Bio-Jennings-Lulu

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Lulu "Fannie" Jennings
(1883- ? )

Lulu "Fannie" Jennings was born on Oct. 3, 1883 at Ohiopyle, Fayette County, PA, the youngest of eight children of John R. and Martha (Knight) Jennings Sr.

After her parents divorced, and then following her mother's death, Fannie lived with her sister Jennie in Ohiopyle, Fayette County, PA. The Connellsville Courier reports that the two sisters were frequent visitors to relatives, perhaps their father, in nearby Ursina, Somerset County, PA.

Seen here is a rare old postcard image showing bathers in the Youghiogheny River at Ohiopyle -- an activity known to just about everybody in the mountain town.

The Oct. 29, 1897 Courier reported that Fannie and her mother attended a reception for "newly married minister" Rev. C.N. Colgrove. The July 22, 1898 Courier said Fannie was one of eight students in a Sunday School class which met for a party at the Hotel Williams in Ohiopyle.

The July 14, 1899 Connellsville Daily Courier reported that she and her sister Jennie were living in McKeesport, Allegheny County, PA, and that Fannie was reported to be "very ill in the McKeesport hospital with typhoid fever."

When the federal census was taken in 1900, Fannie is believed to have been employed as a live-in servant in the home of banker-bookkeeper Frederick Buchie and his wife Sara in McKeesport. The census-taker wrote her birth information as "May 1882" when in reality our Fannie was born in October 1883, but it is not known if the census-taker received accurate information.

The 1910 census shows a "Frances Jennings" living as an in-house servant in Braddock, near McKeesport, with the family of pharmacist George and Luella Kutcher. Her age was given as 21, 26 or 28 -- the record's legibility is poor -- and so this all needs to be confirmed.

Fannie's fate after that is not known.