Terese Ann McChrystal Wright
June 29, 1930-April 7, 2023
Watsonville, California

Terry Wright passed away on April 7th 2023 at her home, Edenvale, in the foothills of Watsonville in Santa Cruz County, California. She was the daughter of Marion Estelle Bliss and Arthur John McChrystal and was born in San Mateo, California on June 29, 1930. Her academic years were spent at Notre Dame des Victoire, the “French school” in San Francisco, then at Dominican Convent in San Rafael. In 1951, she received her B.A. in English from San Francisco College for Women, now University of San Francisco. When they were both 13 years old, she met Samuel L. Wright Jr., “Sam”, at a dance the night he graduated from St. Joseph’s Parochial School in Atherton. They were married 8 years later at her family’s parish, St. Dominic’s, in San Francisco. They made their home in Atherton for a number of years where they raised their two sons, John Storey Wright and Samuel L. Wright III. She was very active socially, was a devoted tennis player, and performed as a dancer in light opera productions. She was a bright, energetic, and highly-communicative person, universally known for a great sense of humor. Terry devoted herself to many community activities and charitable works. She was a docent at Filoli in Woodside and for the Committee for Art at Stanford, as well as the University’s Jasper Ridge Preserve. She was active in the Peninsula Volunteers and the Woodside-Atherton Garden Club and was an avid supporter of the Woodside Priory School in its early development. Throughout the years, she and her husband devoted themselves to designing and building homes in Woodside, Carmel, and by the ocean in Aptos where she was the President of the Sea Cliff Beach Homeowners Association. In the early 1990s, Terry and Sam purchased an old apple orchard in the foothills of southern Santa Cruz County and constructed a home there. Terry spent many years landscaping the property into what has become an extensive country garden. She was predeceased by her parents and her four siblings. She is survived by her husband, Sam, her two sons, John (Rela) and Sam (Kathryn), four grandchildren, Steven, Kelly, Eric and Carolyn, and four great-grandchildren. A private memorial service to be held at the family’s chapel, Our Lady of the Woods, on their property in Watsonville. She was interred at Holy Cross Cemetery and Menlo Park.