A live-link to the service will be available on the St. Andrew’s website. There will be a countdown to the service, and the camera will go live a few minutes before the service begins.
Pamela Stevens Smith Henrikson, 84, of Needham and Wellesley passed away peacefully from complications of pneumonia on November 7, 2024, in the loving presence of her husband Alan and their son Christopher and daughter Katy, both of Santa Monica, CA. She is survived also by her sister Karen Smith Melican of Wellesley and twin brothers, J. Hale Smith of Milton, and Nathaniel T. Smith of Gates Mills, OH, as well as a granddaughter, Olivia Henrikson, and four grandsons, Arlo Henrikson, Abel Pereira, Gabriel Pereira, and Isaac Pereira. All cherished their “Grammy,” as she did them.
Pam Henrikson was a leader. She sometimes said she had “three careers”—as a teacher, banker, and volunteer. She thrived in each, all while creating a loving home and strong family bonds as wife, mother, sister, grandmother, and aunt to her many nieces and nephews. Professionally, Pam was a pioneer. A 1962 graduate of Smith College, she majored in Economics, and began her career as a teacher (“Miss Smith from Smith”) at the Springside School in Philadelphia. Returning to her hometown of Wellesley, she joined the faculty of The Winsor School, where she had been a student, and later became its first Director of Admission. This was followed by a brief stint as a financial aid officer at Mt. Vernon College in Washington, DC, while her husband was on academic sabbatical from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts.
Upon her return to Boston, Pam was hired by the chairman of BayBank to manage relationships with not-for-profit clients: colleges, universities, hospitals and arts organizations. She later headed BayBank’s private banking and personal trust work. Rising through the ranks, she was promoted to Executive Vice President and, in 1993, was appointed Regional President of BayBank Boston (now Bank of America), working out of their Harvard Square office.
Her extensive volunteer service included years as treasurer of Associated Grantmakers of Massachusetts, a director of The Education Fund in Boston, a member of the finance committee and corporator of the Harvard Community Health Plan in Brookline, and a member of the advisory committee of The Schlesinger Library of Radcliffe College. She served as trustee of The Winsor School, which named her life member of the corporation upon her retirement from the board. She was a Trustee of Donations with the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts, a trustee of the Cambridge Community Foundation, a board member of Mount Auburn Hospital, and a member of the board of overseers of Children’s Hospital in Boston.
For her alma mater Smith College, Pam enthusiastically performed many roles. She served as treasurer and chair of the finance committee of the Alumnae Association and subsequently was elected to the board of trustees, of which she became vice chair, working almost daily with the college’s administration. Afterward, as co-chair of Smith’s Grécourt Society, she actively engaged with alumnae and friends in support of planned giving for the college.
Pam delighted in the rich learning experience of being a member of the Ladies Committee of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Her fellow associates chose her to be their head of Guides. Her historical interests, including those relating to her own family, were nourished by membership in the National Society of The Colonial Dames of America in The Commonwealth of Massachusetts, on whose board of managers she served. She was a lifelong parishioner at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Wellesley (where she and Alan were married on June 17, 1965). She was a member of the vestry, and eventually served as Senior Warden.
Geography – a subject she loved teaching at Winsor – was an enduring interest of hers. She traveled, mostly with Alan, to the Soviet Union, China, Japan, India, Vietnam, Cambodia, Singapore, Brazil, Colombia, South Africa, Botswana, Australia, Israel, Morocco and extensively in Europe – including living in England, Vienna and Bruges. Pam made friends wherever she went. She was a devoted letter and postcard writer, and later became a powerfully affirming social media presence as “InstaGrammyPammy.” Pam’s most cherished trips were those she took in her later years with her children and grandchildren to Greece and to the Galapagos Islands. But her favorite place on earth may have been Christmas Cove, Maine, where she vacationed every summer at her family’s beloved Head Tide cottage. Pam enjoyed curling at The Country Club in Brookline, and playing bridge with friends there and at the North Hill retirement community in Needham where she resided with Alan during the last three years of her gracefully lived life.
A memorial service will be held on Saturday, November 30, at 11:00am at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, 79 Denton Road, Wellesley, MA 02482. All friends and relatives are warmly invited to attend. Interment will take place privately at a later date at her family’s North Andover plot. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Smith College or The Winsor School in her name.
A live-link to the service will be available on the St. Andrew’s website. There will be a countdown to the service, and the camera will go live a few minutes before the service begins.