Tina Marie Snelgrove Thibault Mintz

Tina Marie Snelgrove Thibault Mintz passed away Thursday, April 3, 2025. She was many things: a master groomer, an incredible chess player, an amazing cook, an avid reader. She was an incredible, loving and beloved sister, friend, wife, and daughter. But most of all, the thing she loved best was being a mother. She was not just a mother, not just any mother. She was the ideal, the mother that all motherhood could and should be based on. She loved being a mother, loved her children more than herself, and thought of them before all else. She raised her own two boys along with other children she took in, and one very old, very mean woman that she cared for. She fed half her neighborhood on a weekly basis, on a single mother's income. And while she did not raise her daughter-in-law, when she joined our family, Tina instantly adopted the role of motherhood again; she loved having a daughter and she loved the daughter she finally had. There is now a hole in the world that can never be filled, and it shouldn't be. The hole that she leaves behind should remind us daily to think of others before ourselves, to feed others before ourselves, to help whenever and however we can. Tina would want us to be happy, to be healthy, and to remember the lessons she tried to teach us: think of those who cannot do for themselves first, always make sure the children and the dogs are fed before yourself, and never be anything but kind.

Our Mother is the best part of us that lives inside me. She taught us right and wrong, she taught us to share and share alike, and that no one is better or less than I am. She made it clear that I should give, as it really is better to give than to receive, and to never let anyone just win. She made us who we are in more ways than we can express in a single set of novels.

From your sons Cody and Stephen, and your daughter-in-law Shaina. As well as James Cottingham and Aaron Evans - sons you cared for, who your other sons brought home as friends and who you made family. You are and always will be beautiful, loved, and respected. You are our light in times of uncertainty, the voice that sarcastically, lovingly, and truthfully helps us find the good in all.

We love you, Mama. More than anything. You'll be with us always, in everything we do.

Poem by Shaina O'Rourke Thibault

Spring makes me think of you, and I think it always will now.

Your birthday is in spring.

Your passing was in spring.

But I think it fits you.

Spring is when all the beautiful flowers bloom, when the sunny days begin, and when all the butterflies start to come out.

Spring is full of beauty and wonder, just like you.

I'll think of you when the sun shines on my shoulders and when the dogs are bathing in a sunbeam.

The sunshine will comfort me, just like you did.

Spring reminds me of you.