Teri Ismail

Teri was nudged into Sepulveda Unitarian Universalist Society. It was green, at least in the spring and the beginning of summer. The grass was tall and the ladybugs were hiding in the grass. The neighbor had chickens and the other one had horses. They’re gone now. They were conducting a play in those days. They seemed to have one a year old. Teri enjoyed being involved in them. Her child played them as well, and she was three years old at the time and is now 45. SepulvedaUU was Teri’s refuge from the city. Ahhh, but things change.

Change is the only constant we can rely on. Teri came from Detroit. It was another world. She was a waitress, a bartender, and a phone questionnaire among other jobs. Her family moved to LA and she stayed in Detroit for a few years, and although she loved Detroit, she, too, followed the sun to LA. As a tall blond woman, she thought finding a job in LA would be easy, but it was not. (Being white she believed she would get a job easily, it was white privilege that skewed her thinking, back before it was even talked about). She did manage to get a job at JC Penny’s as a Christmas worker. She was looking for another job when her life took a drastic change: Tony Dimon, the on-site preschool director at SepulvedaUU, was looking for a teacher just for the summer. Teri accepted, and thus began a lifelong love of preschool. She found her bliss, but the money was not great, so when a position opened for a Director of Religious Education, she applied. Teri worked two jobs, one as a preschool teacher, and the other as the Director of Religious Education at SepulvedaUU for 10 or more years. She worked and went to school with three children and struggled blood, sweat, and tears to get a master’s degree. Her life took another turn when Toni, the director of the school at SepulvedaUU, died, and she was looking for work again.

She found a small college on the side of a mountain in Glendale California. She was hired to work at the brand-new campus preschool. Teri had a baby, and although the job seemed promising, she decided to stay home and run an in-home daycare instead. Thirteen years later, she applied with the same women (they all forgot their first encounter) and got a job to open an off-campus preschool as a director. Teri was there for 20 years.

It seems like a blur, a life filled with the chance to share love and to be loved. It all started at SepulvedaUU, and now she is inspired to join and support our president as the Vice president. She has many doubts about how to give 100 percent to this place that she is committed to, but she believes that to question one’s actions, even convictions, leads to greater openness and understanding. She has her convictions and they are her bedrock, her identity, and Teri believes they are in line with the best of what is Unitarian Universalism.