Gwendolyn Wharton

Gwen Shumway Wharton passed away peacefully in her Boulder home on February 1st, surrounded by friends and family. She was born in San Francisco in 1943 to Kenneth and Viola Shumway, spending most of her childhood in California and Utah. After transferring from UC Davis to a nursing program at Stanford, she fell in love with Bill Wharton at a Stanford-in-Germany program. Gwen and Bill married in Stanford's Memorial Church in 1967. She worked as a pediatric nurse at Stanford and then a visiting public health nurse in Seattle before raising 3 children -- mostly in Pittsburgh, PA and Wheaton, IL. While in Pittsburgh the family would spend summers in Los Alamos NM, where Bill did research.

In the 1990s Gwen restarted her career as a school nurse in Wheaton with summers off so that the family could vacation in the Black Hills of South Dakota where Bill taught astronomy. After retirement Gwen and Bill moved to Boulder, CO in 2010, near daughter Ruth, where Gwen finally got the mountain views she always wanted.

Throughout her life, Gwen made many friends everywhere she went, in her community, at work, at church, through her many hobbies, including scrapbooking, cooking for friends and family, and through her endless volunteer work, with the League of Women Voters, the National Alliance on Mental Illness and Denver Children's Hospital to name a few. Gwen's friendly smile, boundless generosity and thoughtfulness will be greatly missed, especially her birthday, holiday and anniversary cards sent to her many friends and family.

Gwen is survived by her husband Bill Wharton, her children Ken Wharton (Kate Schafer), Paul Wharton, and Ruth McMillan (Pedro McMillan), and her granddaughter Sophia Schafer-Wharton. A memorial service celebrating Gwen's life will be held on March 22 at 2 PM at the Atonement Lutheran Church in Boulder, CO. Donations in her name would be gratefully accepted by Atonement and Denver Children's Hospital.