Penelope W. Jester

Penny was born on February 9, 1941. She grew up in the Sandy area and attended high school in the Portland area. The classes Penelope took at PSU were mainly ones that interested her. She worked at PSU as an administrative assistant and as an office specialist. She retired on June 30, 1997. 

Her office mates, Fran Fahey and Nancy Goldman miss her especially in the morning coffee break times. They miss her perspective on life’s problems, which often helped them to see things differently or to better understand the situation. 

Anything that Penny took an interest in became a consuming passion. Be it organic gardening, when she took all the classes she could find on Peter Chan’s techniques, or jogging in Jim Fixx era when she ran a few 5K runs. She was a renaissance woman. She was a Trailblazer fan during the Bill Wanton era and covered the bulletin boards in her office with team pictures. Another passion was the love and devotion she had toward her niece and nephew. She always had a good story to tell about them and enjoyed watching them grow up to be fine adults. Her niece and nephew joked that they should be nice to her because she would be the one to get them out of trouble. Penny was an expert in sewing and helped her niece, Emily, with her first sewing projects. Her niece and nephew eulogized her with the same passion and love that Penny had for them. 

Penelope Jester was an active member of the Oregon Humane Society. Penny was kind: she took in her uncle’s truly ugly wirehaired dachshund and this began an era of taking in strays that no one else wanted. She shared her home with five dogs who she called her “children” and who attended her funeral service.

Written by her office mate Nancy Goldman