Obit for Dorthey E. PENNINGTON (b.1912 d.2001), Martin Co., MN

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Dorthey E. Pennington
	
	Dorthey Evelyn Pennington, River Falls, died
Tuesday morning, Feb. 28, 2001, at the River Falls Area Hospital. 
She was 88.
     She was born Oct. 6, 1912 in Vermillion, S.D., the only child 
of Guy Emory and Bertha Lucas Basom. She moved with her family to 
Fairmont, Minn., where she attended school and nurtured talents in
music, writing, and reading literature and poetry. She served as
co-editor of the school’s first annual yearbook. After graduating 
from high school in 1931, she attended St. Mary’s Preparatory School 
in Faribault, Minn., and then returned to Fairmont.
    She married Ray Austin Pennington on Feb. 10, 1933 at St. 
Martin’s Episcopal Church in Fairmont. Shortly after the
couple’s first child, Susan, was born, the family relocated to the 
South where Ray served as a field medical aide with the Tennessee 
Valley Authority.
    She returned to Fairmont while Ray attended medical school in 
Chicago, and afterward took his young family to Luck to begin
family practice as a small town physician/surgeon. The practice 
later took family from Luck, to Corpus Christi, Tex., and Albany, 
Ore., before settling in River Falls in 1953.
    In the early years of marriage, she was a homemaker raising 
the couple’s three children. She and her husband took flying
lessons in 1945, both completing their pilot’s license, the first 
woman pilot in their area. In 1963, when their youngest child 
graduated from high school, Dorthey enrolled at UW-River Falls, 
taking courses with daughter Kathleen and son Bruce. She completed 
a double major in English and biology and graduated with honors 
in 1967 along with Kathleen.
    Upon her husband’s retirement from active practice in 1968, 
the couple relocated to Texas where Dorthey taught high school 
English for several years before returning to River Falls.
    Although she was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy in midlife, 
her mind wasn’t curtailed by her restricted mobility. She took 
college classes and remained active in the local library, bridge
clubs and League of Women Voters. She cable-knit sweaters, afghans, 
caps and mittens for family and friends. She and her husband also 
made special jointed teddy bears. Each was carefully adopted out 
to a special child, or in some cases adult, as in the bear made 
for son Bruce during his prolonged illness. This special bear 
included a knit athletic sweater and the letter
‘R" donated by the late Ron Wunrow.
    She is survived by her husband "Doc" Ray Pennington; two daughters,
Susan Elizabeth (Dan) McKnight, of Layton, Utah,
Kathleen Mary (Ferd) Kojis, of Salem, S.C., and daughter-in-law
Patricia Grant (Bruce) Pennington of Renton, Wash.; grandchildren 
Jeffrey (Rhonda) and Guy (Sheree) Pennington, both of Kent, Wash.; 
Penni (Larry) Blatterman, of Untergruppenbach, Germany, and Robin 
Austin Hay, Camp Pendleton, Calif.; great-grandchildren Krysta, Chelsi,
Katie, Michael and Kyra Pennington.
    Her son, Bruce Jerome, and sister-in-law Fern Pennington Lamont 
precede her in death.
    The funeral was Tuesday, March 6, 2001, at the
United Methodist Church in River Falls, the Rev. Jenny Arneson 
officiating.
Interment followed at Lakeside Cemetery in Fairmont.
    Memorials are preferred to the United Methodist Church, 
River Falls, or the River Falls Public Library Foundation.