Penny Jo Bodenhamer

Penny Jo (McClelland) Bodenhamer (1957-2025)

Penny Bodenhamer was a beautiful person with a lovely soul. She was caring, compassionate, kind, considerate, intuitive, benevolent, funny, intellectually and emotionally intelligent, persistent, humble, and the truest friend many people and all animals would ever encounter.

Throughout her 68 years, Penny believed that life was about connections, and animals provided the opportunity to create networks of connections in her neighborhood, city, and elsewhere. She was magical around dogs, enjoyed the challenge of working with more temperamental cats, and found joy in learning about birds. She read everything she could, used the internet to make connections with experts in the US and Europe, and reveled in helping the family’s many pets become the best versions of themselves. Her zoo gave her the confidence to teach other animal lovers and the desire to do everything she could to improve the lives of her valued four-legged friends.

Penny was special, and the world of her family, friends, and furry creatures will miss her, each in their own way and for their own reasons. We are comforted only by knowing that even now she is being greeted by the members of her zoo that went before her, and she is busily learning the names of their friends—and their friends and their friends and their friends. Yes, life is about connections, and she has left us with a web of relationships that we will treasure for the rest of our lives.

Penny is survived by her husband, David Bodenhamer, son Jace Wittig (Brian Fujimoto), (step)daughter Karen Supak, (step)son Jeff Bodenhamer, sister Meredith Hrnchir (Gene), brother Lowell McClelland, brothers- and sisters-in-law Paul and June Bodenhamer, Dick and Mindy Bodenhamer, and Kathy Sullivan. Her father Delbert Fay McClelland and mother LaVergne King McClelland, brother Larry McClelland, sisters Vonnie Sappenfield and Cheryl Smith, and sister-in-law Paula McClelland predeceased her, as did her brother-in-law Robert Bodenhamer.

A Celebration of Life Service will be held on August 9, 2025, at St. Luke’s United Methodist Church, 100 W. 86th Street, Indianapolis 46220. Visitation at noon and service at 1:00 pm, with a reception to follow. The family welcomes all who wish to remember Penny in this way. For those who cannot attend, the service will be livestreamed at https://stlukesumc.com/funeral

Memorial donations should be made to The Humane Society of Hamilton County, 10501 Hague Rd., Fishers, IN 46038.