Therese Anne Burke was born November 12, 1927 in Hollister, California to T. W. (Bill) Burke and Anne Murphy Burke. A few days shy of her 97th birthday, Dr. Terry Johnston died in the loving arms of her family on November 7, 2024, in her Willow Glen home of 65 years. She was preceded in death by her husband Robert Johnston, her granddaughter Maura Coursey, her sister Patty Burschinger and her brother Tom Burke.

Terry led a remarkable life. At 16, she left Hollister to attend Dominican College. On April 25, 1945 she skipped school to join a crowd in front of the San Francisco Court House. She stood on the steps when Eleanor Roosevelt opened the doors and announced to the world that 50 nations had adopted the Charter and established a United Nations. Energized, Terry decided to transfer to Stanford University where she could pursue the tools to work for the rights that had been adopted.

At Stanford, Terry pursued Labor Studies. She attended a Newman Club Mixer where she met Robert Eugene Johnston, a WW II pilot and electrical engineer pursuing an MBA. They shared similar views on the world and soon were inseparable. As newlyweds they began their lives together at Stanford. Bob finished his MBA while Terry completed course work for her Economics BA (1948). She also worked part-time at the Stanford library and Hoover Institute archives. That work included helping a prosecutor and three holocaust survivors organize and secure their records from the Nuremberg Tribunal proceedings for generations to come.

Terry and Bob loved life, family (they raised 11 children!), and helping folks. They camped and hiked in Sierra and coastal mountains every summer. They were leaders in the lay social movements of the Catholic Church during the 1960s. In the 1970s they helped transform Sacred Heart Parish into a sanctuary, health, and education center for refugees and the poor. And throughout her married life, Terry opened their home to people in need from all over the world: refugees, foreign exchange students, abused women and children, traumatized war vets, and more. Her values were perfectly clear: there is always room at the table, there is always a safe place to sleep, we are all one family.

In 1967, with her youngest child weaned and oldest off to college, Terry pursued more education to better serve and assist the folks she encountered in the life she and Bob had built. She pursued a Psychology BA and Clinical Psychology Masters degree at San Jose State, with a 1972 thesis on Community Health, and she launched a community mental health clinic at the Sacred Heart Church. She followed that with doctoral study and research at the California School of Professional Psychology in San Francisco. Her Community and Clinical Psychology PhD thesis helped shape an emerging field. With a PhD conferred in 1974, she accepted a 3-year Post-Doc in Psychosomatic Medicine at the University of California at San Francisco. In 1976, she secured her State of California Professional License and established an independent practice near her San Jose home.

Over the course of Dr. Terry Johnston’s professional career she counseled and testified on behalf of traumatized asylum seekers and their families in immigration courts. She advocated for legal attention to, and protection of, the rights of the child in family courts. She helped those courts develop and replicate co-parenting courses for families in divorce proceedings. She trained colleagues to apply their assessment and reporting skills in court room contexts. As the value of attending to the rights of the child in family court became evident, judges increasingly conferred quasi-judicial authority on mental health professionals to supervise and inform the court’s decisions in custodial battles. Dr. Johnston handled more than 50 such assignments, and was called to assess and express to the court her opinion on children’s well-being in over 250 court cases.

Terry is survived by her children: Bill (Austin), Paul (Nancy), Mike (Heidi), Steve (Kathy), Annie, Barbara (Ted), Mary (Jeff), Daniel (Becky), Dave (Sheila), Pete (Andrea), Matt (Jen) and a growing family tribe of 24 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren.

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