Spotlight: Willard & Holly Terry

Willard and Holly Terry, both former PMFS teachers, now retired, stopped by campus last month to donate their box of PMFS photos from the 70’s and 80’s to the school archive. Alumni who had Willard as their Sixth Grade teacher will remember developing pictures in the small darkroom in what is now Brenda’s office. While they were here, Willard and Holly also shared a little about their lives that their former students might not know.

Willard started at PMFS in 1970, when LaRue Taliaferro was Head of School. LaRue’s husband Sonny worked as the janitor then and loved to do woodworking projects with the students. Lunchtime in the 70’s meant huge stainless steel canteens were delivered hot to classrooms from the Annie H Wilson. Willard remembers going on the second ever Exchange trip to Mexico. That summer, he and Holly went backpacking out west. Afterwards they managed a cattle ranch in Alabama for a friend. So Willard left Plymouth after a year so they could try their hands at ranching. Their charges, they said, turned out to be “200-300 head of pet cows”, since the owners of the ranch couldn’t bear to sell or slaughter any. Willard and Holly lived in a shack, and had to put pots on the bed when it rained. Their son, Aaron, was born there. After a couple of years, they had enough, and Willard went back to work at PMFS.

It wasn’t long before the Terrys got the itch to move again, and in 1976 they decided to homestead in the Adirondack Mountains. They built a stone house there with no electricity and reared chickens and goats. Willard and Holly loved rural life. Holly gave birth to their son Jesse and their daughter Emily there and focused on raising the now three children. Willard worked as a house builder, an EMT, and a reading teacher, and served on the school board in their town of 300 people. After six years, they decided to move back to PA so their kids could have a PMFS education, Emily could get the specialty care she needed at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and Willard could teach full time again, which he missed.

In 1981 Willard was hired back to teach Sixth Grade at PMFS, and the Terry family moved into Journey’s End the next year. The building, which now houses Kindergarten classes, then belonged to Plymouth Monthly Meeting and had stood abandoned for some time. They soon made the house their home and have fond memories of tapping the maple trees on campus for maple sugaring and boiling the sap on big metal pans over the fireplace. Their son, Michael, was born while they lived there. As part of the rental agreement with the Meeting, Willard and Holly were responsible for keeping an eye on the grounds. Willard nearly caught a burglar on the fire escape of the Main Building, though he says the burglar didn’t get away with much. 

The 1984-85 school year was Willard’s last at PMFS before he moved on to teach at GFS, and the family bought their house in Roxborough. But 1986-87 was Holly’s first year at PMFS, starting out as an Assistant Teacher. Soon Holly became the Third Grade Teacher, beloved for her water, oceans, and recycling curriculum (and was occasionally known to dance on the tables). After a 26-year career at Plymouth, Holly retired in 2012.