https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Whitehead-7156
https://www.ancestry.co.uk/genealogy/records/jennie-gertrude-whitehead-24-mdwlyr
Jennie's parents, Walter Edward Whitehead and Agnes Gertrude Dowman
were married in 1879. In late 1884 or early 1885 with their first
child Jennie about to be born, the couple set off for Chicago. They
travelled by cargo boat and Jennie thought she was born at sea - she
did not have a birth certificate. However, on 18th March, 1921, her
mother made a declaration (apparently for Jennie to obtain life
insurance) that Jennie was born on 21sFebruary, 1885 at 2809 Indiana
Avenue, Chicago. Jennie's memory of being born en route could be
explained by her mother being pregnant while travelling to America and
Jennie remembering this years later as being born en route. Little is
known about the family's life in Chicago but all of her siblings were
born there. Joan Dennett remembers her mother telling her that she had
skated on Lake Michigan and that she subsequently attributed her weak
ankles to that. Hazel is the only sibling who has a Chicago - Cooke
County - birth record. However, the Cooke County birth records of the
day are known to be incomplete. The family returned to England in late
1892 or early1893. Jennie remembers being seven years old when the
family returned to England and she turned eight in February 1893.
Since Walter appears in the 1893 Chicago City Directory, Agnes and the
children may have returned early in 1893 followed by Walter later in
the year. By remarkable coincidence, Jennie, the English grandmother
of Peter, and Catherine Shumaker, the American grandmother of Fran,
both lived on the same street in Chicago sometime between
1919. This came out when Joan Dennett was visiting America in the
1970's and was discussing Catherine the fact that Jennie (her mother)
had lived on Indiana Avenue in Chicago in the late Jennie had told
Joan that her house had had a creek at the bottom of the garden with
poison ivy.
