Elizabeth Jenkins, my great grandmother on my dad’s paternal side, grew up with big dreams according to family stories. A devout Catholic, she wanted to be a nun. Instead, she became the mother of 5 children fathered by a man almost twenty years her senior, her mother and sister moved to California, and she lost two of her children in a tragic fire.
“Four year-old Richard Bender and his sister, Helen, 3, died in a fire in their Nankin township cottage last night while their mother was absent and their father was at work on a night shift.” – 7 November 1942, THE DAILY TELEGRAM, ADRIAN MI.
On the morning of November 7th 1942, The Daily Telegram of Adrian, Michigan contained a blurb of the incident above. Adrian is about 55 miles from Nankin Twp., a historic suburb of Detroit. I was even more surprised when I found that the same morning, the Ludington Daily News, 240 miles from Nankin had made mention of the tragic deaths of my young great aunt and uncle.
I had heard talk about the fire from my grandfather’s brother, Jack. But I couldn’t find anything on a fire in Chicago in the early 1940’s, turns out that was because Uncle Jack left out that the family moved from Chicago to Detroit between 1940 and 1942. I actually found the records of death because I neglected to enter the location into my search by accident. I haven’t yet found where these little ones were laid to rest, but that will come after I find the death certificates. What I may never know is why Elizabeth wasn’t home when it happened, or if the other three boys were home at the time.
Resurrecting Memories 