Salem

Patricia Jennings-Welch, lifelong teacher, Greenhouse School founder and matriarch of her large family, passed away in Boston early Friday morning, after losing her battle with illnesses she had fought for years.

She was born on April 27, 1928 in Salem, Massachusetts to Delpfine B. (Swett) Jennings and Joseph P.W. Jennings, a local attorney and poet of note. She was the sister of John J. Jennings (deceased), a well-known trial attorney who once beat F. Lee Bailey in a courtroom showdown. She graduated Salem High School in 1945, having lost her mother in a tragic fire at age 13.

She received her Associates Degree from Boston University, and returned to finish her degree after the birth of her eighth child. She eventually completed several Masters, including a self-structured Masters in Early Childhood Education at Salem State College when the field was in its infancy. A lifelong student as well as teacher, she continued to work toward her PhD in Special Education at Boston College, completing all work except her dissertation, one of her few regrets in her long and accomplished life.

She taught in the Salem Public Schools for 16 years, pioneering the first all-day kindergarten and later multi-age classroom. She founded the Solarterre-e-em Child Growing Center in 1979 and The Greenhouse School in 1983, where she was free to pursue her innovative and successful approach to teaching. Known as an unorthodox and creative thinker and teacher, she continued to receive referrals to her program from some of the toughest learning problems for years after her retirement. She studied and toured in Europe on a sabbatical in 1977, and also visited and observed at various schools and programs in Japan, England, Russia and Mexico. Until the very end of her life she strove constantly to learn and grow, visiting a retreat in San Antonio several times to study Spanish in recent years. Through her students, interns, protégés and family she touched lives on six continents, and her career spanned five decades.

Her pride and joy, of course, was her family. She was the mother of eight children. She was the wife of the late Francis L. Welch, whom she married in 1948. She is survived by all her children: Delpfine and husband Kenneth Wilkerson of Austin, Texas, Lawrence and wife Ellen Finn-Welch of Marblehead, Patricia and wife Lynne St. Orange of Salem, Christopher and wife Barbara Tindall of Newburyport, Joseph and wife Sallie Belle Davis of Salem, Thomas and wife Carla Dropo of Beverly, John and wife Maura Abate of Newburyport, and Daniel and wife Julia Nambalirwa-Lugudde of Salem; a sister, Kathleen Coombe of Danvers, and sister-in-law Joan Jennings of Salem; fifteen grandchildren: Bethany and Liam Walker, Erin, Aliza and Amy Finn-Welch, James, Nathaniel and Nicholas Welch, Liam, Sean and Fiona Welch, Sarah and Nicole Welch, and Kara Lynne and Elise Welch and many nieces and nephew.

Her funeral will be held on Wednesday at 9:15A.M. from the Murphy Funeral Home, 85 Federal ST., Salem to be followed by a funeral Mass at 10:00 A.M in St. Thomas theApostle Church, 1 Margin St., (on the Salem-Peabody line) Peabod. Relatives and friends are respectfully invited to attend. Visiting hours will be on Tuesday from 4:00 P.M. to 8:00 P.M. in the Murphy Funeral Home. Interment will be in St. Mary's Cemetery, Salem. For additional information or online guest book please call 978 744 0497 or visit www.MurphyFuneralHome.com.