Jennifer Sue Chaffee, 58, died peacefully at home surrounded by family and loving caregivers in Sparks, Maryland on Friday, July 24th, 2026.

Diagnosed with a young onset dementia called Primary Progressive Aphasia in 2021, Jen continued to spread joy with her radiant smile and make jokes even as language deserted her. Her extraordinary grace and emotional generosity shone through to the very end.

Rene and David Chaffee brought up Jen (youngest), Steve and Leslie in Colorado Springs, CO. Jen was an early neighborhood stand out, noted for her love for and skill in sports. She was recruited daily for games of football, soccer, light-sabers and snowball battles.

She embraced team sports playing one every season --but soccer was her favorite, and volleyball took her to Stanford University in CA. There she found her tribe of taller friends on the volleyball court and some shorter ones from the soccer team. In 1986 and 1987, Jen’s team went all the way to the NCAA Volleyball Championship semifinals’ Final Four and as Runner Up. She majored in Human Biology and spent a life-changing semester at Hopkins Marine Station down in Monterey. Diving daily in the kelp forest, Jen fell in love with the Monterey Bay.

She returned to Monterey for her first jobs—helping build the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Open Sea wing and then working at the aquarium as a project manager. She married Buck Roggeman, a fellow Stanford athlete and close friend whom she reconnected with in Monterey. But life continued to change--taking Jen away from Monterey and her marriage to the Silicon Valley to participate in start-up madness. This next chapter was also the beginning of her relationship with her future wife, Jenny-Sayre Ramberg.

After learning to live with cats and discovering purpose in human resources, Jen gave birth to Sophia Chaffee Ramberg and found the new center of her world. Moving to Baltimore in 2010, Jen tried her hand at making coffee and then started a new career teaching and coaching at Greenspring Montessori. She made dear friends, adopted the library dog, and planted an orchard and garden at her new home. Who Jen worked with was always more important to her than what she did, or where she worked.

Like so many people with early onset dementia, the five years before she received a diagnosis, Jen struggled and didn’t know why she couldn’t work, talk, or do things the way she had always been able to. She became discouraged and depressed. Her diagnosis came as a relief at first and she embraced opportunities to have adventures, see friends and family in CA and CO, and make new friends through YES (Young onset dementia Education and Support group) and Loyola’s speech therapy program. She started boxing weekly, and continued with her coach JD up to two weeks before she died. She danced, hugged and ate ice cream whenever possible.

Jen remains beloved and is sorely missed by her wife of 29 years, Jenny-Sayre Ramberg, her daughter and heart Sophia Chaffee Ramberg, sister and brother-in-law Leslie and Dan Avery, brother and sister-in-law Steve and Susan Chaffee, sisters-in-law Julia (Ram Shetty) and Lucinda Ramberg (Tahlia Fischer), five nieces—Seneca Shetty (Jack Murtagh), Maya Shetty (Jack LeVant), Maya Chaffee (Sierra MacLeod), Ellie Chaffee and Zoe Shetty (Lucas Monroe) and many dear friends from coast to coast.

If you’d like to make a donation in her memory please consider YES (Young onset dementia Education and Support) and/or Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Please share online condolences with the family by signing her guestbook through www.peacefulalternatives.com.