Penny Holden, feminist and activist took to Buddhism, acting in later years

Penny Holden spent her 70th birthday riding horses in Tibet. At 75, she took a solo trip to visit Buddhist monks in Nepal and India.

"She was always really hard to keep up with, even in her old age," said her daughter, Ptarmigan Teal. "Even taking a walk with her, it was like, 'Hey, Mom! Slow down.' "

Ms. Holden died in her sleep on June 27 in Jackson, Wyo., after partially recuperating from a severe stroke four years ago. She was 80.

Teal said Ms. Holden spent her life traveling and tried to better the people of each place she visited — whether it was teaching Alaskan Inupiat students how to read or sponsoring a Tibetan monk.

Ms. Holden married John Teal Jr., a professor at the University of Vermont, and helped him re-establish musk oxen in the United States. They raised four children on a musk-ox farm in Vermont.

John's work took the couple all around the continent, including several expeditions through the Arctic. The family eventually ended up in Seattle in 1967. Ms. Holden always liked the outdoors, and she would hike and ski around the area. She spent her honeymoon in Spitsbergen, an island in northern Norway, skiing.

"She was incredibly purposeful," said daughter Ptarmigan Teal. "If it wasn't skiing over a mountain, it was starting another job or putting together an expedition to the Arctic. She had a can-do-ism out of another time."

Ms. Holden, the daughter of a World War I pilot and a Red Cross nurse who served in France, grew up in Connecticut not far from New York City.

In Seattle, she started to work as an administrator for the Aradia Women's Health Center and became involved in feminist and anti-war movements.

"She had the courage of her convictions," said Elaine Schroeder, a friend and co-worker at Aradia. "Her motivation was to serve others."

Ms. Holden returned to Alaska after her husband's death in 1982. There, in Juneau, she worked on creating medicines from indigenous plants at the Native Health Corp.

She started to act at the local theater, and acting became a passion in the second half of her life, said her daughter. She also became interested in yoga and taught part time. After she married Gilman Rood in Bali in 1987, they moved to Vermont, where she co-founded the Burlington Yoga Studio.

Ms. Holden, a convert to Buddhism late in life, continued to travel for much of her second marriage.

After her second husband's death in 2003, she moved back to Seattle where, shortly after, she suffered a severe stroke. She continued to teach yoga but never fully recovered, her daughter said.

Schroeder, who also lived with Ms. Holden in Juneau, visited after the stroke and said Ms. Holden was still her old self.

"She was diminished," said Schroeder. "But ... she was still way ahead of me."

Ms. Holden is survived by her brother, Lansing Holden; her children Nuna, Ptarmigan, John and Lansing Teal; and her grandchildren; John-Lansing and Annabel, Perrin and Quill, Antea and Sila, Charlie and Samantha.

A memorial service will be held on Aug. 4 at 6 p.m. in the Graham Center in Seattle's Washington Park Arboretum.