Helen Elizabeth Pentoney

Helen and Richard, her husband, were intelligent, hardworking, warm and forward thinking parents who had four children then traveled the world.

No memorials are scheduled. There will be an ongoing blog reporting on the 23 years of living on a sailboat and seeing the world.

Donations would be greatly accepted at the University of Rochester Strong Memorial Hospital Palliative Department, using their secure gifting form.

Helen is survived by her sons Kurt and Grant and her daughter Valerie who also traveled the seas with her parents. She has four grandsons and one granddaughter. As to great-great grandchildren, she has 5 great granddaughters and 3 great grandsons and one on the way in June.

Helen had one brother, Charles B Hawks, who served in the US Air Force, flying sorties over Japan with no U.S. casualties. She also lost her second child, Kim Dian Pentoney, in an accident when Kim was 12 years old.

Helen spent her high school days at Alhambra High School, then moved on to Pasadena City College then got her Registered Nursing degree at Huntington Memorial Hospital of Nursing University of California Berkeley.
Richard, a Phi Beta Kappa, went to Riverside junior College, Caltech, University of California Berkeley then on to Syracuse N.Y. to get his PhD degrees and became the Vice President at the College for Environmental Sciences and Forestry State of New York.

Helen was nondenominational.

Helen and Richard had a life time traveling and camping throughout their lives up until a few years before they retired. Then they switched to the only venue where you go 10 miles off shore in a sailboat and not see another boat until you were 10 miles from the western shore of the U.K., 29 days. For both backpacking into the wild and dancing waves, there are many many skills needed.