Deceased December 16, 2019
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In Memory
Donald Chase Jenkins, a longtime resident of Bronxville, N.Y., passed away on Dec. 16, 2019, after a short illness.
Don grew up in Schenectady, N.Y., one of four sons of William and Pearl Hathaway Jenkins. He attended Albany Academy and graduated from Deerfield Academy, where he captained the varsity basketball team. After graduating from Amherst, where he majored in history, he attended business school at the University of Hartford. Don spent most of his career as a financial analyst for the investment banker and philanthropist William T. Golden and later for the investment firm run by Mario Gabelli. Along with his wife, Carla Donkin Jenkins, a graduate of Smith College whom he married in 1961, Don raised three sons who attended the Bronxville Schools: McKay ’85, now an author and professor of environmental studies at the University of Delaware; Brian, a technology businessman in Chapel Hill, N.C.; and Denny, a general surgeon in Virginia Beach, Va.
A lifelong (and long-suffering) fan of the Boston Celtics and New York Giants, Don was also an avid (and long-suffering) tennis player and was also a champion bowler at the Bronxville Field Club, where he served for many years as president. He was also an avid gardener and longtime member of the town’s Working Gardeners Club. A deeply intelligent and well-read observer of economic and world affairs, Don was visibly pleased when his son McKay ’85 and grandson Steedman ’23 joined the Amherst family.
Don is survived by two brothers, his three sons, three daughters-in-law, seven nieces and nephews and nine grandchildren.
McKay Jenkins ’85