My mother writes about her father, my grandfather
(Myron Eugene Terry; 1895-1980)
Father’s Day; June 17, 2007
In church this morning Pastor Charles asked the congregation to share memories of their fathers. Several people had shared before I began to think about my father. It’s been a long time since considered his life and what he was like. I
didn’t share in church, but I’d like to share with you:
My dad, Rev. Myron Eugene Terry, Gene, to his family, was first of all an adventurer. He took challenges that no one else would take or even understood.
During World War I [he signed up in the brand new Army Air Corps as a pilot and trained to fly a fighter plane. The war ended before he went overseas, much to his disappointment, I’m sure, but he was passionate about flying from then on.
After he got a college degree in accounting. and though he had a good job with Chrysler Motors, it was too mundane for him and he decided to be a missionary. In about 1922, when China was in the midst of civil wars, he showed up with a wife and two kids, Dan and Warney, ready to tackle China.
Whatever that meant to him, I’m not sure, but that adventure fizzled with poor health and bitter discouragement – his enormous library spilled across country ditches after the mission was invaded by revolutionaries sort of symbolized his fractured dreams.
So, a few years later with two more kids, me and Dick, he returned to the States and got a civilian pilot license, and a glider pilot license: US glider pilot license number eleven. He flew air mail from Cleveland to Chicago and other nearby cities, and crashed his glider while demonstrating tricks in an air show in Ashtabula, Ohio.
Recovering from massive injuries, he was challenged to return to China and manage the Christian Literature Society in Shanghai. He agreed, packed us up, and tackled that assignment with such gusto that he shocked the whole business with reforms and reorganization, opening branch depots across China– and incidentally putting the business back in the black.
He wasn’t always popular: he smoked Camel cigarettes, Prince Albert pipe tobacco, insisted on Forhans toothpaste and Palmolive soap (all imported from the States) and he packed long barreled shotgun– for mad dogs and various other varmint.
He was the first civilian in Shanghai to set up a ham radio station and had antennas that stretched half way across the mission compound. When he traveled to far-flung book depots he carried a portable radio and hooked up the missionaries with voice broadcasting to ham operators around the world – a message might go to South America or Alaska or some other outpost before finally reaching a loved one in the States.
When the Japanese attacked Shanghai he was one of the first to venture out and examine the damage; he took me with him one time, both of us pretending to be French, so we could fool the Japanese sentries to let us through and inspect what was left of South Gate mission station [very little].
When his sons hadn’t enough adventure he bought an abandoned lifeboat from some steamer or other, rigged a sail, and cruised the Whangpu River – never mind war ships, curious sampans, or shells being fired across the river.
When Americans were ordered out of China, Dad’s response was, no way! He loaded us up and headed west to Free China (unoccupied so far by the Japanese ). Half way to our destination he turned back to Shanghai to smuggle Bibles out to isolated Chinese Christians behind the lines. He hid Bibles on ox carts, carried them by cart or bicycle, and was daily in danger of either bombs, Japanese soldiers, betrayal or sickness. Yet, some of the 55 tons of Bibles he delivered through the Japanese lines are still in use today.
When Dad retired, the first thing he did was find a house – “on the water” so he could have a boat, which he custom ordered from Yugoslavia or someplace. His was the only pleasure boat in Blaine harbor — quite a novelty. He initiated an annual Terry yacht race which I believe still takes place annually from White Rock B.C.
When I innocently bought a newfangled clothes dryer (requiring 220 wiring) Dad rewired the house in Blaine and started a little company. Terry Electric, which made house calls all around Whatcom County.
I don`t know if Dad encouraged all of us lo be adventurers — it just turned out that way: Dan served in the Atlantic and the Pacific in the Merchant Marine and died prematurely of a heart attack.
Warren defied all convention and built himself his own island — “Five Acres and Independence.” — and still survives on the heath food diet we all used to tease him about.
After serving in the Army and training with Terry Electric. Dick wired a US Air Force hospital in Thailand, mines in Australia: worked oil rigs in Qatar, wired an underground air base in Israel, and a model city in Egypt. He still goes regularly to the Dominican Republic to do volunteer wiring for mission projects there.
I married an adventurer and lived through more wild projects with him than Dad ever imagined. With 6 kids at home worked full time –though I’m not proud of that. I traveled a lot, went to 5 different colleges (the last when I was a great grandmother! ) and returned 4 times to China to deliver Bibles lo underground Christians.
We didn`t always understand nor appreciate Dad. But, come to think about it, I’m quite amazed at how much he dared to do and how much his bold sense of adventure contributed to our lives.
Was his faith always in God rather than himself”? I can’t answer that — God knows. And God uses imperfect people* like Dad — and you and me — to accomplish His purposes.
Well, that’s the normal avid adventurer’s life, isn’t it?
*You also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 2:5)
Lots of love from Home Base,
Mom, Grandma, Becky, etc.