Thomas A. Wood, 76, former headmaster
Thomas A. Wood, 76, former headmaster of Friends’ Central School in Wynnewood, died of heart failure Oct. 27 at Plymouth Harbor, a retirement community in Sarasota, Fla. Dr. Wood headed Friends’ Central, a coed Quaker school, for 17 years. During his tenure, he oversaw the construction of a building, Shallcross Hall; the conversion of an 18th-century barn into a library; and the purchase of the Montgomery School on Old Gulph Road in Wynnewood, which became Friends’ Central’s lower school campus.
“Tom Wood had strong vision and foresight,” said Friends’ Central’s present headmaster, David M. Felsen. “The purchase of the second campus allowed for tremendous growth and development of the school,” he said.
He had “a remarkable eye for talent,” Felsen said, “and drew to the school wonderful teachers and administrators.”
When Dr. Wood resigned as headmaster in 1987, the 19th-century stone structure that housed the upper school and administrative offices was named the Wood Building.
After leaving Friends’ Central, he was director of consulting for Independent Educational Services in Princeton for five years.
Dr. Wood grew up in West Chester and graduated from Choate School in Wallingford, Conn. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Haverford College and a doctorate in Elizabethan literature from the University of Birmingham in England. He retained a fondness for English diction and proper grammar, his cousin Betsy Neese said.
Before becoming headmaster at Friends’ Central in 1970, Dr. Wood taught at the Hill School in Pottstown; was an administrator at Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, N.H., and Athens College in Greece; and then was assistant headmaster at Friends Academy in Locust Valley, N.Y.
He enjoyed politics and in 1984 took a six-month sabbatical from Friends’ Central to head the Philadelphia presidential campaign of Democrat Alan Cranston, then a U.S. senator from California.
Dr. Wood loved spending time at his vacation home on Lake Wallenpaupack in the Poconos. He often invited students from Friends’ Central, and friends and family to visit, Neese said, and would fill up as many as six supermarket carts to feed all of his guests. “He was the consummate host,” she said.
Dr. Wood is survived by sisters Posey Jones and Molly Tully; stepchildren Alexander Otey and Olivia Brady; three step-grandchildren; and his former wife, Patricia Otey Wood.
A memorial service will be at 3 p.m. Dec. 16 in Shallcross Hall at Friends’ Central School, 1101 City Ave., Wynnewood.
::Tullycast:: 