JENNINGS, ELIZABETH (ELIZA) WALLACE (21 Dec. 1809-25 Sept.1887), philanthropist who helped establish the CHILDREN'S AID SOCIETY and ELIZA JENNINGS HOME, was born in Belfast, Ireland, to James and Margaret Hannah Chambers Wallace. The family immigrated to Petersburg, Ohio in 1820. In 1829 Eliza married banker Simeon Jennings (b. 7 Nov. 1791) of Salem, Ohio, where they lived for over 30 years, then moving to West Virginia and Cleveland. The couple had no children. Jennings acquired wealth, bought 8 acres of hilltop land on the lakeshore, and built several mansions, including an Italianate villa at 10427 Detroit Ave., where the couple lived for several years. The Jennings leased their farmland property to the newly incorporated Children's Aid Society, and after Mr. Jennings died in 1865 leaving an estate of over $1.5 million, Eliza deeded the home and additional acres to the society. The plight of an elderly, homeless, indigent, incurably ill friend, Miss Mary Love, inspired Eliza to donate property and funds to the YOUNG WOMEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOC. to erect a home or hospital to care for indigent and incurably ill women of the city. The home, constructed at 10603 Detroit Ave., opened in 1888, a year after Mrs. Jennings' death. Renamed the Eliza Jennings Home in her honor, it severed its affiliation with the YWCA, became an independent nonprofit organization in 1922, and built an enlarged structure on the same site, which was dedicated in 1925. Mrs. Jennings also endowed the Jennings Institute, a Methodist Seminary in Aurora, Ill., and the Home for Aged Women in Salem, Ohio.
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