WILMINGTON — Thinking about the young women she has taught over the past half-century can bring out the emotion in Martha Holladay. And the number is significant.
The Padua Academy English and literature teacher estimates she has taught more than 5,000 girls since she began at Padua in the fall of 1974. She’s had many mothers and daughters in her classes.
“I’m waiting for someone to come in and say, ‘You taught my grandmother.’ I’m sure of it because 50 years is generation after generation,” Holladay said recently at the all-girls school.
Padua wanted to do something for Holladay to celebrate her time at the school. She told school officials what she wanted was for more families to be able to afford the tuition. Thus was born the Martha C. Holladay Scholarship. The namesake has high hopes.
“I’m hoping that people will contribute so that students that can’t afford this education will be able to come to Padua,” she said. “If every one of my former students sent $10, we’d have $50,000.”
Holladay grew up in north Wilmington and attended Ursuline Academy for elementary and high school. But when she graduated from the University of Delaware, her grandmother, who lived in Little Italy, called the pastor of St. Anthony of Padua Parish, Oblate Father Roberto Balducelli, and told him her granddaughter was looking for a job.
Holladay came in and met with the principal, Oblate Father Vincent Burke. He told her what the pay was and about the lack of benefits, then asked her if she wanted the job.
“There was no resume,” she said. “It was, ‘Her grandmother called, Father Robert knew her grandmother, I got the job.’ And I started, and I’ve been here ever since.”
The mission of the school has not changed, but the Padua of today has evolved from what it was in the mid-70s. Many of the students were daughters of immigrants, and some were the first to graduate from high school. At times, she had to have an interpreter for parent meetings, and the entire community would come out for the school’s May procession.
Padua had a business school at the time, with some students leaving in the afternoon to go to work. Today, it’s a classic college-prep education.
“But they’re still kids,” Holladay said. “They’re still teenage girls. They’re still trying to figure out who they are. They’re still trying to establish themselves.
“To be able to see this little 13-year-old come in, unsure of herself, not knowing what she wants to do, and then graduate. To see the transformation — it really is transformational. It’s a gift to see it. They’re wonderful. They give me hope.”
The scholarship is crucial because, she said, Catholic education is more important than ever. When she began teaching, the culture supported the students’ values. That isn’t the case any longer, she said. Social media and television send a very different message.
“We’re trying to make them moral, good women who are contributing to the world,” said Holladay, a member of St. Anthony of Padua Parish.
Padua principal Mary McClory, in announcing the scholarship, praised Holladay’s dedication to her students for the past five decades.
“Her influence extends far beyond the classroom,” McClory wrote. “As a key architect of Padua’s rigorous writing program, Mrs. Holladay has empowered generations of students with the skills and confidence to succeed in college, their careers, and in life.”
Holladay, 72, is still passionate about teaching and about the school. She said she can feel the presence of Father Balducelli, Oblate Father Mario Bugliosi and Oblate Brother Mike Rosenello in the hallways. She recalled seeing Father Balducelli in a t-shirt and boots working on the floor, and a message would come over the public address system that he had students waiting for him in art appreciation class.
She sees their legacy in the floors and other handiwork in the school, a lot of which she said is a “lost art.”
“Father Robert said he wanted to build a school with a soul, and he did,” she said.
McClory said Holladay’s spiritual impact is “profound. Her love, respect and care for each student mirror the values of our patrons, St. Francis de Sales and St. Francis of Assisi. Through her faith-filled approach to teaching, she has left a lasting impression on everyone fortunate to learn from her.”
Holladay taught theology and English that first year, but English has been her specialty. She said teaching literature allows the students “to feel empathy and sympathy and understand different cultures and different generations and different situations. There’s no human condition that hasn’t been addressed in literature.”
It helps develop their character, she continued.
She also has been able to teach about authors from all over the world so that the students learn about different cultures and why people make the choices they do. She said she is constantly learning and adapting.
Holladay and her husband, Louis, have two children and five grandchildren. She loves to cook, bake and read, and she crochets. She likes to travel and go to the theater. A wall in her classroom is covered with playbills from the productions she has attended.
Her scholarship will be need-based, and Holladay will be on the selection committee.
“I want girls who are just wonderful human beings who want to go here,” she said.
Donations have already started arriving at the school. Those who want to contribute should go to www.paduaacademy.org/holladay-endowed-scholarship, or they can mail a gift to the Martha C. Holladay Scholarship Fund, Attn. Padua Academy Development Office, 905 N. Broom St., Wilmington, DE 19806.
Holladay has had offers to go elsewhere, but she said she has never considered leaving Padua. The students, she said, inspire her to want to be excellent for them.
“I’m so blessed,” she said. “I so love this job.”
