A celebration of life for 87-year-old Mary Helen Jenkins Adams of Hopkinsville is being planned on the family farm.
Hughart, Beard & Giles Funeral Home is assisting with the arrangements.
Mary Helen Jenkins Adams died on July 25. Born in Hopkinsville on April 26, 1937, she was the daughter and only child of Mary Cannon and James Francis Jenkins. After starting school in Detroit, Michigan, she and her family returned to Kentucky where she attended West Side School and graduated from Hopkinsville High School in 1955. Mary Helen attended Bethel College in Hopkinsville for one year before transferring to Western Kentucky University (which was at that time Western Kentucky State College), and she graduated with honors in 1959. Upon graduation from Western, Mary Helen took a position teaching English at her alma mater Hopkinsville High School before in 1960 marrying Air Force Lieutenant John William Adams, a Hopkinsville native and son of Ben and Mildred Adams, who was stationed in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan at Kincheloe Air Force Base.
After being released from the Air Force, the Adamses moved to Frankfort, Kentucky with their baby son John Lindsey Adams. They lived in both Frankfort and Lexington before returning to Hopkinsville when Mr. Adams’ father Ben S. Adams died and John Adams was needed to help with the running of the family farm, and at the same time he began to oversee the construction of Hopkinsville Community College on North Drive. During this time (in 1964), the Adams family added another son William Jenkins Adams to their family, and Mary Helen once again taught in the city schools while taking part in many civic and political activities such as the League of Women Voters, Democratic Women’s groups, and the Kentucky Council of Teachers of English where she became president of the state English Council. She made several trips to Europe, often taking groups on tours of England, Scotland, Ireland, and other European sites, and on one occasion, she spent a summer studying in London at Queen’s College. Mary Helen taught for 28 years at Hopkinsville Community College, twice winning the coveted Great Teacher Award, and her last thirteen years she taught at the Fort Campbell Campus of HCC. She was a member of the Colonel John Green Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.
Survivors include her son District Judge John Lindsey Adams (Melissa Petty), her son Dr. William Jenkins Adams (Jihong Adams-Park), professor at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, her granddaughters Mary Thompson Adams (Brookelynn Adams), teacher at Rise STEM Academy for Girls in Lexington, and Chandler Elizabeth Adams, a recent graduate from Western, and her grandson James William Adams, and Brandon Pettus.
Mary Helen was preceded in death by her parents and her husband, former 8th District State Representative John William Adams.
The family would like to thank Dr. Elizabeth Toms, Advanced Home Medical, Pennyroyal Hospice, and especially Mary Helen’s team of compassionate sitters who gave complete care.
Gifts can be given in Mary Helen’s honor to the Hopkinsville-Christian County Public Library.
