Penelope Lee Webster

Mystic. Penelope "Penny" Lee Webster passed away peacefully in Mystic on March 11, 2026. She was born in Chicago, IL on August 26, 1941, the daughter of Thomas Suddard Stearns and Leonora Marie Stearns.

Penny grew up in Kalamazoo, MI and earned both her bachelor's and master's degrees in mathematics from the University of Michigan. There she met and married Norman Rabe. Following graduation, they moved east to work and soon made their home in Waterford. Penny worked as a computer programmer for Ship Analytics in North Stonington until retirement in 2004. In 1985 she and Norman were divorced and she married John Webster in 1988. They lived in Waterford until 2014 when they moved to StoneRidge in Mystic.

In addition to family and work, Penny was a very active ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church. She was part of the initial team that founded the Waterford United (now Crossroads) Presbyterian Church in 1970 and was deeply involved in its life until 2020. Following the pandemic, she joined St. Andrew Presbyterian Church in Groton and then, when it closed, the Mystic Congregational Church. Penny was an active member of Presbyterian Women and also served on the New Church Development Committees of the Presbytery of Southern New England and of the Synod of the Northeast. In this capacity she played a leading role in the founding of a Portuguese-speaking congregation in Fall River, MA and then in the creation and oversight of the Presbyterian Immigrant Ministry to incarcerated undocumented immigrants. Penny joined with her husband in publishing the Dalit International Newsletter to draw international attention to the ongoing struggle of India's Dalits ("Untouchables") for equality, justice, and dignity. After retirement Penny took up quilting and joined the Clamshell Quilt Guild.

Penny is survived by her sons, Eric and Arthur Rabe; Arthur's wife, Paula, and their son, Logan; by her husband John Webster; by his daughter, Marilyn Webster; by Marilyn's wife, Danita Packard and their two sons, Joshua and Matthew and Joshua's wife, Amanda Soler; by John Shillington, husband of the late Elizabeth Webster, and their two children, Maggie and Giancarlo; by Giancarlo's wife, Gloria, and their three daughters: Elisabella, Evalinda, and Esmelena.

Her family, both Rabes and Websters, invite friends to a service of thanksgiving for the gift of Penny at the Mystic Congregational Church on Sunday, March 29th at 2:00pm. A reception there will follow the service.