Jennifer Gatehouse

Dear family, friends, caregivers, and community:

My time has come to leave the restraints of Parkinson’s behind. I thank all of you for your support and love these past seventeen years. Please remember me as one who loved life and fought to enjoy my life until the very end. When you think of me, I hope you will smile.

With Love,
Jenny Gatehouse

Jenny Gatehouse, a long-term Ketchum local, passed away at her home in Cold Springs on April 30th, 2018. She was 56 years old. She was preceded in death by her father Woodrow Gatehouse, mother Jean Gatehouse, and brother Keith Gatehouse. Survived by brother Ian Gatehouse and sons Sam Hebert and Wil Hebert.

After graduating New England College in New Hampshire, Jenny left in 1984 to follow friends to Ketchum. Jenny delighted in the area’s outdoor opportunities. She was an avid downhill snow skier, water skier, bicyclist, tennis player, hiker and runner. She loved river trips, and camping in the summer; snowshoeing, playing hockey for the Fury, and cross-country skiing during the winter.

Jenny best loved having a full house of family, friends, neighbors and lots and lots of kids. Old friends and new were always welcome and kept the house full. Raising her boys was the crowning joy of Jenny’s life. She taught them to ski and skate and enrolled them in every sport of interest with hockey at the top of the list.

Jenny was diagnosed with early-onset Parkinson’s disease in 2001. Jenny battled the debilitating effects of the disease mightily. It didn’t matter how fatigued or weakened she became, she engaged. Her muscles failed her and she sought adaptive equipment to support her body. Jenny took advantage of all the therapeutic recreational programs the valley offered, including Swiftsure Ranch’s therapeutic riding program, AquAbility swimming program, and Higher Ground’s ski program.

It was during this time that Jenny found so many new and amazingly true friends who would selflessly assist her to carry on with the activities she loved. Her love for her boys gave her the strength to live with her disease without bitterness and she had a gratitude for every day that she shared with them.

Parkinson’s may have taken her physical body, but it never took her hope or joy or laughter. Jenny’s energy, love, those incredible memories are all here and remain… in particular with her boys.

The Memorial is pending sometime in 2018.