Jenny Lind Cawood

Jenny Lind Cawood, 73, of Kerrville, Texas, passed away on Thursday, February 6, 2014. Jenny was born in 1940 in Harlan, Kentucky, the elder of two daughters of Lillian Greer Cawood and Dr. James A. Cawood, who for 38 years was Superintendent of Schools in Harlan County, Kentucky.

In 1961 Jenny married Dr. James D. Skaggs, an instructor at Abilene Christian University [ACU] in Abilene, Texas. In 1962 Jenny received a diploma in Speech and Bible from ACU. Her son James was born that November, and the marriage dissolved in 1963.

Jenny worked with the Division of Public Assistance of Kentucky’s Department of Economic Security; she was assigned to her father’s home area of Evarts and Crank’s Creek. In 1965 Jenny married fellow graduate student Lynn Chenault at the University of Louisville, Kentucky. She received her Master of Social Work degree in 1966.

They moved to Albany, Georgia, where Jenny worked at Child and Family Services. Jenny then took a job as Director of the Social Service Department of Battey State Tuberculosis Hospital in Rome, Georgia. She worked there until her second child, Brian Chenault, was born in April, 1968.

In 1972 Jenny began directing a play-therapy group in Charlotte, Michigan. In 1973 Jenny began work as a Social Worker with Child and Family Services of Monroe County, Michigan. In 1974 Jenny started work as a Social Worker for Toledo Hospital in Toledo, Ohio. In 1975 Jenny began a position at the Ruth Ide Community Mental Health Center [CMHC] conducting individual and play therapy and supervising others in structural family therapy.

In 1979 Jenny took a job at CMHC West, where she pioneered a new treatment called filial therapy. In 1984 Jenny accepted a position as a Social Worker at St. Alban’s Psychiatric Hospital in Radford, Virginia. In 1986 Jenny’s marriage ended and she moved to Martinsville, Virginia to begin work as a Social Worker.

Jenny later retired to Abilene, Texas to join her mother and her sister, Dr. E. Marion Cawood, Professor of Voice at ACU. In 2012 Jenny and Marion moved to Kerrville, Texas, where they have been members of the Riverside Church of Christ. Alongside her social work career, Jenny was a poet whose works were selected for wide publication in magazines and journals.
She is survived by her loving sister, Marion Cawood, of Kerrville, Texas; sons, James Cawood Chenault, of San Antonio, Texas, and Brian Chenault, of The Netherlands (Europe); grandson, Evan Chenault, of San Antonio; granddaughter and grandson, Tessa Lynn Chenault and Owen James Chenault, and daughter-in-law Dominiek Chenault, of The Netherlands. The family of Jenny wishes to extend sincere thanks to the caring staff of the Peterson Medical Center and Peterson Hospice of Kerrville, Texas, for providing excellent and loving care during her final days.

Flowers may be sent to Mount Pleasant Funeral Home, 122 North Cumberland Avenue, Harlan, Kentucky, where the wake will be held from 6 to 8 PM on Tuesday, February 11. Funeral services will be held at Mt. Pleasant at 11 AM on Wednesday, with interment to follow at Resthaven Cemetery. Jenny’s first cousin James William Cawood, minister from Nashville, Tennessee, will officiate.