Penelope A. "Penny" Kelsey

Penelope Ann ("Penny") Kelsey succumbed to cancer on Jan 3, 2025, one day after her 80th birthday. The middle child and only daughter of George and Agnes (Fons) Schmitt, she was born and raised in Whitefish Bay, WI.
As an English (and Philosophy) major, she plied her significant vocabulary and language skills in her career in public relations, and was the go-to call for any grammar questions when we needed to sound smart. A highlight of her career came in 1981, while working in public relations for Marquette University, when Penny had the opportunity to meet and shake hands with Mother Theresa, before the now-saint was awarded the Pere Marquette Award. Perhaps her love of words is also what made her the master of "the long version" - rarely was she known to give a yes or no answer, she would explain her entire thought process and reasoning. The mention of a name, even from the distant past, would elicit a full and accurate accounting of an individual's personal history: their parents, children, professions, how their dog died, why they painted the house that color. She also had a great memory for jingles and entertained us with her love for dancing and singing poorly when one would stick in her head.
And Penny had many opportunities to reminisce as well as meet new people. Even those who never knew her name would recognize The Whitefish Bay Walker. Having broken her back at age 10, she walked to keep arthritis from setting in, and she walked a lot, regularly trekking 8 to 10 miles a day, sometimes adding a late-night mile via laps around the kitchen to reach some magic step-count number. She would make multiple trips to the same vicinity in the same day - a mile to Kohl's, a mile home, a mile to Trader Joe's, a mile home. Nevermind that Kohl's and TJ's are right next to each other. And she was known to come home with gallons of milk and even a full watermelon in her arms. She would walk to church two or three times a day, first for Mass, then for decorations or set up, or to attend rosary group or prayer group or one of her many other groups, and sometimes just to open the door for someone. But her favorite place to walk was to Lake Michigan, where she found peace looking out over the water.
While Penny criss-crossed Whitefish Bay on a daily basis, she was also a world traveler and loved her trips with her children. She visited her daughter stationed in Okinawa with the Marine Corps, her other daughter stationed in Cambodia with the Peace Corps, and her son's in-laws in Ukraine. And many other adventures with some combination of her children and friends: Germany, Italy (for Mother Theresa's canonization), Bangladesh, Banff, and a last hurrah trip to Ireland in November, where her #1 must-do was to visit the Jameson distillery.
When, on occasion, Penny would sit still, she could be found reading her paper or doing sudoku - preferably next to a bowl of dark chocolate M&Ms. If we weren't in the room with her where she could read a full article to us out loud, she was forever cutting out articles from the paper that she thought would interest us, or perhaps better us. Completely addicted to sudoku (but only the "very hard" ones, because anything else wasn't worth her time) she would do them in books, newspapers, calendars, and online. Although she normally displayed a bit of A.D.D. and had a knack for getting in the way, like stopping short in front of you so she could bend over to pick a weed, she would become completely focused and lost in her puzzles, and we learned never to tell her something important when she was sudoku-ing.
Devoted to her church, departure from Sunday Mass was never less than 30 minutes as she always had a line of people waiting to talk to her, or something on the altar needed to be "fixed" because the flowers or decorations or layout did not meet her exacting standards. Don't even get me started on the Lenten Fish Fry....
While never a touchy-feely person, Penny loved her family to no end. She beamed at the accomplishments of her children and grandchildren, and was always overjoyed at seeing them. She couldn't keep a secret and told all our stories, whether we wanted her to or not, so that her friends knew exactly who we were and what we were up to, leaving us at an awkward disadvantage when we met them for the first time. But she was thoughtful and generous to a fault, always trying to make sure she prepared our favorite foods and somehow always finding the gift we didn't know we needed.
Penny is predeceased by her parents and older brother, Reverend Greg Schmitt. She is survived by her children Blake (Tanya) and Nicole Kelsey and Kirsten Schmitt, grandchildren Andrew, Julia, Garret, and Samantha, great-grandson Silas, step-grandchildren Anya (Carson) and Sasha (Anya), and brother, Bruce Schmitt. She goes out joyously to meet her Lord, requesting that her funeral be a party with an open bar. As we celebrate, she is sure to be nearby - dancing and singing poorly.
Visitation will be held for Penny on Friday, January 10, 2025, from 9:30am until the time of a eulogy at 11:00am, with the Mass of Christian Burial to begin immediately after the eulogy, all at Holy Family Parish Church, 4825 North Wildwood Avenue, Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin 53217, immediately followed by her funeral party in McCormack Hall at Holy Family Parish Church. Interment will take place at St. Michael the Archangel Cemetery in Iron River, Wisconsin in the Spring of 2025.
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