Mary Elaine Jeffrey Jenkins

and John Arthur Jeffrey at the height of the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic. She was the eldest of five and the first of three children born in Illinois. In 1927, on her 8th birthday, the family moved to San Antonio to be with her mother's parents and siblings, who fled the Illinois cold and opened The Goody Shop on Main Street in downtown SA and later the famously popular Copeland Restaurant on Bandera Road, operated by Mary's uncles' Kemp and Azel "Bud" Copeland. Her two youngest siblings were born in San Antonio, where her father, an Illinois one-room school teacher, became a prominent realtor.

As the eldest, Mary Elaine balanced caring for her siblings, Junior "Bud", Betty, Patsy and Bonnie Lane, while excelling in her school work, graduating Salutatorian in the Edison High School Class of 1936. In 1937 at age 18, she met 23-year-old Richard Orr Jenkins, a San Antonio native, at a baseball game. Hard times took 'Dick" to seek work in California while Mary Elaine began her nurse's training at Baptist Hospital. In the summer of 1939, she traveled with Richard's mother to the San Francisco World's Fair where the harbor lights and Golden Gate bridge captured her heart, as did Richard! There she married the love of her life on August 28, 1939, three days before the start of WWII in Europe. In San Francisco they raised two children, Richard and Carolyn, under the wartime stressors of rationing and blackouts. Then in 1947, the family returned to San Antonio, where Richard started his forty-seven-year construction company. On July 11, 1951 she and Dick moved into a new home, which he built, in Dream Hill Estates, just in time for the birth of their third child, Kathleen. Mary Elaine has remained in this home and fostered her good neighborly relations for 71 years.

Mary Elaine never finished her formal nurse’s training but continued to pursue her passion – serving others. During her lifetime she cared for her sick and elderly family members, friends and neighbors. From driving people to doctors’ appointments, visiting nursing homes and sitting for weeks, months and even years beside the homebound and dying, Mary Elaine was an earthbound guardian angel to hundreds of people. And when northside Methodist Hospital first opened in the 1960’s, she was among their first Bluebirds, a volunteer position she held for five years. If her loving care and hugs didn’t heal you, her beautiful smile always lifted your spirits.

Mary Elaine equally served her husband and family with total devotion and was always involved in her children’s lives as a homeroom mother, scout leader, band booster, and church and school trip chaperone. Mrs. Jenkins was the mom everyone knew and remembered through the years, and it was a great loss to many school organizations when her children graduated. Always on the go, Mary Elaine loved being active and involved. Whether traveling with Dick and friends to Arizona or enjoying several cruises in her later years, she loved seeing new sites, fishing, rock and arrowhead hunting, and hosting family gatherings and parties. And yet she found time to read, research genealogy and sew her children’s clothes.

Mary Elaine joined the Los Angeles Heights Methodist Church with her family in 1927. As her children grew, she moved that membership to Oxford United Methodist Church, where she enthusiastically performed a wide array of church volunteer services, including teaching Sunday School and Daily Vacation Bible School, manning the phones three mornings a week for more than 20 years, coordinating funerals, and welcoming visitors every Sunday to church service. Today’s UMC Fellowship Hall was once the church’s sanctuary, built by Richard, and the small Chapel is named in their honor. Her lifelong contributions to San Antonio’s spiritual community are numerous. She shared her heart and gifts openly and touched the lives of all who knew her. After 103 years -- less than three weeks shy of 104 -- God called her home because even Heaven needs angels like Mary Elaine.

Mary Elaine is preceded in death by her husband Richard, her parents Helen and John, her brother Bud and wife Lois Jeffrey, her sister Betty and husband Marvin Pfeiffer, her brother-in-law Tommy Fuller, and young sister Patsy. She lives on in her children, Richard, Carolyn, Kathleen and husband Rick Meyer, her grandchildren, David and wife Dana Schoenert, Diane and husband Stephen Williams, and three great grandchildren, Avery, Aubrey and Ember. She leaves behind her youngest, beloved sister Bonnie Fuller, many nieces, nephews, and a countless number of friends and neighbors. God blessed Mary Elaine with a Wonderful Life! Hers is truly a life we will forever cherish, remember and celebrate.

A memorial service will be held Saturday, March 11, 2023 at 2:00 PM at Oxford United Methodist Church, 9739 Huebner Rd, San Antonio, Texas and will also be streamed at oxfordumc.org. In lieu of flowers, consider a contribution to a church or charity of your choice in Mary Elaine's name.

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.sunsetfuneralhomesa.com for the Jenkins family.