Penelope Hamlin Vorster

Penelope Hamlin Vorster of Port Townsend, Washington died on May 20,2020, at the age of 80. She was born Penelope Irene Hamlin February 1, 1940 in Moose Lake, Minnesota, where she was raised and graduated high school. Upon graduation, she attended Hamline University in St. Paul, MN for two years as an art major and then received a one-year certificate from Tobe- Coburn School for Fashion Careers in New York City. Deciding that NYC was not for her, she moved back to Minneapolis, MN and worked for Dayton’s for two years until too much 40 below zero weather convinced her and her roommate to move to Southern California on the day John Glenn went into space, February 1962. There she worked in Santa Ana and Anaheim in secretarial jobs, but after a couple years tired of the So Cal scene and moved to San Francisco where she got her Bachelors Degree in Art at SF State University. This is where she had her aha moment with weaving and the part time jobs she had were in the interior design field. It is also where she met her first husband, Raul R. Sanchez, and since he was from Stockton, CA, that was where they lived for 22 years. He was a civil engineer with the State of California. Penny had a secretarial job for a time and then quit to concentrate on weaving, which combined her interests in fashion and interior design. She wove garments, wall-hangings, purses, etc. exhibiting in galleries and teaching weaving at Delta College. She was Chair of the 1986 Northern California Weavers Conference. When the marriage broke up, she signed the divorce papers on the day of the Oakland earthquake in October, 1989, and her soon to be ex had to find his way home the long way from the ball game in San Francisco. The United Methodist Church that she attended in Stockton was where Arnold S. Vorster was the pastor. He was an Afrikaner from South Africa who came to this country at 17 to study and received his Masters of Divinity from Vanderbilt University. As it turned out, they both got divorces about the same time and moved to Berkeley, CA. He pastored Trinity UMC and they married there on August 10, 1991. They were then moved to First UMC in Turlock, CA for four years, and finished at Mt Tamalpais UMC in Mill Valley, CA. Luckily Penny could rely on her secretarial skills during all the moves. She was administrative assistant at Far West Labs in SF (educational testing), for the Turlock City Arts Commission, and for the Planning Department at the Town of Tiburon. The Vorsters retired in June of 2001 and lived and traveled full-time in a motorhome for seven years covering all the West Coast including Alaska for one whole summer, all the East Coast including the Maritimes, and all the Southern States. They had been to the Port Townsend area several times and when it was time to retire the motorhome lifestyle because of Arnold’s health, that was where they headed. He died January 29, 2014. Since Arnold’s death, Penny has been volunteering with Habitat for Humanity, Centrum, PT Film Festival, and has been Chair of Trustees at Trinity UMC. She regularly attends the lunches at the Senior Center and has enjoyed the art, theater and music scene here in Port Townsend, WA. She was preceded in death by her parents Genevieve Parish Hamlin and Wesley Benjamin Hamlin. She is survived by her sister Brenda Hamlin Kelley of Kansas City, Kansas and step-son Vince Vorster, step-grandchildren Ryan and Logan Vorster of Discovery Bay, CA, and step-daughter Karen Vorster of California. Memorial gifts may be sent to Trinity UMC, 609 Taylor St., Port Townsend, WA 98368 or Habitat for Humanity East Jefferson County, 2001 W Sims Way, Port Townsend, WA 98368.