Another Texas VC

Sakina was born in 1923 in the Principality of Bahawalpur as the 3^rd of 6 sisters. One of her sisters remarked that “We didn’t have a brother but we did have Sakina”. Sakina earned an Associates Degree in Mathematics and Economics from Islamia College in Lahore. Sakina became Aziz Ahmed Gilani’s second wife in 1945. Aziz and Sakina moved to Minchinabad where they had their son Naeem in 1946. After spending partition hiding in a cotton field, she moved back to Bahawalpur where she had her daughters Nuzhat in 1948 and Nighat in 1950. Her husband Aziz then died when his jeep was run over by a train in 1951.

She remarried in 1954 as the second wife to Noor Muhammad Mehmoodi under the condition that she change her first name to Qamar. She completed Hajj with her new husband in 1958. In 1964, after 5 consecutive miscarriages, she had her second son Akbar.  In 1980 she first came to the US to join her first son Naeem, and gave permission for him to name his first son after her deceased husband. She spent the next several years shuttling back and forth staying with Nuzhat, Naeem, and Akbar while periodically working as a substitute teacher in the US and managing a beauty salon in Bahawalpur. In 1987 Noor Muhammad Mehmoodi died and she permanently resettled in the US.

She became a US citizen in 1994. With her health deteriorating, she moved back to Pakistan in 2008 to stay with her daughter Nighat. She died on August 9, 2009. She is survived by 4 children, 14 grandchildren, and 11 great grandchildren.