Anna Marie Rose Penner, formerly a longtime resident of Hampton Bays, died July 6 at Lakeview Rehabilitation & Care Center in Middle Island. She was 92.
Born June 3, 1924, in Cleveland Ohio, she was one of five daughters of John Alert Lupyak and Mary Elizabeth Lesnak. She earned her nursing degree from a diploma Miserecordia Hospital in the Bronx and worked as a private duty nurrse at many of the estates in the Hamptons in her younger years.
She married Robert Penner on September 13, 1959, at the original St Rosalie’s Church. He was a charter fishing boat captain whose family owned a marina on Foster Avenue; he died in 1963.
As a child in the late 1920s and 1930s, Mrs. Penner and her family used to spend the summers camping along the Hampton Bays canal. Her family and relatives bought properties in Hampton Bays and enjoyed fishing, crabbing and clamming most of their lives.
She was known as social and outgoing, and was always the first to send a birthday or get well card, bring a covered dish, drop off a care package, volunteer to help or chair some charity event, and attended every local fundraiser, card party, pot luck, and local school event.
Every Memorial Day, when she sold paper poppies for the American Legion, she would run out of them because no one could refuse her. She was
a member and past president of the Ladies American Legion 924 and the Catholic Daughters of America. She was an active participant of the Hampton Bays Senior Center and a past president of the senior counsel. She did blood pressure screenings for many years for the Red Cross and various civic programs. She marched in the parades and rode on the floats of various organizations when she could no longer march. She attended card parties and her fair share organizing them.
At the American Legion Post bingo games she sold hot dogs and snack for the Auxiliary. Anna Mae loved her BINGO. She attended St Rosalie’s Homemakers, church dinners and Catholic Daughter events and could often be found in newspaper photos about those events. If nothing was going on in Hampton Bays, you could find her at the Riverhead Polish Hall, the Moose Club events or at the Southampton Elks Club. Before her health made it too difficult, she always had a full social calendar.
She is survived by her daughter, Maryann Penner; son-in-law, Kevin M. Agard; and grandson, Sean M. Agard of New Jersey. She is also survived by her sister, Irene Kobishyn of Lynbrook. Her others sisters, Elizabeth Lupyak died as an infant, Susan Peck and Ethel Szala died more recently.
A funeral Mass will be held on Saturday, July 16, at 10:30 a.m. at the Church of St. Rosalie in Hampton Bays, followed by the burial at Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary Cemetery in Southampton.
on Jul 11, 2016