Obituary of Jane Dingle McFadden Jenkins

Jane Dingle McFadden Jenkins was wife, mother, grandmother, and brilliant. She died peacefully surrounded by family on November 8.  Her heritage was English, Irish, Scots and as we have lately learned, Spanish (Armada sailor?) and the granddaughter of a coal miner and a foreman in the dying linen industry. The women in her family were the educators, a heritage she continued. She was 99 years old and was the last of her generation in our extended family.

Jane was born the day after the US Secretary of State signed women’s right to vote into law. It is hard to contemplate the changes that she saw in her lifetime.

She watched customers tie up their horse drawn buggies to buy fabrics at her dad’s dry goods store in rural PA. Few owned cars. There was no interstate highway system. Just under half of U.S. homes had electricity and only 35% of homes had a telephone. There was no television, so radio and live performance was everything. She was graduated summa cum laude from Wagner College and had a career as teacher, guidance counselor and assistant principal in Staten Island schools. She enjoyed travel and theater and art.

She was predeceased by her parents, Amelia Floyd Dingle and Robert McFadden, her brothers William Armour McFadden, Robert Dingle McFadden, her sister Amelia McFadden Mansfield and granddaughter Lori Jenkins. She leaves daughters Priscilla Jane Jenkins and partner John William Davis, Amelia Jean Jenkins Whyman and husband Bertil Whyman, Deborah Joan Jenkins Braconi and husband Jose Ramon Braconi, and sons David McFadden Jenkins and wife UlWha (Kim), Robert McFadden Jenkins and wife Patricia (Horne), grandchildren Katherine Jane Jenkins Davis, Elizabeth Helen Jenkins Davis, Gifford Robert Jenkins Davis, Stephanos (Steve) Demetrios Dikos, Iannis (John) Demetrios Dikos, Demetrios McFadden Dikos, David McFadden Jenkins Jr., Nicholas McFadden Jenkins, Jane Kim Jenkins, Rebecca Dumeyer, Ethan Dumeyer, Tara Jenkins, and Delia Jenkins, and many nieces and nephews, greatgrandchildren and cousins.

Love you Mother, Grandma, Yaya, GG! You were an amazing person whom we will all remember lovingly for the rest of our lives.

(Thanks to Steve Dikos whose personal testament inspired this.)