Jette Jensen

Peter Jensen married Marie Mikkelsen, in Denmark, sometime before 1859.  Around the year 1879, they moved with their son, Hans, to Michigan.

Their daughter, Jette Christina Jensen was born on December 3, 1859

Jette was born in Rømø.  Rømø is a Danish island in the Wadden Sea. Rømø is part of Tønder Municipality, in Schleswig region of Denmark. The island has 650 inhabitants as of 2011 and covers an area of 42 sq. miles.  Rømø is the southernmost of Denmark's Wadden Sea Islands. This distinction was previously held by the small island of Jordsand, which sank in 1999. (The most notable resident of Romo, was the Moller family, which started the Maersk shipping company)

Schleswig and Holstein have at different times belonged to either Denmark or Germany. The Schleswig-Holstein Question was a complex set of issues arising from the disagreement over which nation the region belonged to. Lord Palmerston is reported to have said: "Only three people have ever really understood the Schleswig-Holstein business—the Prince Consort, who is dead—a German professor, who has gone mad—and I, who have forgotten all about it."  Two wars were fought over it, one a few years before Jette’s’ birth, and one a few years after. At the time of Jette’s birth, Romo belonged to Denmark.  Had she been born a few years earlier or later, she would have been German. 

Jette left for America on May 5, 1880. She was 20 and single.

Once in America, she married Peter Christian Peterson, settled in Oakland, and had three children. First a son, James Adolph Petersen in 1884.  James married Mary Alice Wakeman and they had 2 sons and 2 daughters.  James lived at 4201 Foothills Blvd in Oakland; it is a parking lot now.  He ran his company, JH Petersen Iron Works from home.  Jettes’ 2nd child was a daughter, Annie Petersen.  Annie Married Barton Kennedy Swinnock.  Jettes’ 3rd child was Elizabeth, she passed away at the age of 21.

Peter died in 1919 and was buried in Oakland.  She then married Christian Petersen Elligaard in 1927 in Alameda. She died on December 9, 1948, in Oakland, California, at the age of 89.  She is buried beside Peter.