Winston Churchill’s Tie to Idaho’s Nez Perce

This story began for me as a teenager, when I watched a movie about the attempt by the Nez Perce to flee to Canada. The film starred Ned Romero as Chief Joseph and was mostly accurate about the events of the summer and fall of 1877.

The next step in my story is about a house being taken apart and reassembled in a museum, The Jerome family farmhouse in Pompey Center, New York. I have a nail from the home as a souvenir. Captain Jerome who built the home had some children who moved to Rochester, New York, and prospered in business. To the point, their families moved to New York City and joined the high society. I was working at a TV station and did a story about the house being moved.

This summer I bought a book titled Thunder in the Mountains. A wonderful read about the Nez Perce attempt to flee the pursuit of the army. Late in the book, there’s a subplot about a young Lieutenant named Lovell Hall Jerome, from New York City.

Joseph had been captured in violation of a truce and was being held prisoner. Lt. Jerome bumbled into the Nez Perce camp, was captured, and traded for Joseph. The army swapped because Jerome was from a prominent New York family.

I did some genealogy research and found he was born in Rochester and his father in Pompey Center.

There was a young socialite from New York named Jennie Jerome, who had a grandfather from Pompey and roots in Rochester. BINGO! She appeared to be a first cousin of Lovell Jerome.

Jennie was touring England when she met a descendent of the Duke of Marlboro, and they married. They had two sons, one of whom saved Western Civilization. His name was Winton Churchill.

Credit Bill Colley.

I know that from a book I read about the great man titled The Last Lion.

So, I wrote the author of Thunder in the Mountains. Daniel J. Sharfstein wrote back and said he followed up on my hunch, and sure enough, Lovell and Jennie were first cousins. There was a history of military service in both the Jerome and Churchill families. Lovell worked for the federal government after his military service. He died of a heart attack in 1935. Winston passed away in 1965. Lovell and Chief Joseph became friends after their war. Churchill defeated Hitler.