Jenkins, Myra Ellen

For a chronology of Dr. Jenkins' life and work, see the first folders in Box 1. For an obituary, see the Denver Post, June 28, 1993. The following is a reminiscence written by Robert W. Delaney, who was the founding director of the Center of Southwest Studies and a friend and colleage of Myra Ellen Jenkins.

I Remember Myra / by Robert W. Delaney (published in the November 1993 issue of La Cronica de Nuevo Mexico, Issue No. 37)

"For more than four decades, I knew Myra. ??When I first met her early in 1951, she was a tall slender woman with no hint of the crippling osteoporosis that would plague her later years. She had come to UNM to work on her Ph.D. in Latin American History after having earned her B.A. and M.A. with distinction at the University of Colorado and after several years of successful teaching in that state's public schools.

Since we were both in the same program we worked and studied closely together: taking the same classes and helping each other prepare for the inevitable comprehensive oral and written exams. ??Also, we both became Graduate Assistants to "La Suprema", Dr. Dorothy Woodward. ??I got to know her parents to whom she was deeply devoted and for whom she provided a home for their later years in both Albuquerque and Santa Fe.

Especially do I remember fondly her sense of humor. ??She could categorize people and issues in a descriptive word or two. ??One person at UNM was always a "fat-faced, old fool" in her eyes. ??Phrases like "the Rio Grande River" or "down the La Bajada hill" were apt to evoke groans while holding her shaking head in her hands and uttering "Oh, my! Oh, my!" or "Oh croak."

Very proud of her English ancestry and heritage, she was always good for a laugh if I teasingly prefaced some remark with "God is an Irishman and He told me ....????? or, as I often asked, "Well, Myra, how are things with the schismatics?????? Such impertinence brought both a torrent of words beginning with "God is not an Irishman," and a dissertation that ended with "I am not the schismatic, you are the schismatic."

One time we were talking about someone and Myra said, "He's fine but he 'snabbles.'" ????"He 'snabbles'?" I said. "Yes, he 'snabbles'." ??"Myra, just exactly what does he do when he 'snabbles'?" "He can't get a complete sentence out correctly, he just 'snabbles'." ??I never did get the complete etymology of the verb "to snabble" but I was convinced that "snabbling" was something to be avoided at all costs in Myra's presence. ??As a cattleman's daughter, she was quick to remind me of the enmity between cattlemen and sheepmen if I ordered or jokingly said something nice about lamb chops or leg of lamb.

In recent years, we met mostly at historical conventions but it was always as if we had seen each other the day before. ??She became New Mexico's pre-eminent historian but never lost that feeling for her roots nor her sense of humor.

New Mexico has lost a treasure, but I lost a close and dear friend of many years."??

From the guide to the Myra Ellen Jenkins papers, 1500-1993, 1916-1992, (Fort Lewis College. Center of Southwest Studies)