Pamela Herrick

Pamela Herrick, a passionate educator whose fields included everything from pre-K to adult education, died peacefully Aug. 21 at The Terraces in Orleans, Mass. She was 93 and suffered from congestive heart failure.
Pam was an avid reader, ardent Democrat and travel enthusiast, taking her family to live in Europe in the early 1970s and exploring Asia, New Zealand and Australia later in life. But she especially loved her family role as spouse and mom — and “granny” and “Aunt Pam” to her five grandchildren and 10 nieces and nephews and their children.
Pam taught middle school geography at Noble and Greenough School, pre-K at Dedham Country Day School, and worked in program development at the Radcliffe Seminars. An occupational therapist by training, Pam also worked for several years in the Norwood schools evaluating the strengths of disabled students.
In her later years she was a volunteer in the library and art room at Nauset Elementary School in Orleans.
Pam raised two sons during her husband’s 20-year tenure as head of Dedham Country Day, where she also taught in the pre-school. She later flourished at Nobles, joining the school in 1985, being named co-head of the Middle School and receiving the annual prize for teaching excellence in 1993.
In Orleans, Pam was a vigorous advocate for the environment. She helped to found the Orleans Pond Coalition, a group instrumental in the fight for clean water on Cape Cod, and was honored in 2023 during a celebration of its 20th anniversary. She also served on the town’s Conservation Commission.
Pamela Pershing Herrick was born in 1932 in Denver, Colo. Raised in Scarsdale, New York, her family purchased a threadbare 1790s manor house on 12 acres overlooking Lonnie’s Pond on Mayflower Point in Orleans in the early 1940s.
A graduate of Mount Holyoke College, Pam met Harry Herrick in the early 1950s, and the two were married in 1955. After a honeymoon adventure in post-war Europe, they settled in New York City, where she worked as an occupational therapist in Brooklyn.
In the early 1960s, Pam and Harry moved to Dedham, where they spent the next three decades heavily involved with DCD and Nobles. But every summer they would be in Orleans, amid family, until they moved there in retirement in 1993.
Pam, who was predeceased by Harry, leaves behind David Herrick and his wife Ellen Herrick of Orleans; Thaddeus Herrick and his wife Linda Ebaugh, who split their time between Houston and Orleans; grandchildren James Herrick, William Herrick, Casey Herrick, Isabel Herrick and Emma Herrick; and Pam’s nieces and nephews and their children.
A memorial service will be held in the summer of 2026. Gifts in Pam’s name can be made to the Orleans Pond Coalition, the Orleans Conservation Trust and Friends of Pleasant Bay.