Teresa S. Jimenez

Teresa Salinas Jimenez

September 30, 1947 – May 23, 2026

How do you account for 80 years of teaching by not stating the fact that she never stopped being a student? She loved learning and she enjoyed teaching from her experiences as she nurtured curiosity in all her students. From her humble start teaching in Canadian and White Deer, Texas to her retirement in New Braunfels, Texas she taught and counseled youngsters and young adults as if to raise her own family from children to maturity. She was a member of the Texas Retired Teachers of America (TRTA). She loved debating with her cousins Helen, Anita, and Elia Salinas from Mission and McAllen, Texas. She was inspired by her maternal grandparents Elias and Nestora Salinas as they would walk hand in hand to the church a block away from their home and she gained wisdom from her paternal grandmother Carmen Garcia who lived to be 102 years of age. She understood the pioneer life from her parents Ray and Juanita Jimenez as they migrated from south Texas to west Texas to make their home in Plainview, Texas. Her father worked as a sharecropper and a farmer. A profession with no hours as he worked from sunup to sundown, weekends and harvest, year in and year out. She experienced and witnessed the grief her family endured as they lost sons, husbands, fathers and brothers fighting for the freedoms we share as Americans today. Army, Air Force, and Navy alike, brothers fighting communism so we would know that freedom is not free. She dabbled in photography, writing for a newspaper and helping with taking inventory for department stores. When vacations allowed she loved spending time exploring Colorado with her friends the Damerons. The adventures were those of watching them raise their children in the life of ranching and the medical profession of the life of a doctor. Always there was a new tomorrow to learn, teach, and pass on the appreciation she enjoyed with all the inquisitive children and young adults. He last day was spent with her lifelong best friend Melie McIntosh. The duration of her time at Lakeridge Rehab and Nursing was under the careful and loving care of Beyond Faith Hospice. Special thanks to Chaplain Mary Ann Gordon, nurse Savannah, and staff.

She was preceded in death by her father and mother Ray and Juanita Jimenez, maternal grandparents Elias and Nestorita Salinas, paternal grandmother Carmen Garcia, an older brother Junior, and younger brother Sebastian Jimenez, sisters Hortencia Jimenez and Oralia Jimenez.

Those left to celebrate her departure to Paradise are three sisters Eliva, Aurelia, and Maria and their families: Elvira Salina Jimenez, her lifelong benefactor; Aurelia and Joe Rogers, her children Abraham Soloman and his children John Abraham Ray Soloman (JARS), Sativa and Serena Soloman, Marie Soloman and her children Lluvia, Mireya, and Soloman, Alissa; and Maria Jonquina and Robert E. Cambell and her daughters Maria Elena and Joe Banda of San Angelo and their children Andrew and Margarita Soto of Dallas, Lucas Banda and his sister Natalie Banda both of San Angelo, Texas, Yolanda Saenz and her children Valerie Picaso and her children Anibal Vasquez, Jr. Alianna Villarreal and Mireya Jimenez; Isaiah Michael Thomas and son Zamari, Annie and Cody Fuller, her son Joshua and his sons Jaxon and Logan Fuller. Her stepdaughter Heather and Ryan Engle and their sons William and Leo Engle. Stepson Timothy and Daisy Womack and their children Axel, Ace, Asher and daughter Violet Genesis Womack of Saldo, Texas and Stepson Corey and Honey Grace Womack and their children Hazel Grace and Theo of Taylor, Texas. 

Her family is planning a Memorial Service.  Date and time will be posted soon.