The Jenkins’ Journey to America (Part I)

My 4x great grandfather, John Jenkins (1830-1905), was the son of Scottish coal miner John Jenkins and Helen Hardie. He married Ann Hillions McCallum on January 11, 1851 in Slamannan, Stirling, Scotland. Together, Ann and John had the following known children: Henry Jenkins born 1855 in Slamannan, Douglas Jenkins born 1857 in Slamannan, Christina McCallum Jenkins born 1859 in Falkirk, twins Margaret McCunnochie Jenkins and James Hardie Jenkins born 1866 in Cumbernauld, and William Jenkins born 1869 in Cumbernauld.

John Jenkins Sr & son Henry on the State of Indiana passenger list which arrived at New York from Glasgow, Scotland and Larne, Ireland on May 4, 1879. Unable to confirm if the younger John is J. Douglas Jenkins due to age discrepancy.

The State of Indiana

John and his oldest sons, John Jr. & Henry Jenkins arrived in New York aboard the State of Indiana on May 4, 1879. They had departed from Glasgow, Scotland.

The three miners found work and a place to live before sending money for Ann to come to the United States along with younger siblings James Hardie Jenkins, Margaret “Maggie” Jenkins, and William Jenkins. On September 22, 1879 they arrived in New York aboard the Devonia. Also accompanying them aboard the Devonia were John Jenkins Jr.’s wife Catherine and two young sons.

Ann Jenkins and younger children aboard the SS Devonia

The SS Devonia

Older sister Christina McCallum Anderson, her husband Gabriel, and their five month old daughter Ann, came to the States the following year, arriving aboard the Ethiopia in New York on May 12, 1880.

Less than a month later, the 1880 US Census was taken and we find the Jenkins family had settled in Lafayette, McKean, Pennsylvania near many immigrants from Ireland and Scotland. John, Gabriel, and James H. all worked in the mines, William attended school, Ann & Christina cared for the home and four month old Ann.

John, Maggie, Henry, and Douglas are not listed in the household. But Maggie Jenkins is listed nearby as working for a servant in the home of J.E. and Catherine Butts. J.E. is a coal operator, and his 26 year old son J.E.P. Butts is a superintendent of coal and lumber.

Violence in the Family Tree

John Douglas Jenkins is my 2x great grandfather on my paternal grandfather’s side. A first generation American, he married Irene Rose Pfiffner  around 1913 and had four children with her; Elizabeth (my great grandmother), Harold “Harry”, Dorothy May, and Kenneth Floyd. The two divorced in about 1921, after which time. Elizabeth and Dorothy lived with Irene in Chicago, Cook, Illinois, Harry lived with John in Edwardsville, Madison, Illinois, and Kenneth was raised by his maternal grandmother Emily Anderson Pfiffner in Bellville, St. Clair, Illinois and East St. Louis, St. Clair, Illinois. It appears that John never remarried, he lived in Edwardsville with his mother Elizabeth Jenkins from 1930 until her death in 1940 working at the family service station.

In June 29 1931, the Decatur Evening Herald of Decatur, Illinois reported that two men were being held for the beating of a hitchhiker named John D. Jenkins, 35, a service station attendant who lived in Edwardsville. 

The men picked up a man who, according to them attacked them with a hammer. A witness claimed that one of the men; Othal Ivy, of Huston, Texas struck Jenkins on the head. Witnesses said that the car pulled to a stop, where a man got out of the back seat and another man wielding a hammer got out of the front seat and struck the man from the back seat in the head before reentering the vehicle which then sped away leaving Jenkins behind with a fractured skull and a satchel. The satchel was found to be containing identifying papers for the driver of the car, Robert Craig, WWI Veteran from Long Beach, California whom Jenkins was originally identified as.

On July 3, 1931 more of the story ran in the Decatur Herald. In this article, both men (the afformentioned Ivy along with the driver, a WWI Veteran named Robert Craig of Long Beach, California) claimed that when they picked Jenkins up he was intoxicated and quarrelsome and that Ivy had only struck Jenkins to prevent the theft of Craig’s satchel. Jenkins had told police that the men stole $271 dollars from him, but the police only found $27 on the proposed assailants. The paper claimed that the idea that Jenkins could attack two able-bodied men with a hammer was fantastic.

Jenkins’ side of the story was reported by his hometown newspaper, The Edwardsville Intelligencer. He claimed that the men picked him up in St. Louis, and he paid $4 to ride with them to Chicago. He claimed that on the way the two strangers purchased liquor and that he personally only took one drink and that in Pana, Illinois the men threw the bottle out of the car before attacking him in an alley.

This was not Jenkins’ first or last encounter with violence… according to their youngest child, Kenneth Jenkins, his parents divorced because of John’s anger problems. And In 1936 in Edwardsville, John was found guilty of assaulting an Illinois Power & Light Company worker named Harold Gunter. Gunter entered the Jenkins Service Station (which John’s mother Elizabeth owned) to check power levels and believing that no one was there, he turned to leave. The two began speaking to one another, and soon after that is when John struck him.

52 Ancestors #2: Irene & Elizabeth, Mother and Daughter

Irene Rose Pfiffner was born on January 8, 1897 in Belleville, St. Clair, Illinois. The eldest child of Charles J. Pfiffner, a miner, and Emily Anderson. Irene was a quarter English and a quarter Swiss. She is my 2x great grandmother.

Charles died in 1910, leaving Emily to raise their three children. Emily eventually remarried Charles’ older brother, Louis L. Pfiffner.

Irene married John Douglas Jenkins prior to 1913, they had four children. First Elizabeth, followed by Harry, then Dorothy, and last born was Kenneth around 1921. Irene and John fought often, and eventually were divorced by 1930. Harry lived with his father in Illinois, the girls with their mother, and Kenneth was sent to Belleville to live with his twice widowed maternal grandmother Emily.

Irene and the girls moved from St Louis to Chicago following the divorce. In April 1930 she was married to Joseph (Jesse) Preston Bender, born in Mercer, Ohio in October 1892.

This is where Irene’s story becomes more confusing and difficult to tell. By the time of the census in 1930, seventeen year old Elizabeth was the mother of Jack Bender… Her stepfather’s son. Jack was not listed with the family on the census. It’s unclear how or why this family became such an odd family unit, even to Jack.

On May 9, 1932 a little girl named Irene Bender was born in Chicago. On her birth record her parents are listed as Irene Jenkins born St. Joe, Missouri and Joseph Bender. I know that Irene was born in Illinois… But Elizabeth was born in St. Joe. It’s possible the record was falsified as part of a coverup… Or that Elizabeth’s middle name was Irene. Irene Bender passed away on May 11. Due to family stories I know that Elizabeth did give birth to a daughter during the depression, she never saw her baby and claimed Joseph had sold her or had her taken away. Baby Irene was buried in an unmarked grave somewhere in or outside of Chicago.

Irene must have eventually decided enough was enough, she divorced Joseph Bender and married Louis Dominick, moving with him to Wisconsin where they operated a boarding house in 1940 before moving to Hollywood, California. Irene’s youngest daughter Dorothy eventually followed them and was laid to rest in the same cemetery as her mother and second stepfather.

By the time Irene left for Wisconsin, Elizabeth and Joseph had five living children; Jack, Harold Eugene, Charles Michael, Richard, and little Helen.

For more about the family of Elizabeth and Joseph, and to learn about how they tragically lost their only living daughter and youngest son read Richard and Helen’s Story.

Finding Richard and Helen, 70 Years Later

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.

Paternal Family Tree

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