Laura "Lou" Jenkins

It is with great sadness that we mourn the passing of our beloved sister, Laura Lucilla Jenkins, 91, on the 8th day of May, 2018.
Lou, as we lovingly called her, spent the last 23 years of her life where she was born, in Eunice, Louisiana.
Lou was born on December 20, 1926, the first child of Mark Roy Jenkins and Mabel Cox Jenkins.
Mark Roy Jenkins was born in Prudhomme, near present-day Eunice, on September 10, 1893.
He was in the first class to graduate from Eunice High School and was a graduate in agriculture from
Louisiana State University in 1916 who went on to become a successful rice and cotton farmer between
Eunice and Basile. On February 6,1926, he married a pretty school teacher who was teaching in Kinder,
Mabel Cox, to whom he was happily married until his untimely death on February 14, 1951, at the age of 57.
Lou's mother Mabel was born in Woodville, Mississippi on January 4, 1902, and briefly attended LSU and
Louisiana Normal School to obtain her teaching credentials, teaching in Kinder until she married and bore
and successfully raised six children, all of whom attended LSU and five of whom received one or more
degrees from LSU. After her husband Mark died in 1951, she took over running the family farm and
was a very successful investor in the stock market for the rest of her life, enabling her to send Lou's two
youngest brothers to LSU Medical School and Harvard Law School. Mabel lived in Eunice until 1990 and
passed away in Centerville, Mississippi on April 25, 1995, at the age of 93.
Lou never married nor had children. She is survived by her sister Nanette Fuller, 90, retired, who currently
resides in Austin, Texas, and two brothers, Dr. Mark Roy Jenkins, II, 78, who resides and practices
medicine in New Orleans and lives part-time in Pacific Beach, California, and Michael D. Jenkins, CPA
and Attorney, 73, who resides in Ivins, Utah, and is semi-retired, publishing and writing books and software.
Lou's passing was preceded by her sister Glenna Stricklin, 71, who passed away on August 3, 2001
and brother and retired airline captain Garet Beckham Jenkins, 85, who passed away on February 28, 2017.
Lou was an excellent student, who was salutatorian when she graduated from Basile High School in 1943.
She earned her bachelor's degree and a Masters in microbiology, with a specialty in parasitology at LSU.
She worked as a parasitologist at M.D. Anderson in
Houston for a number of years, before earning another Masters degree, this time in Public Health at the
University of Houston, and went to work for a federal health agency in Houston for the remainder of a
distinguished career. During that portion of her career she taught parasitology and tropical medicine to
doctors and medical students at Baylor Medical School, among other duties in public health planning for
Harris County (Houston) .
Lou was always a kind and very loving soul; one who always gave more than she received.
When her mother began to show early signs of Alzheimer's, Lou, at the age of 64, gave up a
comfortable life in Kerrville, Texas and moved to Centerville, Mississippi, where her mother
had grown up, and spent the rest of her mother's life providing in-home care, hiring and supervising
caretakers 24 hours a day, in a rented residence in Centerville.
After her mother Mabel's passing in 1995, she took care of her Aunt Rose, Mabel's older sister,
until she passed away in 1999, in Crowley. Lou had moved to her mother's house in Eunice in 1995,
where she remained for the rest of her days.
During her 23 years in Eunice, Lou, a devout Christian and student of the Bible,
attended various small prayer groups in Eunice and the Assembly of God Church in Crowley.
We trust that she is now safely in the arms of Jesus. She will be missed....