Say hello to Eileen Pensky!

Eileen Zain Pensky is a mother of four, grandmother of 11 and great-grandmother of 16. I had the honor of working with sweet Eileen, age 95, to create her memoir this year. Her daughter, Ellen Pensky McGraw, asked me to capture her mom’s story through interviews with Eileen and supplemented with information from her extended family and genealogy records. Our time together was pee-in-your-pants funny.

My favorite quote in the book is typical of Eileen’s direct and hilarious approach. “I wanted a dog so bad. I kept saying ‘I want a dog! I want a dog!’ So my grandpa gets me a cute little white dog. Then my mother tells me that I’ve got to pick up the poop and clean up after him,” Eileen recalls. “I told her to forget it. I'm never doing that.”

Thank you for trusting me to share your mom’s story Ellen. I wasn’t kidding when I said I’d be thrilled if one of my daughters married into your super fun family!

This photo is of Eileen enjoying her memoir while kicking Covid to the curb.

You can read A Life of Family, Entertaining and Humor, here.