Frances Wynell "Penny" Pennington Raab, late of Modesto passed away Nov. 26, 2023, at her son's home in Rancho Palos Verdes, CA. She slipped peacefully away with her son and daughter in law by her side.

She was born Jan. 23, 1931, in Sulligent, Alabama to Andrew Jackson Pennington and Waughnie Lillian Massey. She described the house in Sulligent as a "sharecropper's shack", and the family farmed cotton on leased land. As a teen she moved to Mississippi with her family, into a new home her parents built on farmland they purchased, and continued growing cotton. She attended East Mississippi Junior College where she graduated with an AA degree in 1951 and then moved on to Mississippi State College for Women to complete her Bachelor of Science degree in Home Economics in 1953. While her siblings call her Wynell, she acquired the nickname of Penny in her college years while working as a counselor at a summer camp, and it stuck.

In 1954, while working as a student teacher in Biloxi, she met and married Charles "Bob" Raab, while he was stationed at the nearby USAF base. The young couple followed their minister JR Crowe to Idaho, where JR was opening a ranch for wayward boys near the small town of Rupert, now known as the Idaho Youth Ranch. They relocated for a few years to Moscow, ID., so Bob could complete his college degree, and while there, their son Jeff was born. Upon return to the youth ranch, Bob became a ranch manager and Penny worked to make a comfortable home for the boys. A few years later, they moved off the ranch and into the town of Rupert. Penny became the home economics teacher at the local high school.

In 1968, the family relocated to Visalia, CA for Bob's new job with Hunt Wesson Foods. Penny, making use of her experience with the "wayward" boys at the ranch, started work as a juvenile probation office for Tulare County. A job she remained with until Bob's work required another move, this time to Modesto, CA. in 1980.

Penny and Bob soon joined the First United Methodist Church of Modesto where she was very active in the women's circle group as well as the United Methodist Women's group. She made jam and juice each fall for the church fundraiser, hand squeezing hundreds of Pomegranates harvested from their backyard tree. She made and delivered many a meal to shut ins, and also represented her church at several UMW conferences. In the late 1980s or early 1990s she took on a seasonal position at Hunt Wesson Foods as their lab manager, first working to get the new lab set up properly, and later testing each load of paste tomatoes as they came in from the field.

In 2017 she decided it was time to be closer to family and moved in with her son in southern California. She joined the Rolling Hills United Methodist Church, but alas injury and the covid lock down limited her participation. When the lockdown ended, due to her failing health she continued to "attend" services via the internet, and the clergy and others at the church came to visit her often. Those visits were cherished.

Penny was preceded in death by her parents, sisters Eulalia Nevins and Jackie Saxman, a brother Connie Pennington, and her husband Charles "Bob" Raab.

She is survived by her son Jeff (Laura) Raab, grand daughter Alice Raab and husband Arturo Garcia-Ayala, one sister Shirley Roney, and many nieces and nephews.

Services to be held Jan. 19, 2024 at 11am at the First United Methodist Church of Modesto with a graveside service later that day at 2pm at Lakewood Memorial Park in Hughson.

In lieu of flowers we ask donations be made in her name to either the Heifer Foundation which she supported throughout her life, or the Idaho Youth Ranch she helped start.