Mina Jean (Perkins) Davenport, 85, a resident of Animas, NM

Category: Obituaries Obituaries
Published: 28 February 2023 28 February 2023

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, I now believe, be some very deep love for the man she follows around. My wife, Jean, and I have lived in one-room ‘houses’ with no electricity; in tin houses that were more like barns; in a log cabin in the Bighorn Mountains where she had to ride horseback the last two miles to get to and cook on a wood-burning cookstove with no running water or electricity. The creek was a couple hundred yards away and Jean packed in more water than 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 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 was the Class B Woman’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 ‘until Jean’s last days 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 fund for the junior pitchers. She accomplished this and, a year later, Texas was recognized by the National Horseshoe Pitchers’ Association as the first charter to have a scholarship for the junior pitchers!! Jean was inducted into the THPA Hall of Fame on October 2, 2009. Jean loved all kids. I’ve seen her look at kids riding in shopping carts at grocery stores with those loving eyes 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 Davenport; and all of her siblings, Vernell, Laverne, Glenn, Virginia, and younger sister and brother, Loretta and Ray, and all of their spouses.

Jean is survived by her loving husband of 62 1/2 years, Johnny, who was at her bedside when she entered the spirit world; our son, John Wesley Davenport, Jr.; daughter-in-law, Jacque; grandchildren, Cody (Brittany), Destiny (Justin), Sky (Liah), and Rejana Portal; great-grandchildren, Emily, Laikyn, and Ayslee Davenport, Austin and Jocelyn Rodriguez, Kay and Remmy Portal; and many nieces and nephews and friends from all over the west, and very special lifetime friend, Nelta Edwards-Green of Turkey, TX school days.

A Celebration of Jean’s Life will be held on Sunday, March 5, 2023 at 10:30 AM at the Animas Community Center in Animas, NM. A potluck dinner will follow.

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