September 26, 1931 – December 21, 2025
Penelope “Penny” Hanshaw of Ridgway, Colorado, passed away in her sleep on December 21, 2025. Born September 26, 1931, to Donald and Ruth Miller in Salem, MA, she grew up outside Boston, MA and was the third generation of her family to attend Wellesley College.
She met her husband Bruce (married 1953) in the woods of New England, and they moved to Colorado to prospect uranium for the AEC and join the ski patrol at Arapahoe Basin. They moved back to the Boston area for Bruce’s PhD, then northern Virginia to work together at the USGS, where Penny rose to become deputy chief geologist, overseeing 7,000 staff, acting as a liaison to other agencies, and starting programs to attract minorities into the sciences.
Work took them and their two sons to Hawaii, Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, Florida, Canada, Montana, and Europe. They retired in 1993, and Bruce died five years later in an ATV accident. In 2001 she moved to Ouray, Colorado to live with her son, his three children, their mother, and all manner of pets. She was active in the community and continued her lifelong passion for horses, family, gardening, service, skiing, and travel for many years.
She is preceded in death by her husband Bruce, her sister, Martha Bonnichsen, and her cousins, Jan Miller and Betsy Watson. She is survived by two sons, Douglas Eric and Gregory Alan, Doug’s three children, Stephanie 5, Derek Bruce, and Laura Penn (Clark), and cousins Bruce Hanshaw, Christopher Miller, Lucas Miller, Susan Watson, Richard Watson, and Robert Watson.
A celebration of her life will be held on June 21, 2026, at 1 p.m. at Thunderheart Haven, 455 S. Amelia St., Ridgway, CO, 81432.
Ouray County Plaindealer • 2026
