert Watson Peckham, who died in Chicago in 1897 and is buried with his second wife at Rosehill Cemetery, that resolved the question. 

Another researcher posted a photo of his gravestone which is hard to read but, when I looked very closely, I found both Jennie and her husband George are listed on this stone. How confusing …. George’s death record states that he was buried at Graceland Cemetery, not Rosehill. At any rate, the year seemed to be 1921 !! So I continued my search.

Returning the 1920 census and going through more newspapers, I found Jennie living in San Diego, near her sister-in-law Lida. (Somehow, I had not thought of tracing her whereabouts). An informative death notice stated that Jennie had been a San Diego resident for 8 years and confirmed that she died there in 1921.  It also, however, listed her only nephew as a niece …. So you can never quite be sure that newspaper details are correct.