Britain's Brooklyn Girl

Jennie Jerome was an American, and better yet a Brooklyn girl, born at what is now 197 Amity St. in Cobble Hill. As Charles Higham points out in "Dark Lady: Winston Churchill's Mother and Her World" (Carroll & Graf, 256 pages, $25.95), a house at 426 Henry St. bears a large plaque that incorrectly proclaims it the place of her birth (and provides the wrong date for her birth, too). Her parents, as Mr. Higham notes, had lived there until shortly before she was born. If Mr. Higham had maintained...