be compassionate with them in their difficulties, bear with them in their weaknesses, encourage and support them. Affirm your brothers and sisters in their gifts, for by doing so you enable them to realize the gifts that God has given them for service.
IN MEMORIAM: REMEMBERING DAN WHOLLEY ’65 The embodiment of the precept ‘you can only take with you what you give away,’ Dan Wholley’s poignant childhood gratitude for others catalyzed a lifetime of returning the favor Born at Salem Hospital to Joseph and Irene (MacDonald) Wholley on October 25, 1947, Wholley (pronounced WHO-lee) is described by former colleagues as “kind and honest,” “humble and unassuming,” “a great storyteller,” “a man of integrity,” and “a stalwart advocate for his students and a positive, affirming presence for his co-workers.” Outside the bounds of school campuses, he was a great deal more. Wholley was the eldest of five children, including three brothers and a sister. He grew up in the post-World War II veterans housing neighborhood of Garden Terrace in North Salem near the Peabody line. His father, a wounded veteran of the U.S. Navy, died at the age of 37, nine days prior to Wholley’s 10th birthday. The overwhelming burden of such loss was diminished by the embrace of family and community. It was a neighborhood of men who’d seen war and military wives who rallied around his Nova Scotia-born mother and her young children. Good people helping his family navigate those years conveyed a lasting impact and shaped Wholley’s character and conduct throughout his adult life. “I recall my dad saying, ‘People helped us so much after that happened that I wanted to help others in my life and in my career,’” says Wholley’s daughter, Rebecca (Wholley) Dawson. “He didn’t have a father. His mom worked a job as a bookkeeper. They had people jump in to help care for them and they valued it,” echoes Wholley’s eldest son, Sam. “He would always say that because of that experience, his goal in life was to help take care of people.” Wholley’s takeaway from a period of personal hardship stands as a remarkable display of emotional intelligence for an early adolescent in an America already gripped by the Cold War and on the precipice of social protest movements, a widening generation gap, and the Space Race. Many kids would have channeled that considerable adversity in another direction. “It really demonstrates how thoroughly he ascribed to the Jesuit (and Xaverian) ideals of Men and Women for others,” notes Sam. Wholley attended St. Thomas Elementary School, received his diploma from the Prep in 1965, and graduated from Boston College four years afterward. He later earned his master’s at what was then Salem State College. As an upperclassman at BC, he met a Winthrop girl named Claire Marie Hinckley. The pair shared a love of faith, education, and service to others. Their friendship deepened when they both worked at a summer camp for disadvantaged youth run by a Greater Lynn mental health association that had ties to BC. They were married in her hometown on December 20 of 1970. Catholic devotion and time with the church prompted the couple to become deeply ensconced in the Catholic community across the North Shore. First, at St. Thomas the Apostle in Peabody, then at St. Ann after moving to Gloucester in their 60s and, most recently, at a small Polish parish, St. Joseph Church, in northern Connecticut, where they relocated in 2018 to be close to their youngest son, Matt. “In the 15 years I worked with him, the topics Dan brought up most often involved his loyalty and devotion to his family, his church, St. John’s Prep, the City of Salem, and Boston College,” says former colleague Glenn Chesley, who retired from St. John’s school Counseling Department two years ago. The church was, indeed, high on that list. “They made sure we had a real foundation in our Catholic faith—taking us to weekly mass, but also making sure we got ourselves to CCD, and encouraging us to become altar servers and lectors,” says Rebecca. “Not only were those experiences important ways to give back to the faith community, they were also the foundation for other learning and leadership qualities all three of us kids went on to develop.” Wholley modeled the value of hard work on an inexhaustible scale throughout his life and ceaselessly picked up odd jobs and side gigs after school as he and his wife raised their family. He cut grass, stocked shelves, stacked leather in a tannery, coached, refereed, directed a summer camp, served as an adjunct professor at Salem State, seated restaurant guests, and tended bar. At his core, he was a social being. His likes made that plain. Sports—especially basketball—making connections for connections’ sake, and always actively listening. He was also a world-class reminiscer. An eminently likeable guy. His brother, Billy, who co-owned the Chase House restaurant in Salem for years, hired Wholley to tend bar for just that reason; not necessarily for his bartending skills, but because ‘everybody knew Danny,’ and stopping in to see him behind the bar was a draw for many customers. It’s little wonder that “Cheers” was among Wholley’s favorite television shows (alongside “M*A*S*H”). “You know, he was a guy who liked to laugh and had a great sense of humor,” says longtime friend Pat Daly, who met Wholley while the two were attending BC. “His was a face that would add to the atmosphere if you were going out for a beer or two.” But Wholley’s never-met-a-stranger affect was more than just bar chatter. “Dan was truly a man of the North Shore—he was connected to everyone through all kinds of touchpoints,” says former colleague Conor Dowley, the Prep’s Director of School Counseling. “He’d had a million students who’d come through Salem High. He was a church guy, a volunteer guy, and he still worked at a school. And those connections were all through happenstance, not because he was like a mover and a shaker and he wanted to dominate LinkedIn. He was simply helping so many people all the time that he just came across people. “Dan’s professional and personal pursuits happened to be engaging with others, and then those people engaged with others, and then he’d end up intersecting with them again in some other capacity,” he adds. “He was a man for the people because that’s what he liked to do, so everyone got to know him. When it’s all said and done, I challenge you to find anyone in Essex County who can’t trace six degrees of separation from Dan Wholley.” St. John’s Latin teacher Elizabeth Solomon experienced that renown firsthand after Wholley suffered a heart attack in the fall of 2017. “We were both Gloucester residents at the time, so I volunteered to bring him some of the well-wishes and get-wells that had arrived for him,” she recalls. “It ended up that this wasn’t an oversized envelope or a shoebox full of messages. I delivered a laundry basket overflowing with cards.”
In his youth, Wholley was a red-headed, 1950s Irish Catholic teen right out of central casting. The freckles, the plaid button-down shirts. A warm, round face characterized by an easy smile and ever-prominent chin. He began caddying for a few extra bucks, which began a lifelong devotion to Kernwood Country Club and a lasting love of golf. He received the prestigious Francis Ouimet Scholarship, a need-based award given to young men and women who have worked at Massachusetts golf courses, which helped defray the cost of his college tuition. His widow, Claire, is an intellectual force in her own right. After BC, she earned her master’s in early childhood education at Cambridge College and spent her career teaching in Salem Public Schools before going on to teach at (the now defunct) St. Ann School in Gloucester. The couple never lost their passion for stewarding young people; even after moving to Connecticut, they ran faith formation classes for their parish. They brought that counseling and mentorship style to parenting. They instilled a curiosity about simple things. Looking at what was right nearby in the world around them. And they were indefatigable in their execution. Claire took the lead on art projects, nature walks, baking, and beaches. Dan helped with ski trips, ballgames, and countless school and community events. Chandler Hovey Park in Marblehead, Bradley Palmer State Park in Ipswich, and Salem Willows Park for ice cream and rides were common destinations. Rebecca even remembers her dad throwing an impromptu neighborhood barbeque in the immediate aftermath of the Blizzard of ’78. “I think they did a very deliberate job and a very balanced job,” she recalls. “They really emphasized the local, the simple, the natural surroundings so that we would love the North Shore, and we all do.” All the while, the Wholleys created a home environment centered on meaningful, developmentally-appropriate activities, books, art projects, home-cooked meals, board game nights, and countless other experiences. They installed an above-ground pool at each of their family homes, first in Peabody and then in Salem. Dan built the home’s shed and the kids’ jungle gym. He built furniture and bookshelves and desks. Claire would paint intricate stencils on some of the more refined pieces. The bookshelves were stocked with all kinds of literature, and trips to the public library were frequent. As the kids got older, it became time for sports practices and attending Salem High events as dad helped at the concession stands or filling seats at the school play while serving as Class Advisor for several SHS classes in the early 1980’s. The cheerleaders and athletes and thespians were also some of the family babysitters. In the summer, Wholley would bring his boys into school and push them down the deserted hallways in roller chairs. “That smell of boiled hotdog at the concession stand is still in my hair. The hornets buzzing around the ketchup. Those are some of the things I remember,” says Rebecca. “I actually wanted to tag along because we knew all those kids and they were people I looked up to. “He was always, always a sports fan,” she continues. “I remember the Red Sox would be on the radio in the background on weeknights when they were pulling together our lunches. It was the soundtrack of our childhood. I really don’t know how they did it all. Once he got season tickets to BC basketball, he’d take us to and from Boston and we’d listen to the Celtics game on the way home. It was a complete Boston sports baptism, and we loved it.”
KEEPING GOOD COUNSEL Counseling was more than a job for Wholley. It was his vocation. He served at the Prep from 2003 through August of 2018. Claire had a stint as an after-school proctor at the Middle School in 2017-18. At work, Dowley remembers Wholley as “incredibly seasoned” and “a real stabilizing force for the department who never rattled” because he’d seen it all before. Wholley was also uncomplicated. He had unadorned tastes and enjoyed simple pleasures, including the occasional, slyly procured peanut butter cup or his ubiquitous iced coffee from Dunkin' Donuts that he would often lose track of throughout the workday. He would usually recount the details of that morning’s hackneyed “Men From Maine” comedy segment on WROR FM radio or trumpet a big BC victory. “Picture someone who’s already done 30 years and then continues their role at a different school—he was purely in it for the kids at that point,” says Dowley. “For him, everything went back to what’s best for the student. I think he felt really grounded when working with kids because he knew he was good at it. They knew he was good at it, so they responded to his counsel. He had a real knack for building rapport with young people and their families. I think he approached relationships and friendships in a similar way. ‘Let me learn about my colleague.’ He asked himself, ‘What do they want? How can I help them be the best version of themselves?’ He’d use that context as a starting place.” “He was always someone who wanted to work with teachers to support students in any way possible,” adds Ms. Solomon. “He considered creative approaches and engaged in deep, collaborative work with teachers. Even though my own relationship with him was almost exclusively at school, he made a real effort to get to know teachers and ask about their lives outside of school in a really kind, compassionate, and empathetic way.” Wholley possessed an uncanny ability to put himself in the shoes of the person he was advising. “With Dan, you knew you were going to get his best when he listened to you,” says former Salem High student Dave Angeramo, later Wholley’s colleague at SHS and now assistant head of school/principal at St. Mary’s of Lynn. “He was going to give you his best advice and do so solely with your interest at heart, and he presented it as advice—take it or leave it.” The cumulative impact of Wholley’s soul-nourishment was never more evident to his son, Matt, as it was when his dad was hospitalized. In Wholley’s final weeks, people of all manner and means reached out to talk about his impact on their lives and how selfless he was with his time. “Even as a teenager and later at the Coast Guard Academy when I was busy with my own life, I had an understanding of how well he knew the kids and that he could speak to who they were and he did it from the heart. He really put time and effort into his college recommendations. It was not pro forma. But for him, it wasn’t just about getting his students into college, it was about helping kids.” Wholley is survived by his wife, his four siblings, his three children and their spouses, and seven grandchildren. |
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