The unknown is scary. Not knowing what your future looks like would make anyone feel discouraged.

Born on July 27, 1937, Mr. Ralph Pennington, a resident of Lansdale, didn’t know what his future looked like. He didn’t know where he was going to be or when his next meal would be. He never knew his father. One thing he did know about his father was that he was a mennonite. His mother left after he was 11 years old, which prompted him to be adopted by the Pennington family. He is very thankful to the Pennington family for adopting him.

He met his wife in high school and went on to get married in 1957. Shortly after they got married, during their honeymoon phase, Pennington was deployed to France and then eventually to Germany. He learned to speak German during his time there. 

“Some honeymoon that was!” Pennington joked. 

Pennington was known as a Cold War soldier. Whenever they got a call, they were supposed to grab their rifles and prepare to fight. He was expected to just slow down enemy soldiers. During this time, he had many conflicts mentally with himself. 

“I questioned myself a lot, what did I exist for?” Pennington stated.

“My wife and God helped me a lot through a lot of these thoughts I had,” Pennington said.  

After he came back from his service, he got his education thanks to the GI Bill. The bill provides benefits to service members and veterans. He then went on to night school and graduated as an environmental technologist. He worked for Dupont and Hercules as an environmental technology lab tech. Pennington was really involved in the church where he served as a deacon and taught the scriptures of the Bible. He now has three children, eight grandchildren, and is expecting their seventh great-grandchild. 

Mr. Ralph Pennington, one of the nicest men that you will ever meet, loves to talk to people. If you sit down and talk with him, I’m sure he would love to tell you about his life full of stories.