The County Witnesses Peninsula’s Royal Wedding
Even though Jennie Crocker could afford to lose her famous $35,000 pearl necklace (which was later found), her wealth could not protect her from the constant intrusion of death.
The day after her birth in February 1887, her mother, also named Jennie, passed away, leaving Jennie and two older children, Templeton and Mary, motherless. Jennie’s father, Frederick, a director of the Southern Pacific Railroad and a University of California regent, was devastated by the loss of his wife; slowly his own health deteriorated.
A year later, Jennie’s grandfather Charles died from serious injuries sustained in a fall from a horse-drawn carriage. Within months, his wife also died.
When Jennie was 10, her father, on advice of his physician, moved the family from San Francisco to the fresher air of Hillsborough, the Peninsula’s millionaire colony.