WASHINGTON COURT HOUSE — March 15 will be Dr. Penelope A. Halliday’s last day seeing patients at her office on Market Street.

Halliday is retiring after 38 years in private practice at this location. Halliday said she wants to travel with her husband, see family scattered across many states, and possibly do some mission trips in the future.

Halliday is a second generation 30-plus year business contributor to Fayette County, following after her father Charles Pensyl and his camera shop.

Halliday was born at the Fayette County Memorial Hospital the year it opened in 1950.

When she was 11-years-old, she started helping out at her father’s camera store in downtown Washington Court House, the Pensyl Camera Shop. She worked at the camera shop during junior high and high school years, she said, and would come back during the summers while in college to help out.

Halliday said that in the early school days she was known as Penne Pensyl, and was best friends with Poppy Girton, and they were known as “Penne and Poppy” in those years. She had aspirations of being a doctor from an early age.

Halliday attended Bob Jones University in South Carolina for pre-med training, then went to Ohio State University College of Medicine to get her M.D. Her three-year residency was spent at Grant Hospital in Columbus. She returned to her hometown and worked for doctors Gebhardt and Heiny for some time.

In 1982, she took time off to have her daughter, who now lives in Columbus. She then purchased the practice of Dr. Robert Woodmansee when he announced his retirement in 1985.

She likes family medicine because it combines pediatrics, obstetrics, gynecology, internal medicine, surgery and more, always being concerned with community health.

Halliday said, “helping people through their troubles, listening to my patients, and encouraging them in each stage of life” was always the best goal and to provide a friendly atmosphere and a place where people could feel comfortable.

“In family medicine, you get to take care of patients from birth to the end of life stage,” said Halliday.

Halliday began notifying her patients in January of her retirement plans and started referring them to other doctors to make sure they had continuing health care.

Halliday said that during her years in practice, she delivered a little over 50 babies, seen patients at the hospital and in nursing homes, but after 2010 has focused on private practice medical services.

She wants to spend time with her three grandchildren and her retired husband, Dr. David Garippa, Ph.D, who specialized in immunology. He formerly worked at Jackson Laboratories in Bar Harbor, Maine, and after coming to Washington Court House he was an instructor at Southern State Community College in the biology department.

Ann Edwards has been Halliday’s medical assistant for over 10 years. Edwards previously worked in nursing homes but received a lot of on-the-job training working for the doctor. Edwards said she wants to spend some time with her family before moving on with her future job plans.