Longtime Great Neck resident, British emigrant and advocate for the disabled Sheila Penn died Friday, Jan. 18. She was 86.
Penn, born to a Jewish family in the East End of London, came of age during the London Blitz and moved to New York in 1953. She worked for the United Nations before making her home in Great Neck in 1970 to better care for her developmentally disabled son Steven.
It was that cause that would help define Penn’s years of community activism on the peninsula. Penn co-founded the Foundation for Community Unified Services (FOCUS), an advocacy group for the disabled, in 1988, and became known for her commitment to charitable causes and her work in community affairs.
“She was really a woman for all seasons. She was involved in every way in the community,” said close friend Ruth Tamarin. Tamarin, whose son was in the same kindergarten class as Penn’s, worked with Penn to develop a special education program for Great Neck’s developmentally disabled children and was also a founding member of FOCUS.
Tamarin spoke at Penn’s funeral, which she said filled the sanctuary at Temple Beth El where Penn had been a member for decades.
Penn had an unflagging dedication to her community, said Tamarin, and fought up until the last weeks of her life for the issues that mattered to her.
“She was the kind of gal who had to right every wrong,” Tamarin said. “She did not hesitate to contact any elected official, to get what she wanted and make things right.”
FOCUS grew out of that activist impulse. Penn, Tamarin and other parents with special-needs children founded the group out of concern for the professional and housing prospects for their children.
The group partnered with the Association for Children and Adults with Learning Disabilities and opened residences for the disabled in Great Neck.
“She was a very classy lady,” Tamarin said. “Very strong, very opinionated and usually right about everyone.”
And while Penn loved her adopted home, she maintained strong ties to her native England, following British news and keeping up with old friends.
“She, as we liked to tease her all the time, was truly still a Brit,” Tamarin said.
Penn’s son David described her as deeply committed, both to her family and the causes she valued.
“She was extremely passionate… she was somebody who was very passionate, obviously about her family, my brother, myself, my dad when he was alive,” said David. “She was very passionate about Great Neck.”
Penn was at home as an activist and as a friend, whether petitioning for the disabled or helping a new Great Neck resident get involved with community organizations, David said.
“She was always somebody who stood up for the underdog,” he added. “She was someone that always wanted to do the right thing.”
Penn also served on the Great Neck Chamber of Commerce and volunteered at the Great Neck Senior Center.
“She cared so much for the Great Neck and she particularly cared so much about the financial needs of the needy in the community,” said Great Neck Chamber of Commerce President Hooshang Nematzadeh. Penn worked on the Chamber’s charitable committee, helping to organize Thanksgiving dinners and assistance for the disadvantaged, Nematzadeh said.
Penn was honored by the state Senate in Feb. 2011, which passed a resolution penned by state Sen. Jack Martins (R-Mineola) commending her for her civic work.
“This Legislative Body is justly proud to commend Sheila Penn for her many civic contributions as well as her tireless efforts to enhance the lives of persons with disabilities in her community of Great Neck,” said the resolution.
Penn survived the dangers of war-torn England during World War II and worked for years at the United Nations in Manhattan before moving to Great Neck.
Like many of London’s children, Penn was sent to the British countryside after the outbreak of war with Germany to protect her from anticipated bombings, according to the resolution. She reunited with her family in London during 1940 and lived through the worst of the Blitz, when the German airforce pounded England’s cities for months on end in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to force the United Kingdom into surrender.
“The whole of London was burning. The sugar factories were on fire and I remember (my father) dragging me through the streets and the whole sky was red,” Penn said in a Jan., 2011 interview with the Great Neck News.
Penn, who told the News she always wanted to live in America, moved to New York and took a job at the United Nations where she witnessed iconic moments in Cold War history.
She was in the chamber in 1960 when Soviet Premier Nikita Kruschev banged his shoe on a delegate’s desk, and when Fidel Castro, fresh on the heels of the Cuban Revolution, gave a two hour address to the General Assembly.
Penn met her husband Murray, a former marine, in New York City and had two children, David and Steven. The family moved to Great Neck from Brooklyn in 1970 to better provide an education for Steven, who was developmentally disabled, she told the News in 2011.
After co-founding FOCUS in 1988, Penn remained highly active in community affairs with her work with the Great Neck Chamber of Commerce, her voluntarism with the Great Neck Senior Center and tireless advocacy for the disabled.
While her life was in large part defined by her public service and involvement, she also made friends easily and possessed deep personal loyalty to her loved ones, Tamarin said.
“She was very outgoing, very well read. She had friends everywhere,” Tamarin said. “If she was your friend, she was your friend for life”
