She entered the horse ring at full gallop. Should have been a stately canter. Those minutes in her teenage years mirrored her life — unexpected and colorful twists and turns. Of the many notes received upon her death, most wrote of her grace. That mix of adventure and grace lay at the core of who she was.
Kate Penney Schumann died on Sept. 30, 2020, ten days after she voluntarily stopped eating and drinking. Her wish to die at home with family by her side came true. Eighteen months earlier she had been diagnosed with moderate stage Alzheimer’s. On the day she began her fast, Kate attended her own memorial. The ceremony ended with her beloved book group and family sharing Kate’s favorite ice cream dessert with strawberries plus apples from a tree she had planted decades before. That was her last meal.
Kate and her older sister Polly had a happy childhood in Minneapolis. Kate’s supportive parents, Truman and Harriett Penney, allowed her to exercise unruly horses at a nearby stable and so grow her self-confidence. Kate’s grace may well have sprung from her mother. In her later years Kate said that she thought of her mother every day.
At her Northrup Collegiate School in Minneapolis she focused on drama with a circle of close friends. Her interest in drama continued through Sweet Briar College and the University of Minnesota. Upon graduating in 1961, she and freshly minted husband Tom Andrews headed west to California where Kate taught in the Berkeley schools and raised Carrie and Colman.
Today, son Colman Andrews and his wife Kelly live in Virginia with their youngest son Trevor, while their older sons Connor and Grayson are both at college. Kate’s daughter Carrie Andrews and her husband Ross Goodwin live six blocks down the street from Kate’s house, where Carrie’s daughter Peri Muellner was raised. That 25-year proximity of mother, daughter, and granddaughter was a joy and brought depth and connection to our family during Kate’s illness and dying.
For her Northrup (now Blake) 50th Reunion, Kate wrote that she’d never had an occupation, but instead a lot of interesting jobs. She delighted in telling stories: As a volunteer for the Berkeley Folk Festival she drove Pete Seeger from the airport to the festival. Kate was low on gas and without her purse, so Pete Seeger, with good humor, paid for the gas.
She divorced in 1974 and later married Ned Schumann. In Manhattan Beach, Calif., she took calligraphy lessons. That art form became her artistic focus and nexus for friendships. To broaden children Carrie and Colman’s notion of role models, Kate saw to it that the family’s dentist, pediatrician, and vet were women. After spending several years in the Berkshires, Manhattan Beach, and then Weston, Massachusetts, in 1978 she and Ned bought a 36-foot wooden sailboat in England and began the most colorful adventure of their lives, an adventure that ended four years later in Alexandria, Virginia. Enroute, Kate home-schooled Carrie and Colman through the canals and rivers of France into the Mediterranean to the Balearics. Then with children back with Kate’s former husband, she and Ned sailed along the Spanish coast, then to the Canary Islands, and, after a 23-day passage, to Barbados, continued on to the Bahamas, and Florida.
Once back in the US, she used her calligraphic skills to create posters for countless early music events, menus, ads, and museum displays. The final leg of the boat trip up the Intracoastal Waterway was one of her favorites with the ever-changing scenery, rich bird and animal life, and especially, calm water.
After she and Ned settled in Alexandria, VA, Kate and a friend launched a company that produced slide presentations for women entering the business world as well as slides for vegetarian nutrition. With Ginny Messina she co-wrote “The Vegetarian No-Cholesterol Barbecue Cookbook” and was the food editor of “Good Medicine.”
With her graceful manner and perfect posture she was in demand for what she called ‘the gray haired lady model.’ During her memorial we heard a recording of her telling about stepping onto the runway of a big modeling show with both legs in one leg of a fancy pants-skirt. It was a delight to hear her laugh over reliving that event. In addition to modeling, she spoke of acting in “highly invisible movies and commercials.”
After being smitten with Port Townsend and its Chetzemoka Park, in 1992 Kate and Ned relocated from Virginia. She joined AAUW, sang with the Von Bingen Singers, wrote two more vegetarian cookbooks, again with Ginny Messina, and served on the City Library Advisory Board for a decade.
Her lifelong love of dogs and reading led to her 2005 co-founding of “Read to Rover” at the Port Townsend Library which spread to schools throughout the county and changed the reading lives of many children. As “Read to Rover” matured, kids would see her walking with her dog Lillie and tell her, “I used to read to Lillie!” “Read to Rover” was a happy junction of children, dogs, books, and friendship.
Kate was a serial publicist and fundraiser. For the Literacy Council she produced and directed the old-time radio show “The Shadow” with sound effects and 1940s costumes. During her 12 years on the Olympic Mountain Pet Pals Board she promoted the “Pets to Prisons” movie “PAX,” staffed the “Kissing Booth” for Pet Pals at the Uptown Parade where she sold Lillie’s “kisses,” publicized the production of “Bark! The Musical” and its poster contest, and with Ginny Messina wrote the “Pet Pals Palate Pleasers” cookbook. Her calligraphy appeared on posters, programs, tote bags, and badges.
She co-founded the “Secret Garden” fundraiser for the county Master Gardeners, put her garden on the tour, and led walking tours of Uptown Port Townsend’s memorable trees. She served on the City’s tree advisory committee. Fall was her favorite season and she was pleased to have an article about her garden’s fall colors appear in the October 2007 Better Homes and Gardens.
To help foster the organizations Kate cared for, consider donating to Olympic Mountain Pet Pals, Friends of the Port Townsend Library, or the organization that cared for her and our family with such compassion, the Hospice Foundation of Jefferson Healthcare.
She wove family, friends, children, dogs, books, and gardening into the happiest time of her life — her years in Port Townsend. At the end it was family and her 24-year-old garden group, now a book group, who stayed close to her. As her Alzheimer’s progressed, those book group friends accompanied her on walks, and were present during her 10-day fast.
There was uplift in Kate’s dying thanks to the bonds of her friends, Hospice care from Linda Potter and Cristina Manzoni — both made from angel dust — and Debbie Racine who was always present when needed.
We are grateful to Dr. Joe Mattern of Jefferson Healthcare for his guidance and support, and to Jim Rough and Kathleen Kler for so generously sharing their experiences with VSED.
After Kate was diagnosed, she, Ned, and Carrie agreed that we’d make decisions as a family. We also agreed to acknowledge Kate’s illness and not hide it. Then friends and family could freely say what needed to be said. Years ago the three of us attended a talk by Phyllis Shacter who described how she and her Alzheimer’s afficted husband decided that he would voluntarily stop eating and drinking (VSED). Around that time, Kate began to show signs of cognitive impairment which cued us all to write our first round of values statements and advance directives, and to update our wills. All of us were clear with each other that we didn’t want to end our days in a memory care facility.
As Kate’s decline accelerated early in the summer of 2020, we faced the question of when to start VSED. Too soon and she would lose precious days. Too late and she would become unable to comprehend or act. Family friend Jim Rough, who had been through VSED with his wife Jean a year earlier, came to a family meeting in the garden in August. He played a recording of Jean explaining how and when she had chosen to start VSED. We all recognized that the time had come.
For years, Kate and Ned’s day would end with Ned reading to Kate. In the weeks before Kate started her fast, they instead paged through logs and photo albums, asking “Do you remember when …?” Revisiting her many adventures — horses, raising two children, sailing across the Atlantic, many friendships, calligraphy, music, starting a business, launching “Read to Rover” — all helped her realize that she’d led a rich and full life.
At the end of Kate’s third day of fasting she had a lively conversation with a close friend, then took to bed, increasingly sedated as her fast progressed. Her bed faced the garden she had long tended. In the late afternoons, book group friends and family gathered around her bed and told stories — some funny, all touching what was important.
Kate no longer feared ending her days in a memory care facility. She would die at home with family close by. Erica Epling wrote, “Kate will go out the way she has always been: the epitome of grace.” And so she did.
