Obituary for Shirley Penty Wolfe (Penty)
Eleven weeks after being diagnosed with advanced terminal cancer, Shirley Constance Penty Wolfe died Aug 14, 2022, in her Ann Arbor home of 53 years with family at her side. She turned 90 in April but was younger in spirit and energy than her age would indicate, still going for long daily walks as she did with her husband Art until his death in 2017. Born to Constance and Norman Penty, she grew up in Cleveland Heights, Ohio near her British immigrant grandparents. She was very shy as a child and loved to read. Once she heard about the possibility of furthering her education through college, she was determined to go, and began working and saving every penny, first in a butcher shop as a young teen, cutting up chickens in the shop window to attract customers. Later she had a newspaper route, spent summers cashiering at a grocery store, raised and bred Welsh Terriers, babysat and did other odd jobs, and her savings account slowly grew. Told that women could not become doctors, she decided instead to be a veterinarian and interviewed at Ohio State University but was informed they did not accept women as vet school students. Instead, she attended nearby Oberlin College where she majored in Government, continued playing music, and made many friends. As a sophomore, she opted to reside in one of the college’s first co-ops, where male students were permitted to come for dinner. It was during one of those dinners that she met a handsome co-op founder named Arthur Wolfe. As they got to know each other over dishwashing duties, they began dating and attending Quaker Meeting together. When Art graduated that spring and began graduate work at Earlham College, their relationship turned to letters and occasional visits.
Shirley’s adventurous spirit led her to spend her junior year at Exeter University in England, where she developed a love of travel, including on the back of a motorcycle, and went to London for Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation in June 1953. That summer, she and Art bicycled around Europe, pitching their tent in farmers’ fields, and volunteered in an American Friends Service Committee’s post-WWII Quaker workcamp in Yugoslavia, where they made life-long friends. Her senior year, Shirley was one of five women to join Oberlin’s track team since the college refused to accept cricket – which she played at Exeter – as fulfilling the college’s physical education requirement. Graduating from Oberlin in 1954, she and Art married that August near her parents’ home in Willoughby Hills, Ohio. Shirley returned with him to Tacoma, WA where he was a conscientious objector in the U.S. Army Medical Corps at Fort Lewis. She worked for the Social Security Administration and earned her teaching certificate, doing practice teaching at Tacoma High School. They then moved to Ann Arbor to pursue master’s degrees in Education.
Seeking further adventure, soon they were off to spend four years (1956-60) on Moen Island, Truk Atoll (now Chuuk Lagoon) in the former U.S.-administered United Nations Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, where they taught native islanders in an intermediate boarding school and helped prepare them for self-governance. Their first child Nancy Louise (Nanlouise) was born in July 1957, followed by Wendy in October 1959. David (Daithi) was born in February 1963 after they returned to Ann Arbor in 1960 for Art to begin his PhD program. Soon after, the family moved from their tiny married student apartment to a rental house, and the children began attending the nearby university laboratory elementary school. The family took many camping trips, including several across the United States, all sleeping in their converted VW minibus and later a VW campervan, always their only car. After a year in Bad Godesberg, Germany (1967-68), which included extensive camping trips throughout Europe, they returned to Ann Arbor, followed by two major events: adopting Christopher (Topher) in Fall 1968 and purchasing their own home in 1969. In Spring 1975 they adopted Ben from Vietnam and the family was complete. Shirley and Art’s love of travel and desire for new experiences continued as Art’s academic career took the family to Berkeley, CA (1974) and to Adelaide, Australia (1983), with many side trips from both. Later, after the children were grown, they lived in Tokyo, Japan for three spring semesters (1992-94) while Art taught at International Christian University, exploring much of Japan and beyond and enjoying visits from most of their children.
Volunteer work was always an important part of Shirley’s life. She was active in the Ann Arbor Friends Meeting (Quakers), facilitated U.S. adoptions of children from Colombia and other developing countries, advocated for education equity, promoted racial justice, and supported refugees by selling their craftwork. Soon after their return to Ann Arbor, her passion for travel and curiosity about countries other than her own led her to join the newly formed International Neighbors, in which local women help women from abroad adjust to living in the United States by hosting small “tea groups” in their homes. Shirley soon made new friends from all over the world. She also ran the nursery for their monthly full-group gatherings for 40 years (up until COVID), where she was an expert at distracting infants and toddlers and reassuring their nervous mothers as they left them, often for the first time. She also applied these skills and her love of teaching at a University of Michigan preschool, where she was a substitute teacher for many years.
Shirley loved spending time at Pinecrest, the now 119-year-old Wolfe family enclave along Crystal Lake in northern Michigan. She spent many summers there with the children, while Art commuted up from Ann Arbor on weekends, staying longer when he could. After he retired, they spent each May through October there, enjoying many happy times with their five children, their spouses and eight grandchildren, as well as other relatives and friends who came to visit. Art’s retirement also increased their previously prolific travel adventures. They kept costs low and adventure high by using public transportation and staying in hostels and other simple lodging as they visited many friends, relatives (including new ones they met through their extensive genealogy research), and sights around the globe.
Music was also an important part of Shirley’s life. In fifth grade, she began yearning to play violin after making a new friend who played it and whose family introduced her to the symphony. Later she started teaching herself piano with her mother’s help, and loved to sightread. When she was 15, family friends gave her a violin they found in their attic and soon she was taking lessons. She continued playing music all her life, including on a tiny pump organ when they lived in Micronesia, and enjoyed accompanying the family on piano as they sang carols together at Christmas. After helping all five of her children learn to play violin and piano (violin starting at young ages, using the Suzuki method once that was available), she joined community orchestras near both Ann Arbor and Crystal Lake. She loved to sing folk songs, introduced to ones from around the world while volunteering at the European workcamp, from Art’s family tradition of extended family campfire sings at Crystal Lake, and from her interest in music education. The family often sang together to pass the time on their long camping trip drives. In her final days, as she was peacefully dying, she often listened to classical music, and was so grateful for the daily family sing-alongs on Zoom, led by Daithi on his fiddle and joined each day by all five of her children and some of their families, for which she requested “rousing” gospel and folk music.
Shirley loved befriending and learning about the people she met, both from her many neighborhood walks and other activities in and around Ann Arbor and Crystal Lake, and from far and wide through her extensive travels with Art, their genealogy research, and International Neighbors. Known as a connector, she had a special knack for recalling and sharing details of people’s lives and finding amazing connections with and between people she met. A strong proponent of a healthy lifestyle, she was an early adopter of Adele Davis and “health food,” routinely walked 10,000 steps a day regardless of the weather, and swam daily in Crystal Lake (with no wet suit!) every summer through age 89. She and Art ate homemade “soup” daily, blending together whatever vegetables and other leftovers they had.
Shirley was very healthy until diagnosed with peritoneal carcinomatosis, secondary to ovarian cancer, on May 31, just two weeks after returning from a trip with daughter Wendy to Maine and northern New York to attend the college graduations of two of her grandchildren. A week later, she was able to attend (in a wheelchair) a third grandchild’s graduation, from Oberlin. Her loving family, none of whom reside locally, were able to provide full-time care so that she could stay in her home as desired. Either Nanlouise, Wendy or both were with her from the day of her diagnosis. Daithi came frequently, and Ben, Topher, and several grandchildren also came to visit and help out. After three and a half weeks on home hospice, she chose to voluntarily stop eating and drinking (VSED) to hasten her death and avoid prolonged discomfort and pain. She was a strong proponent of choice in dying and wished there were an easier way to do so legally such as we have for our pets to avoid their continued suffering. After sharing her choice and information about VSED with her medical providers, family, close friends, neighbors, and others, she commented on her third day of VSED (still lucid and surprisingly comfortable, as she was until the day before she died) that even on her deathbed she was educating others as she had done throughout her life. To honor that goal, here are links to facts on VSED for those interested:
• Informative guide on VSED from Death with Dignity (https://deathwithdignity.org/resources/options-to-hasten-death/)
• Research-based talk on VSED (recording) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2fU9ouCTf8)
- See especially the first 20 min, including a video of a 94-year-old’s VSED experience.
Like Art, Shirley donated her body to the University of Michigan Medical School. She is survived by her five children and their spouses: Nanlouise (Stephen Zunes) of Santa Cruz CA, Wendy (Wash Wawrzynek) of Ithaca NY, Daithi (Sandy Thistle) of Madison WI, Christopher (Jillian Wolfe) of Austin TX, and Ben (Mary Lane) of Jacksonville FL, as well as eight grandchildren: Shanti, Kalila and Tobin Zunes-Wolfe; Laurel and Reed Wolfe Wawrzynek; Mairead Wolfe Thistle and Fiona Wolfe; and Madeleine Wolfe. She is also survived by her brother Thomas Penty (Grace) of Dublin OH.
A memorial celebration will be held at the Ann Arbor Friends Meetinghouse and via Zoom on Saturday November 5 at 2:00 pm EDT (18:00 GMT). All are welcome to join us (contact Wendy at ww16@cornell.edu for a Zoom invite). Memorial donations can be made to the American Friends Service Committee (https://www.afsc.org/give), a worldwide Quaker organization working to meet urgent community needs, challenge injustice, and build peace, and/or Compassion and Choices, which promotes Medical Aid in Dying and equity in end-of-life care across the U.S. (compassionandchoices.org).
Shirley’s adventurous spirit led her to spend her junior year at Exeter University in England, where she developed a love of travel, including on the back of a motorcycle, and went to London for Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation in June 1953. That summer, she and Art bicycled around Europe, pitching their tent in farmers’ fields, and volunteered in an American Friends Service Committee’s post-WWII Quaker workcamp in Yugoslavia, where they made life-long friends. Her senior year, Shirley was one of five women to join Oberlin’s track team since the college refused to accept cricket – which she played at Exeter – as fulfilling the college’s physical education requirement. Graduating from Oberlin in 1954, she and Art married that August near her parents’ home in Willoughby Hills, Ohio. Shirley returned with him to Tacoma, WA where he was a conscientious objector in the U.S. Army Medical Corps at Fort Lewis. She worked for the Social Security Administration and earned her teaching certificate, doing practice teaching at Tacoma High School. They then moved to Ann Arbor to pursue master’s degrees in Education.
Seeking further adventure, soon they were off to spend four years (1956-60) on Moen Island, Truk Atoll (now Chuuk Lagoon) in the former U.S.-administered United Nations Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, where they taught native islanders in an intermediate boarding school and helped prepare them for self-governance. Their first child Nancy Louise (Nanlouise) was born in July 1957, followed by Wendy in October 1959. David (Daithi) was born in February 1963 after they returned to Ann Arbor in 1960 for Art to begin his PhD program. Soon after, the family moved from their tiny married student apartment to a rental house, and the children began attending the nearby university laboratory elementary school. The family took many camping trips, including several across the United States, all sleeping in their converted VW minibus and later a VW campervan, always their only car. After a year in Bad Godesberg, Germany (1967-68), which included extensive camping trips throughout Europe, they returned to Ann Arbor, followed by two major events: adopting Christopher (Topher) in Fall 1968 and purchasing their own home in 1969. In Spring 1975 they adopted Ben from Vietnam and the family was complete. Shirley and Art’s love of travel and desire for new experiences continued as Art’s academic career took the family to Berkeley, CA (1974) and to Adelaide, Australia (1983), with many side trips from both. Later, after the children were grown, they lived in Tokyo, Japan for three spring semesters (1992-94) while Art taught at International Christian University, exploring much of Japan and beyond and enjoying visits from most of their children.
Volunteer work was always an important part of Shirley’s life. She was active in the Ann Arbor Friends Meeting (Quakers), facilitated U.S. adoptions of children from Colombia and other developing countries, advocated for education equity, promoted racial justice, and supported refugees by selling their craftwork. Soon after their return to Ann Arbor, her passion for travel and curiosity about countries other than her own led her to join the newly formed International Neighbors, in which local women help women from abroad adjust to living in the United States by hosting small “tea groups” in their homes. Shirley soon made new friends from all over the world. She also ran the nursery for their monthly full-group gatherings for 40 years (up until COVID), where she was an expert at distracting infants and toddlers and reassuring their nervous mothers as they left them, often for the first time. She also applied these skills and her love of teaching at a University of Michigan preschool, where she was a substitute teacher for many years.
Shirley loved spending time at Pinecrest, the now 119-year-old Wolfe family enclave along Crystal Lake in northern Michigan. She spent many summers there with the children, while Art commuted up from Ann Arbor on weekends, staying longer when he could. After he retired, they spent each May through October there, enjoying many happy times with their five children, their spouses and eight grandchildren, as well as other relatives and friends who came to visit. Art’s retirement also increased their previously prolific travel adventures. They kept costs low and adventure high by using public transportation and staying in hostels and other simple lodging as they visited many friends, relatives (including new ones they met through their extensive genealogy research), and sights around the globe.
Music was also an important part of Shirley’s life. In fifth grade, she began yearning to play violin after making a new friend who played it and whose family introduced her to the symphony. Later she started teaching herself piano with her mother’s help, and loved to sightread. When she was 15, family friends gave her a violin they found in their attic and soon she was taking lessons. She continued playing music all her life, including on a tiny pump organ when they lived in Micronesia, and enjoyed accompanying the family on piano as they sang carols together at Christmas. After helping all five of her children learn to play violin and piano (violin starting at young ages, using the Suzuki method once that was available), she joined community orchestras near both Ann Arbor and Crystal Lake. She loved to sing folk songs, introduced to ones from around the world while volunteering at the European workcamp, from Art’s family tradition of extended family campfire sings at Crystal Lake, and from her interest in music education. The family often sang together to pass the time on their long camping trip drives. In her final days, as she was peacefully dying, she often listened to classical music, and was so grateful for the daily family sing-alongs on Zoom, led by Daithi on his fiddle and joined each day by all five of her children and some of their families, for which she requested “rousing” gospel and folk music.
Shirley loved befriending and learning about the people she met, both from her many neighborhood walks and other activities in and around Ann Arbor and Crystal Lake, and from far and wide through her extensive travels with Art, their genealogy research, and International Neighbors. Known as a connector, she had a special knack for recalling and sharing details of people’s lives and finding amazing connections with and between people she met. A strong proponent of a healthy lifestyle, she was an early adopter of Adele Davis and “health food,” routinely walked 10,000 steps a day regardless of the weather, and swam daily in Crystal Lake (with no wet suit!) every summer through age 89. She and Art ate homemade “soup” daily, blending together whatever vegetables and other leftovers they had.
Shirley was very healthy until diagnosed with peritoneal carcinomatosis, secondary to ovarian cancer, on May 31, just two weeks after returning from a trip with daughter Wendy to Maine and northern New York to attend the college graduations of two of her grandchildren. A week later, she was able to attend (in a wheelchair) a third grandchild’s graduation, from Oberlin. Her loving family, none of whom reside locally, were able to provide full-time care so that she could stay in her home as desired. Either Nanlouise, Wendy or both were with her from the day of her diagnosis. Daithi came frequently, and Ben, Topher, and several grandchildren also came to visit and help out. After three and a half weeks on home hospice, she chose to voluntarily stop eating and drinking (VSED) to hasten her death and avoid prolonged discomfort and pain. She was a strong proponent of choice in dying and wished there were an easier way to do so legally such as we have for our pets to avoid their continued suffering. After sharing her choice and information about VSED with her medical providers, family, close friends, neighbors, and others, she commented on her third day of VSED (still lucid and surprisingly comfortable, as she was until the day before she died) that even on her deathbed she was educating others as she had done throughout her life. To honor that goal, here are links to facts on VSED for those interested:
• Informative guide on VSED from Death with Dignity (https://deathwithdignity.org/resources/options-to-hasten-death/)
• Research-based talk on VSED (recording) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2fU9ouCTf8)
- See especially the first 20 min, including a video of a 94-year-old’s VSED experience.
Like Art, Shirley donated her body to the University of Michigan Medical School. She is survived by her five children and their spouses: Nanlouise (Stephen Zunes) of Santa Cruz CA, Wendy (Wash Wawrzynek) of Ithaca NY, Daithi (Sandy Thistle) of Madison WI, Christopher (Jillian Wolfe) of Austin TX, and Ben (Mary Lane) of Jacksonville FL, as well as eight grandchildren: Shanti, Kalila and Tobin Zunes-Wolfe; Laurel and Reed Wolfe Wawrzynek; Mairead Wolfe Thistle and Fiona Wolfe; and Madeleine Wolfe. She is also survived by her brother Thomas Penty (Grace) of Dublin OH.
A memorial celebration will be held at the Ann Arbor Friends Meetinghouse and via Zoom on Saturday November 5 at 2:00 pm EDT (18:00 GMT). All are welcome to join us (contact Wendy at ww16@cornell.edu for a Zoom invite). Memorial donations can be made to the American Friends Service Committee (https://www.afsc.org/give), a worldwide Quaker organization working to meet urgent community needs, challenge injustice, and build peace, and/or Compassion and Choices, which promotes Medical Aid in Dying and equity in end-of-life care across the U.S. (compassionandchoices.org).