Virginia Jenkins Todd

Virginia Jenkins Todd, known universally as ""Jenny"", lately a resident of Wilmington, NC, has passed on to the next life after a bout with cancer. She was born on January 21st, 1926, near Pinetops, NC, to Sallie Cobb Jenkins and Samuel Robert Jenkins, a prominent farm family in Edgecombe County. After graduating from high school in Pinetops, she left the farm and briefly attended Salem College in Winston-Salem and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill until World War II, marriage to a handsome young paratrooper and two subsequent children - both boys – interrupted studies with the need to work, which she did steadily right on up to retirement in her seventies. For several years a single mom, she was always resourceful in support of her family, and the variety and number of jobs she held over time makes a diverse list: radio management assistant, restaurant hostess, secretary she taught herself to type over the course of one weekend to get the first job, working up to executive level, production office manager, gift shop clerk, radio marketing manager, stock broker, small business owner, et al. Through all life's trials and tribulations, she was known for her ready raucous laugh and remarkable gift of gab, with which she made more friends faster than almost any five people put together. She will be sorely missed by all who survive her, including her husband, Thomas E. Todd of Wilmington; brother, James Bennett Jenkins of Rocky Mount, NC; two sons, John Shearin and wife, Jennifer, of Grifton, NC, and Robert Shearin and wife, Cindy, of Manhattan Beach, CA; stepson, Leslie Todd of Perth, Australia; stepdaughter, Linda Todd Stamp of Orlando, FL; grandchildren, Lisa Hendricks of Grand Rapids, MI, Daniel Shearin of Asheville, NC, Katie and Sarah Shearin of Chapel Hill, NC, Nicole Shearin of Manhattan Beach, CA, and Todd Stamp of Durham, NC; great-grandchildren, Tyler and Tobie Hendricks of Grand Rapids, MI; and a host of other family and friends around the country too numerous to mention. The family will receive friends from 7pm to 8:30pm Friday, May 9, 2008, at Wheeler & Woodlief Funeral Home, Rocky Mount, NC. A graveside service will be 11am Saturday, May 10, 2008, at McKendree Church Cemetery, Tarboro, NC. In lieu of flowers, friends may make donations to Lower Cape Fear Hospice and Life Care Center, 2222 South 17th Street, Wilmington, NC 28401. As the poet W.B. Yeats wrote: ""…She, singing upon her road/half lion, half child, is at peace.""