Gail McKinley passed away on October 28, 2026. Gail was born and raised on a farm near Essex, Illinois. Shortly after graduating from high school, she took the train from Illinois to El Paso, Texas, where she didn’t know a soul, save for her brother Cliff. She quickly set about building a life for herself in El Paso, where she met and married her husband Ted McKinley, raised two daughters, and served her community for seventy years. Gail was a devoted public servant, who spent the majority of her career working for public schools in El Paso in the payroll department.
For all of her life, Gail found comfort and diversion in books and over the course of her life, cultivating a sizable personal library full of books that were personally significant to her, books that reminded her of her loved ones, and books that she thought might bring those loved one's joy. She raised her daughters and granddaughters on Little House on the Prairie, Little Women, Anne of Green Gables, Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple, and James Herriot’s All Creatures Great and Small, teaching us strength, independence, inquisitiveness, and compassion with each page.
Gail never forgot the period of her childhood when books were a luxury – both expensive and difficult to come by. She spent the rest of her life intentionally building a community where children would have access to books not only for their education, but also books that served only to bring them joy, expand their imaginations, and offer entry into the larger community of readers. Gail devoted her retirement years to the El Paso Friends of the Library, volunteering at the Friends of the Library Bookstore for more than a decade and serving as secretary for the local branch of the El Paso Friends of the Library for many of those years. She took great pleasure in contributing to the sustainability of public libraries on the northeast side of El Paso, and all of the services that public libraries offer to the community.
Gail’s love of stories also contributed to a boundless capacity for empathy, and a firm belief in the importance of remembering that we never know what other people are going through. A principle that guided every decision that she made. No matter what was happening in her own life, there was always room at her table, and in her heart, for friends, neighbors, and anyone else in her community who needed a little bit of grace.
Those who knew Gail will remember her as a warm but practical woman, who didn’t enjoy the spotlight. She would probably think that this obituary was a bit much, but we hope she’d indulge our desire to remember her in this small measure of detail.
Gail is survived by daughters Cheryl Leung (Vitus Leung), and Mary Haynie (Ed Haynie), grandchildren Sarah McKinley-Barnard (Ben Barnard), Katherine Leung (James Krasner), Anne Leung, and Jarred Haynie (Maribel Haynie), and great-grandchildren Oliver Barnard, Rebecca Barnard, and Addilyn Barnard, and Eva Haynie, and Mya Haynie.
The family requests that in lieu of flowers, those wishing to remember Gail make donations to The Imagination Library in her honor.
