Cambria County, Part 3 of 8: Jennie

Edward Kinkead’s father Charles had already lost one infant daughter to cholera. He did not want to risk losing a second one to neglect.

When Charles’ his wife died from complications following childbirth, he invited his half-sister Annie to live with him and take care of the boys. His 20 day-old daughter Jennie, though, would be better off with his half-brother Herbert Shank and sister-in-law Delila. Even after eight years, they had no children of their own.

They would be far better able to care for her. Plus, they lived nearby. Charles and the boys lived on North Barnesboro’s Slinger Avenue; the Shanks were literally right around the corner on Sheppard Avenue. Jennie grew up as an only child, but I’m not sure how much the Shanks explained to her about the circumstances of her birth. Edward, stayed with the family for “two winters” (two years?), but mentioned that Jennie “thought I was her cousin.” I do not know if he ever told her the truth, that she was his younger sister. Tragedy struck gain in October 1918. Jennie was 12 years-old when the Spanish influenza pandemic killed her uncle/adoptive father Herbert Shank. Fortunately, her adoptive mother Delila was able to re-marry quickly. She and Jennie joined the Birchall family down the street.

Although Jennie was the youngest of the Kinkead children, and an only child in the Shank family, she was the oldest in the Birchall family. By the 1920 census, Jennie was living with her adoptive mother Delila, her step-father James, two step-brothers, and three step-sisters. I imagine that, for a 14 year-old, going from an only-child to one of six children must have been difficult. Jennie got out of the house as soon as possible. By 1926 –- the year of her biological father Charles’ death -- Jennie had married a man named David Roberts.
By 1930, they’d had two children, but the marriage was effectively over. In that year’s census, at the age of 24, Jennie was listed as living with her married cousin Margaret in Altoona. In the 1940 census, the 33 year-old Jennie Roberts was listed as a married housekeeper for a 50 year-old divorcé named Philip Edmiston. I don’t know what year, but they married at some point. Mr. Edmiston’s 1970 obituary describes him as being survived by his wife Jennie. Jennie herself died two years later, in 1972. It is notable that – in her obituary that ran in the Altoona Mirror -- her full name is given as Jennie K. Edmiston. The “K,” of course, stood for Kinkead.

It seems that despite all the turmoil in her life, and all the names she went by over the years, Jennie had reconciled with the family she’d come from.