Lady Jane of Cook County (pdf file)

This tune is named for my great, great grandmother Jane Northcott who, after an eventful life in England,  emigrated to Cook County, Illinois in her mid-sixties. She had an illegitimate son (my ancestor Charles) with a  local Somerset lawyer, then married, moved to London and had five more children (including twins who died in their first year) before her husband died aged 32. I’ve named her Lady Jane, and although we can’t know  what kind of people our ancestors were, I imagine her as having great courage and have written her a gritty kind of tune.

She emigrated to live with her three sons in Town of Lake, Cook County (now part of Chicago). Two of her three sons (William and Arthur Mitchell) worked in the very early car industry – they appear on the 1900 census as “car repairers”. If anyone knows any of their ancestors, do get in touch!