- Date Of Birth: October 28, 1923
- Date Of Death: October 14, 2021
- State: Arizona
On Thursday, October 14, 2021, Muriel Marcella (Jenkins) O’Connell went to be with The Lord in Scottsdale AZ at Avant One Assisted Living. She was a beloved mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother whose presence will be dearly missed by all who’ve known her.
Micki, as she was called since kindergarten, was born in Bethany, NE on October 28, 1923, daughter of the late Muir and Alma (Griffith) Jenkins. She had two sisters, the late Donna Jenkins and the late Janet Anderson and one brother the late, Everett Jenkins.
She was a child of The Great Depression. Her parents lost everything – car, land and house.
As with so many of her generation – The Great Generation – these years of poverty were to shape the rest of her life. For example, she was never fond of gardening because of those childhood memories of working the family vegetable garden, the grind of filling pails and pails of water and picking the bugs off each plant. People had to because for many it was a choice of living or dying.
Micki displayed an intelligence and sense of adventure that was quite rare for a young woman of her time. She grew up in Lincoln, NE, and after she graduated high school, decided to enroll at the University of Nebraska where she aimed her sights on becoming a pilot. She took The Civil Aviation Authority ground school course and began her pilot training. She was the only girl in her class.
When WWII broke out, she got a position as an aircraft communicator. She was taught radio procedure, weather, and more. This meant a lot of travel to a lot of states in order to complete her training. And all this travel infected her with a life-long travel bug!
On April 7, 1951 Mickie married Patrick D O’Connell in Alexandria, VA, who was serving as a captain in The United States Army at the time. Shortly afterward, Pat was shipped overseas to serve in The Korean War, and so they moved to San Francisco. The Bay Area was home for the next 28 years, during which they had two children: a son, Craig and a daughter, Nancy.
Pat was in the home-building business, and as wife to a building contractor, Micki kept a vigorous schedule, active in her kids’ education, hosting clients and guests (which allowed her gift of hospitality to be expressed), participating in the local garden club, and taking several trips with her local church. She loved being where the action was!
In 1978 she and Pat moved to Scottsdale Arizona, when he was promoted to the general contractor position of one of the building companies at Leisure World. They were married 53 years before he passed in 2004.
She was a devoted wife and an enthusiastic mother – The kind of mother who attended all the sport practices and all the play practices and volunteered as room mother time and time again through all her kids’ elementary years. She was not only a dedicated mom, but she was passionate about being a grandmother, even a great-grandmother.
Micki was always committed to her local church. In San Jose, she and Pat were members of Los Gatos Christian Church. In Scottsdale, they were members of Scottsdale Bible Church. Being committed church members was a vital part of their lives.
But the most important part of Micki’s life was her warm relationship with God. From early childhood, she had a heart toward Jesus. Her father – which she dearly loved – took her to many tent revivals, sowing the seeds of faith in her heart, which later blossomed into a personal relationship with Christ when she heard The 4 Spiritual Laws. It was then that totally committing her life to Christ made sense.
This gave her a deeper love than she’d ever known… a love she poured out on her children, and which changed their lives forever.
Surviving are her two children, Craig (wife, Lucinda) O’Connell of Scottsdale, AZ and Nancy (husband, Steven) Fry of Brentwood, TN. Surviving grandchildren include Christian O’Connell of Phoenix, AZ, Kelly (wife, Kristin) O’Connell of San Diego, CA, Scott (wife, Jenny) O’Connell, of Scottsdale, AZ, Cameron (wife, Lyssah) Fry, of White Bluff, TN, Kelsey (husband, Josh) Wilking, of Nashville, TN and Caleigh (husband, Wesley) Knight, of Nashville, TN. Her great-grandchildren are Zion, Hayes and Maeve O’Connell; Caeden, Evie, Milo and Jubilee Fry; and Alouette Knight.
