Albert Edward Jenkins ’31

Albert Edward Jenkins ’31 died on February 6, 2004, in Whittier, California.

Born on July 7, 1908, in Sheffield, Yorkshire, England, he prepared for college at Winthrop (MA) High School and became a member of Alpha Tau Omega Fraternity at Bowdoin. Following his graduation in 1931 cum laude and as a member of Phi Beta Kappa, he joined the John Hancock Life Insurance Company in Boston, where he worked for 11 years. In 1941 he entered the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, MA, from which he was graduated in 1944. After serving as an assistant priest at All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, CA, he became rector of St. Matthias Church in Whittier, where he served as rector for 27 years, retiring in 1973 and becoming rector-emeritus. While at St. Matthias, he was also rector at St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church in Pico Rivera from 1948 to 1952 and at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in La Habra in 1954-55. He also assisted the Diocese in starting two other churches in California. In his retirement, he served as assistant chaplain at Whittier Presbyterian Hospital and assisted in services at St. Matthias and All Saints in Pasadena. In Bowdoin affairs he was not only 1931’s Class Secretary for more than 70 years but also its Class Bequest Chairman for more than 30 years, beginning in 1972. He is survived by his wife, Nancy Garrett Jenkins, whom he married in 1946, and by “the St. Matthias community,” as a newspaper account put it.