Jeanne Evans Hoyle 1944 — 2021
Her lifelong relationships with friends, animals, and nature from Azerbaijan to California sustained Jeannie Hoyle. Whatever path her life took, these were the important constants.
That path cut a wide swath from beauty queen to river rat.
Jeanne Evans Hoyle, 76, died at her Sonora, California, residence March 12 of complications from Postpolio Syndrome and a stroke. Service plans will be announced when it is safe to gather. Jeannie, the daughter of Mary Jeanne Meeks Hoyle Wickus and Walter Evans Hoyle, moved to Valdosta, GA, at age 14. In 1964 she was crowned Miss Valdosta State College and soon met and married Edward (Ned) Deligall Jenkins Jr. of Charleston, SC. He died in 1973. After Ned’s death, Jeannie fulfilled his desire for them to raft a river. While attending Georgia State University, she took a canoe class and that river trip Ned always talked about. It changed the path of her life. Jeannie became a pioneer for women in whitewater river rafting. She explored whitewater rivers throughout the South and East Coast including the Chattooga, Nantahala, Ocoee, Gauley and New rivers. After an 18-day self-propelled trip down the Colorado River, she rafted rivers on the West Coast including the American, Merced, Kings, and Tuolumne. She chose to live near the Stanislaus River in Sonora where she worked for decades as whitewater rafting guide, river camp manager, shuttle driver, food manager or trip booker with multiple whitewater rafting companies. Jeannie had an unstoppable work ethic. Between river trips, she worked at bookstores including Charley’s Bookstore in Sonora, in administration at Linden Waldorf School in Nashville, Tennessee, became a licensed massage therapist, nanny, end-of-life caregiver, and for the past 17 years Camp West property attendant for Frankie and Craig West. She was nanny to Sam and Nina West in Sonora and in Nashville to Oona, Hannah, and Josef Doyle. Beyond work and the river, she was a political and women’s rights activist, gardener, prodigious knitter, avid reader, and tended to a clowder of cats, assorted chickens and geese, llamas and goats.
When she moved her family to Sonora in 1979, Jeannie renovated an old house on her 3-acre property and set about establishing an organic garden, breeding llamas and nurturing her goats, a point of contention with her children. Jeannie treasured the goats while her children despised milking them and having to drink goat’s milk. Her house was a haven for her children’s friends. She offered shelter and succor they appreciate to this day. From as far away as Azerbaijan, friends are reaching out to the family to share the difference Jeannie made in their lives.
While living at Camp West, Jeannie surrounded her cottage with daffodils, sweet peas, verbena, lupine and native wildflowers all the while trying to outsmart their attacks by gophers and deer. She was always reading, preferring British authors especially Ann Cleeves. She knit socks like a mad woman, including bespoke socks she could have sold for $100. She knit and gave away countless cowls, lap robes, and whatever she thought her friends would enjoy. Much of that was done while working as an end-of-life caregiver, a career she began after caring for her mother until she died in 2003. Nearing the end of her own life, Jeannie said she had done everything she wanted to do.
Whether Jeannie lived in a tent on the river, in a welcoming house in Atlanta’s historic Ansley Park or in a barn one summer while working on an organic garlic farm in Carlton, Washington, her house and heart were always open to the people who crossed her path. To that end though her official date of death is March 13, she died March 12 and, per her instructions, remained in her Camp West cottage for a day for nearby friends to offer private condolences to her family.
Survivors include a daughter, Deirdre Anne Jenkins of Eau Claire, Wisconsin; two sons, Edward (Tripp) Deligall Jenkins III of Sonora; Joshua (Whit) Whitten Lane of Atlanta; a sister, Mary Lisa Hoyle Slamkowski of Valdosta; a brother, David Henry Hoyle of Columbia; two granddaughters, Alexa Hayley Jenkins of Breckenridge, Colorado, and Emma Celeste Jenkins Smith of New Haven, Connecticut; and several nieces, nephews, great-nieces and -nephews. Her sister Joanna Hoyle Davis of Columbia died in 2016. Jeannie formerly was married to Robert Whitten Lane of Atlanta. Terzich & Wilson Funeral Home in Sonora was in charge of arrangements.