Pamela Rae (Morgan) Kerr

York, ME - Pamela Rae Kerr, 96, passed away at York Hospital on September 24, 2021

Pamela Rae Kerr (neé Morgan), an educational psychologist and homemaker, was born on December 31, 1924 in Blaina, Monmouthshire – a small mining town in Wales. She was the daughter of Benjamin Morgan and Charlotte Jenkins Morgan. Her father was a headmaster, although all of her many uncles were coal miners. Mrs. Kerr’s primary and secondary education was at local schools in Wales. She then attended King’s College, University of London from 1943 to 1948. She received her B.Sc. in 1947 and her teaching certificate in 1948. After a brief time as a social worker with Britain’s newly established National Health Service, she attended the Harvard Graduate School of Education from 1950 to 1952, where earned a Ed.M. She was an early beneficiary of the Fulbright Scholarship Program as well as the recipient of a Rotary International Scholarship. While at Harvard she also taught part-time at Boston University. She met her future husband, the late Dr. Albert L. Kerr, while they were both graduate students at Harvard. Rae and Al married in Wales in 1952. Dr. Kerr had a long career as a headmaster at private schools in several states. Their love for the seacoast area began while Dr. Kerr was headmaster of Berwick Academy in South Berwick (1957-1964). During this time Mrs. Kerr worked with what is now Great Bay Services (then the Great Bay School & Training Center in Newington, NH), and served as its interim director. Great Bay was the first association in New Hampshire dedicated to educating children with intellectual disabilities and was formed at a time when special education did not exist in schools. Subsequent to their years in South Berwick – living in New Jersey and elsewhere – Mrs. Kerr worked part-time as a school psychologist, with a focus on the identification of early childhood learning disabilities. The Kerrs maintained their contact with the seacoast area – no matter where they lived - by owning a summer home on Cutts Island in Kittery Point. When they retired in 1984, Al and Rae Kerr moved to a home on the York River in York, and later into Sentry Hill at York Harbor.

Rae Kerr was predeceased by her husband in 2005. She is survived a daughter, Jean Kerr and her husband Neal Fisher of Kittery Point; a son, Stuart Kerr and his wife Eleanor of Washington, DC; and one granddaughter, Marian Kerr, also of Washington, DC.

In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to:

Kerr Memorial Scholarship Fund

Development Office

Berwick Academy

31 Academy Street

South Berwick, Maine 03908

There will be a Memorial Service for Rae at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, October 23 at the First Parish Church in York, followed by a reception in the Parish Hall.

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