Viola E. Terry

“In the end it’s not about what you have or even about what you’ve accomplished.  It’s about who you’ve lifted up, who you’ve made better.  It’s about what you’ve given back.” - Denzel Washington

Those are words my wife Viola always tried to live by. Her life’s passion and goal from an early age was always to teach.  So she attended RI College ultimately attaining a degree and teaching certificate.  Unfortunately teaching positions were very hard to come by leading her to enlist in the US Army.  She took a detour but still in another way was giving back to her country through her service as an Army officer in the Corp of Engineers.  She also served RI well at the same time as she was directly involved in sending heavy military equipment to RI during the Great Blizzard of 1978 to dig us all out.

During her service in the military Viola received a MBA from Pepperdine University.  After honorable discharge from active duty she returned to RI working for various companies until she landed a job with then Fleet Bank that ultimately became part of Bank of America.  Viola was a hard worker and had a strong sense of integrity that served her well as a banker, eventually rising to the level of a senior vice president several years before retiring.  We had many conversations regarding her work with the bank.  I knew she enjoyed her work because she had a natural ability for it, making her very good at what she was doing.

But where was the passion for the job?  She was coming around full circle thinking about teaching especially with the now severe lack of math teachers in RI’s inner city schools.  All she needed was support for her decision and a push off the payscale cliff.  I gladly did both and never second guessed because the change in her was absolutely wonderful…she got the passion back.  She constantly talked about her work and kids and she was living her dream.

Viola retired after 11 years as a middle school math teacher at Roger Williams Middle School. Even in the short time she was retired she managed to check some other important items off her bucket list.  I know if Viola were here she would say she was grateful for everything she was able to do with her life and even more so what she was able to do for her students.

Viola passed away on March 25th after a 3 month long battle with an autoimmune disease.  She leaves behind her husband Christopher Caldwell, 2 brothers Norbert and Ronald Elsdoerfer with their wives Diane and Leslie, and several nieces and nephews. Instead of donating to some organization or maybe planting a tree, take time to think about someone whose life you could make a difference in with a simple kind act and just go out and do it.  I know Viola would find meaning in that more than anything else.