1937–2023
Mina Jean PerkinsDavenport, 1937–2023
Obituary written by Johnny Davenport
was born on June 16, 1937 in Turkey, Texas, and died on January 6, 2023 in Animas, New Mexico.
It takes a very special woman to put up with the life of a cowboy and his tendency to drift all over the west. There must also be some very deep love for the man that she followed around.
My wife, Jean, and I have lived in one-room houses with no electricity or running water, in a log cabin in the Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming that she had to ride on horseback the last two miles to get to, and then cook on a woodburning cookstove, again with no electricity or running water. The creek was a couple of hundred yards away and she packed in more water that I did.
She has cooked at the wagon for me, as well as being the cook at ranch headquarters, all over the west.
Jean did all of this just so I could have fun. What a woman!
While at the Twenty-Five Ranch in northern Nevada, near Battle Mountain, Jean started to dabble in painting. She continued this after I was transferred to Bassett, Nebraska.
In 1981, at the Nebraska State Horseshoe Tournament, Jean won the Class B Women’s State Champion!
In 1984, I quit cowboying and we moved back to Texas. Jean really got involved with art. It was in Post, Texas, that she met Linda Puckett. This friendship lasted till Jean’s last day on this earth.
Jean and Linda taught art at the Post Junior Prison for years.
During this time, Jean was elected to a spot on the Texas Horseshoe Pitchers Association Board with the intention of starting a scholarship for the junior pitchers. She accomplished this and years later, Texas was recognized by the National Horseshoe Pitchers Association as the only charter to have a scholarship for the junior pitchers.
Jean was inducted into the Texas Horseshoe Pitchers Association Hall of Fame on October 2, 2009.
Jean loved all kids. I’ve seen her look, with those loving eyes, at kids riding in shopping carts at grocery stores, and the kids would smile back at her and reach for her hand.
Jean was preceded in death by her parents, Vernon and Mary Holcomb-Perkins; our son, Billy Don Davenport; all of her siblings, Vernell, Laverne, Glenn, Virginia, Loretta and Ray; and all their spouses.
She is also survived by her loving husband, Johnny, of sixty-two and one-half years, who was at her bedside when she entered her spirit world; our son, John Wesley Davenport, Jr.; our daughter-in-law, Jacque Davenport; grandchildren, Cody (Brittany), Destiny (Justin), Sky (Leah), and ReJana Portal, as well as great-grandchildren, Emily, Laikyn and Ayslee Davenport, Austin and Jocelyn Rodriguez, Kay and Remmy Portal; along with many nieces and nephews, friends from all over the West, and also, a very special lifetime friend, Nelta Edwards Green of Plainview, Texas, formerly of Turkey, Texas, where they were classmates.
A celebration of Jean’s life was held on March 5, 2023 in Animas, New Mexico.