Part Photo Col. 765 - Aunt Olly's Scrapbook

Olga Penner (nee Wiebe), better known as “Olly”, was born, April 7, 1929, in McAuley, Manitoba near the Manitoba-Saskatchewan border. She moved with her family to Gardenton, Manitoba when she was still quite young and that is where she attended school until the 11th grade at the Purple Bank School. She did her 11th grade year at the Mennonite Collegiate Institute in Gretna and her grade 12 year in Morris after her family moved there. Olly completed Normal School in 1947-48, earning a teaching certificate which she used to get her first teaching job at Kenneth School near Roseisle, Manitoba. After a year of teaching there she took a new position in Winkler, Manitoba where she taught up until 1951. In the summer of 1950, Olly was married to fellow teacher Victor “Vic” Penner and they moved to Altona in 1951 where he became the editor of the Altona Echo (later the Red River Valley Echo), and Olly raised their two sons, David and Steven.
In the early 1960s, Olly accepted a job in radio broadcasting for CFAM with an agreement that said that she would have the same holiday schedule and working hours as her two sons who were in school so that she could be home with them as much as possible. Some of the radio programs she did were “Ladies First”, “Hints for Homemakers”, and “The Garden Show”. She also co-hosted the morning show for 13 years. However, the program that she was best known for was “Children’s Party” that aired at 4:00 PM every weekday. At a time when television sets were rare, children rushed home to listen to “Aunt Olly” and her puppet friend Gus. She retired in 1987 after 27 years on the air. Olly was also active in local community organizations, taught Sunday School at her Mennonite Church, and wrote a weekly column in the Altona Echo.
At the age of 86 years old, Olly Penner passed away at the Altona Hospital on May 29, 2015.