Opal Pennypacker

opal pennypacker
Opal Marian (Bueide) Pennypacker, was born June 19, 1921, and died October 23, 2015, at Sunrise of Hunter Mill, Oakton, Virginia, where she had lived for the past two years.

Opal was born in Hawley, Minnesota, and lived in rural Minnesota and North Dakota communities until her parents moved to Moorhead, Minnesota. She graduated from Moorhead High School and Concordia College (also Moorhead). After college graduation she taught high school business education classes in Wadena, Minnesota, before moving to Washington, DC, to work as a secretary at the Pentagon. While she was employed at the Pentagon, she met Wayne Pennypacker, a USAF officer serving as a weatherman for the Forecast Center for the USAF, who would become her husband. They were married December 31, 1946, in Fargo, North Dakota, and enjoyed 66 years of adventures and devotion to each other.

Wayne's career took them to Japan, California and Nebraska. Upon Wayne's retirement in 1961 from the Air Force, they settled permanently in Vienna, Virginia. In this area, they enjoyed camping in their Scamp, sailing, traveling and being host, hostess and unofficial Washington, DC, and East Coast tour guides for the many friends and family who visited them. For a time during these years, Opal worked for TRW (now Grumman), a defense contractor, as an administrative assistant.

Opal, also known as "Toots" to her family, loved music and playing their organ and Clavinova. Often, at gatherings, after being the generous and skilled dinner hostess, she would play and guests would sing all their old favorites. Her love of music and her loyalty to her college alma mater, led her to what she called her "greatest accomplishment in life." She worked tirelessly spearheading a letter-writing campaign, and personally writing to area alumni, to bring the Concordia College Concert Choir to Washington, DC. Her reward was seeing the Kennedy Center filled to overflowing for the event.

Opal has been described as being an angel. Her compassion, understanding, consideration, kindness and humility bear this out. Probably the most angry comment she ever made was, "Oh, Wayne, Dear!"

Her immediate family preceded Opal in death--her husband, Wayne; mother and father, Oscar and Marie Bueide; her brother, Jerome Bueide; and her sister and brother-in-law Mary Lou (Bueide) and Thomas Anderson. She is survived by her sister-in-law, Audrey Bueide of Fargo, North Dakota; three nieces and a nephew (and their children and grandchildren); several aunts and many cousins. She will be remembered with great fondness by her family and a multitude of friends, neighbors and acquaintances.

A funeral service and interment at Arlington National Cemetery will take place at a later time. Arrangements are entrusted to Money and King Funeral Home, Vienna, Virginia.

Funeral Home:

Money & King Funeral Home

171 W. Maple Ave.

Vienna, VA

US 22180

Service:

Ft. Myer Old Post Chapel

Arlington, VA

US

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