Olga Warner Penzin, led a happy long life and died peacefully in her sleep on Thursday October 13th at 12:20am at Park Point Village, Rock Hill, South Carolina. Olga was born on December 13, 1920, in Vergennes Township Michigan, a few miles north of Lowell. She was born to Mary D. (Borougf) Warner of Ohio and Newton Warner of Lowell, their only daughter which came some years after they had three sons. They left Lowell after a few years and moved to a few places ending up in Lansing, Michigan for a few years, and then later settled in Mulliken, Michigan, east of Lowell. She graduated from Grand Ledge High School in 1939. After high school Olga had summer typing jobs to help pay for her education at the Chicago Evangelistic Institute and Greenville College. She taught for 2 years at a mission school in Laredo, Texas. She studied linguistics during the summer at Oklahoma University, and then joined the Wycliffe Bible translators’ group. Her first assignment was in Mexico where she was a partner for several translators. She attended the jungle camp in Southern Mexico and was assigned to work at the Mayan Tzotzil Village in Chaipas, Mexico. Later she went to Mexico City and developed some health issues. She worked for 12 years in Mexico City for the Publications Department where they printed small portions of scripture and other helpful health and agriculture information in Indian Languages. She then took a leave of absence and headed to New York City where she was a case worker. She attended a Christian Conference and met Bill Penzin and they started dating. Within a few months they got married and lived in Brooklyn for 14 years. She took a few trips with Bill before he passed away. Olga moved to North Carolina to be close to Wycliffe, and built a dream house in Vauxhall, North Carolina. She volunteered for 14 years as a guide for the JAARs (Jungle Aviation Radio Service). She took several more trips to Europe, Western Turkey, Israel, Jordan, Egypt, and some African countries as well as far east. She then moved to the retirement home Park Point Village in Rock Hill, South Carolina where she lived out the rest of her life. In addition to her parents, she was preceded in death by her brothers Claude, Robert Royden, and Lewis Alva; nephews Richard Allen Warner, Ralph Warner, James Warner; and nieces Eva Bronkema, Mary Alice Overholt, Arda Hinton, Ruth Larabel, Lorna Tellier, Frances Warner, Lucielle Sullivan, and D.J. Lass. She is survived by her nephew Robert Warner currently in Phoenix, AZ and previously of Lowell, Michigan. A service of remembrance will be held at 11am Monday, October 24, 2022, at Roth -Gerst Chapel in Lowell, MI. She will rest beside her mother and father at the Merriman Cemetery. A luncheon will be served at Bob Warner’s “barn” in Lake Odessa after the funeral service. Those who wish to remember Olga in a special way can make a gift in her memory by visiting Wycliffe.Org at https://www.wycliffe.org/donate
One Response
I just found Olga’s obituary as I hadn’t heard from her in some time. She was a special person to me whom I met when I spent a summer staying in a Wycliffe apartment with her and other missionaries.. After that we mostly communicated by mail, but I did see her on rare occasions. My husband and I visited her once in North Carolina, and she took us on a tour of JAARS. I’m glad she had such a long happy life.