Martha Brown Obituary

Martha "Penny" Penfield Brown ("Marby" to family) passed away peacefully, and with family by her side, on October 9, 2025, at her home of 20 years at Westminster Canterbury on Chesapeake Bay, Virginia Beach, VA. She lived 96 very full years, and was active, alert, living independently and happily engaged with her friends and family up to the time of her passing.
Penny was born April 27, 1929, in Birmingham, MI, to Paul L. Penfield, Sr. and Charlotte W. Gilman Penfield. She is predeceased by her husband of 73 years, D. Tyner Brown, her sister Eleanor Spencer, and her brother Paul Penfield Jr. She is survived by her children Paul Brown (Carol Brown) and Valerie Brown Mertz (Denny Mertz), and grandsons Spencer Brown (Holly Reed) and David Brown (Tania K. Brown).
After graduating with a BS degree from Swarthmore College in 1951, Penny's first job was with the Moody Science Institute in California, where she worked as a technician on movies illuminating the connections between faith and science. See a sample of her work in the movie "Spider Engineers" (particularly starting at the 6-minute mark). Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFgp0fWdxdk
Penny / Marby was a skilled sailor, with numerous trophies documenting her racing skills. She taught many nieces and nephews how to sail, and she taught many others how to respect a female skipper at the helm of a fast boat. She also loved horseback riding, camping, and hiking, and climbed the 14,000-foot Grand Teton in Wyoming at the age of 18. Her favorite sport was basketball (she played on her high school team) but her most accomplished sport was swimming, where she set several east coast college records in backstroke for Swarthmore. She also played tennis and pickleball, was the Westminster Croquet Champion 4 times and was an avid bridge player.
Marby / Penny was a talented juried painter in both oils and watercolors. She exhibited in many shows and at a respected gallery in Virginia Beach. Penny enjoyed painting ocean scenes and became a certified United States Coast Guard artist, with an oil painting hanging in the national headquarters in Washington DC. Family members will remember her seated at her easel painting outdoor landscapes in the areas near her family cottage in the Adirondacks.
Music was an important part of her life. Penny / Marby sang in choirs in schools and churches. She played handbells and composed music scores for her church group. Marby enjoyed playing the guitar around a campfire and harmonizing to old western tunes and other folk songs with family and friends. She played the piano (well), and she fondly recalled her high school marching band where she played the bass clarinet and was also drum major.
Penny / Marby was leader of every organization she joined: Girl Scouts, PTA, Visiting Nurse Auxiliary, homeowner's associations, garden clubs, churches and yacht clubs. Her volunteer work was instrumental to the environmental improvements of the Lynnhaven River watershed area, near her retirement home.
Professionally, Penny / Marby studied the role of trace metals in hypertension while working in a research laboratory in St. Louis, MO. Later, she became a paralegal and worked for several years in estate administration and tax preparation. She volunteered as a tax preparer at the Wilmette Senor Center in Ill.
A memorial service will be held at Westminster Canterbury, 3100 Shore Drive, Virginia Beach, VA on Nov. 7 at 11 AM. A family Celebration of Life will be held later at the family cottage at Silver Bay, NY. In lieu of flowers, donations to celebrate her life may be made to the Westminster Canterbury Foundation https://www.wcbay.com/about-us/the-foundation/ or to the Lynnhaven River Now organization. https://www.lynnhavenrivernow.org/donate/.