Holly Peppe, whose career spanned academia, advocacy and communications, dies at 75

Holly Peppe, of Manhattan and South Salem, New York, died peacefully on April 27 at her home in South Salem at the age of 75. She was surrounded by love, after a courageous battle with Leptomeningeal Disease, a brain and spinal cord cancer as a progression of breast cancer.

Born in Sharon, Connecticut, on December 21, 1950, Holly was the second of five children of Dr Vincent Peppe, DVM and his wife Shirley of Canaan, Connecticut. She grew up in a close-knit family that nurtured her lifelong love of language, music, learning, and human connection.

She is survived by her beloved partner of 30 years, Scot Hadley Evans, his 2 children and their spouses, and one grandchild. She is also survived by her siblings — Carol Peppe-Hewitt, Dan Peppe, Vincent Peppe, their spouses, and her sister-in-law, Linda Law Peppe, along with a loving circle of nieces and nephews. She was predeceased in 2018 by her older brother, David Peppe, Linda’s late husband.

Dr. Peppe earned a Master of Arts in Teaching from Brown University and a PhD in English Literature from the University of New Hampshire. Her career spanned academia, global advocacy, and communications. She taught literature, writing, poetry and music in New England and in Italy, where she chaired the English Department and the English Language and Literature Institute at the Ameri-can College of Rome.

From 1988 to 1996, Holly served as Director of External Affairs for ORBIS International (the “Flying Eye Hospital”) where she led public re-lations and media campaigns across the globe, including in India, China, Romania, Bulgaria, El Salvador, and Cuba. In 1997, she worked as a Senior Communications Advisor in the United Nations Office of Children and Armed Conflict, and later as Director of Public Affairs for the U.N. Millennium World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders.

On International Women’s Day in 2021, Holly was featured by Orbis for her dedication to empowering the next generation of women. The following article tells the story of her trailblazing work and its role in elevating Orbis on the global stage: https://www.orbis.org/en/news/2021/holly-peppe-iwd

In 1998, she founded a Manhattan-based public relations consultancy, providing global media and crisis communication strategies to a wide range of nonprofit organizations. She also served as a personal manager to select clients, helping shape meaningful and impactful careers, and worked with notable figures including Richard Branson, John Glenn, Alex Markov, Yoko Ono, and Oliver Sacks.

Throughout her life, Holly remained deeply devoted to poetry. A leading authority on Jazz Age poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, she lectured widely on Millay’s life and work and mentored scholars around the world. She served as President of the Millay Society from 1986 to 2001 and remained an active member of its Board of Trustees for the rest of her life. From 2012 onward, she also served as Millay’s literary executor, continuing the legacy begun by Norma Millay.

Holly’s essays on Millay have appeared in collections published by Penguin Classics, Harper Perennial, and Yale University Press. Her own poetry, translations, and essays were published in numerous books and journals. She was also the co-writer of Mum’s the Word: The High-Flying Adventures of Eve Branson and two young adult books published by Scholastic about her client Barrington Irving, Touch the Sky: My Solo Flight Around the World and Sky High. In the final months of her life, she completed two deeply personal works: Sophie and the Swans, an anti-bullying book for young readers, and An Absence of Fear, a collection of her poetry.

In the late 1960s, Holly was an idealistic high school senior who believed deeply in her generation’s power to change the world through peace, unity, equality, and justice. She attended Woodstock and Vietnam War protest marches and expressed that spirit through music - writing and performing 21 original folk songs later released as Songs of Love and Peace Holly Peppe, now available on Apple Music, Spotify, and YouTube.”

One of Holly’s greatest joys was mentoring others; students, writers, scholars, poets, and professionals alike. She had a rare gift for seeing the essence of a person and gently encour-aging it into fuller expression. She also led journaling and poetry workshops for patients with Stage IV can-cer at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, offering creativity as a pathway to meaning and connection. She often returned to the Buddhist teaching: “If you light a lamp for someone, it will brighten your own path.”

In keeping with her lifelong commitment to helping others, Holly donated her brain and spinal cord to the Adrienne Boire Research Lab at Memorial Sloan Ketter-ing Cancer Center. Dr. Adrienne Boire, her neuro-on-cologist, leads research on leptomeningeal metastasis, working toward future treatments and cures. Contribu-tions in Holly’s memory may be made here: http://msk-cc.convio.net/goto/HollyPeppe

A memorial to celebrate Holly’s life is being planned for later this year. We will be in touch with more details once everything is in place.