The
family of Harry and Helen Jenkins of Omaha, Nebraska, is interesting
for more than having produced the future president of Notre Dame,
Father John Jenkins, CSC. Some details:
- 12 children (six sons, six daughters)
- 38 grandchildren
- Younger sister Anne is married to well-known travel writer
and PBS personality Rick Steves.
- In the early 1960s, one of their neighbors was Ken Woodward
'57, later a religion writer at Newsweek.
- Dr. Harry Jenkins is a retired gastroenterologist, Helen Jenkins
holds a nursing degree. Four of their daughters are nurses. One
son, Joe, is a physician, a gastroenterologist.
- The only other religious in the family is an uncle on Helen
Jenkins' side, Father Robert Condon, a diocesan priest in Sioux
City, Iowa.
- Two of Father Jenkins' in-laws are Lutherans (including Steves),
and one is Jewish. Another Jewish man will be marrying youngest
sibling Sarah this summer. Father Jenkins will officiate.
- Glenn Walsh, husband of the second-youngest sibling Cathy,
is in the Army and serving in Afghanistan.
- Older brother Tom '74 is the only other Notre Dame alum among
the siblings, but seven of Father Jenkins' nieces and nephews
have attended. They are: Tom's fraternal twin daughters Kari '02
and Erin '02; and all five children of first-born Maureen (Jenkins)
Kizer: Bob '97, Rich '98 (married to Becca Daulton '98), Angie
'99, Margie (Kizer) Burns '00 (married to Nick Burns '00). Clare
Kizer will be a sophomore this fall.
Tim Jenkins is a cattleman in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, and
married to the former Mary Easterday '85.
(July 2004)
