Rhoda Jenkins

Rhoda Barney Jenkins (July 12, 1920 - August 25, 2007) was an architect and social activist born in New York to Morgan Barney, MIT naval architect, and mother Nora Stanton Barney, Cornell graduate and America's first female civil engineer. She is the great-granddaughter of civil rights activist Elizabeth Cady Stanton and granddaughter of Harriot Stanton Blatch.
Biography
Rhoda Barney Jenkins was the daughter of Morgan Barney, a pioneering MIT naval architect and Mayflower descendant of New Bedford Quaker whaling stock, and Nora Stanton Barney a Cornell-educated civil engineer, and the country's first woman civil engineer. Ms. Jenkins was a descendant of prominent colonialist Revolutionary War generals on both sides of her family. A fourth-generation feminist, she was the great-granddaughter of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who wrote the “Declaration of Sentiments” that opened the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention for women’s rights and later, with Susan B. Anthony, fought a lifelong campaign for women’s suffrage. Rhoda’s grandmother Harriot Blatch and mother Nora introduced the English suffragist tactics of mass marches to America that were later adopted by civil rights and anti-war activists. With a keen mind, protean memory and access to original documents, “Rhoda”, as she was known to all, became the "Holy Grail" for a generation of academic scholars in the new field of Women’s Studies, generous to all who came knocking.
She was born in New York City on July 12, 1920, the month before women won the right to vote. After a progressive education at Greenwich, Connecticut’s Edgewood School and Rosemary Hall, she attended Swarthmore College and the University of Pennsylvania, from which she received her degree in Architecture in 1941 at age 20. In later life she earned her Masters in Social Work. Her professional career started during World War II at F. R. Harris, designing floating dry-docks; then she was commissioned to design the High Mowing School in Wilton, New Hampshire. Subsequent work ranged from pre-fab housing, to churches and residential work. Licensed in both New York and Connecticut, her fine hand and nuanced sense of design, developed as a student, won her juried competitions, and followed her throughout her life, winning the respect of her peers and any building department that she submitted work to.
After her marriage to Frederick Davis Jenkins (deceased) in 1948, she limited her work to Greenwich, where she worked with her beloved brother John Barney (deceased), and to Rye, New York, where she raised her family. Generous with her time and professional expertise, she was sought out by a variety of local institutions. As a board member of the Rye YMCA she consulted on the new addition and as a deacon of the Rye Presbyterian Church she designed the original columbarium. In the late 1950s her rising commitment to the anti-nuclear movement led her to leave the church and helped found the Rye Friends Meeting. She remained a Quaker for the rest of her life.
Whether it was the Carver Center in Port Chester or the Rye Historical Society, it could never be said that she "sat" on a board but rather "ran": she was a firm believer in the act of doing. On the larger political scale she campaigned tirelessly for causes such as Nuclear Freeze, Zero Population Growth, , and Planned Parenthood. Locally she could be counted on to show up and organize. Along with her interest in gardening, sailing, and travel she earned her pilot’s license. That she was a prolific letter writer can be attested to by family, friends, newspaper editors, congressmen, Presidents, and occasionally the Pope.
Rhoda Barney Jenkins died August 25, 2007 at Greenwich Hospital after a short illness. She was survived by her son Morgan Jenkins; daughter Coline Jenkins; grandchildren Elizabeth and Eric Jenkins-Sahlin; her half-sister Harriet De Forest; stepchildren Bruce Jenkins and Alevia Ballard; and 29 step-grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Children
*Morgan Jenkins
*Coline Jenkins
Grandchildren
*Elizabeth Jenkins-Sahlin
*Eric Jenkins-Sahlin

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