Stories That Live In Us

It Doesn't Take A Lot (with Jason Terry) | Episode 38

• Crista Cowan | The Barefoot Genealogist • Season 1 • Episode 38

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When a 20-year-old WWII pilot makes fudge in a POW camp on Christmas Day, he teaches a lasting lesson...

Jason Terry shares how his grandfather's small act of kindness in a German prison camp during WWII sparked a family legacy of service that spans generations. Through stories of answered prayers, harrowing escapes, and a precious Red Cross package shared with fellow prisoners, we discover how even the smallest gestures can create lasting impact. This moving conversation reveals how family stories shape our values and how service to others becomes a cherished inheritance passed from one generation to the next.

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Jason Terry:

Christmas Day some of the German officers came to each of the barracks and said the Red Cross has given you some packages and the problem is there's not enough packages for every man. In fact, there's only enough packages for two per barracks. So 250 men in the barracks. There's two of them for these 250 men. They decided they would do a raffle.

Crista Cowan:

Stories that Live In Us is a podcast that inspires you to form deep connections with your family past, present and future. I'm Crista Cowan, known online as The Barefoot Genealogist. I've spent my whole life discovering the power of family history and I know that sharing the stories that live in you can change everything.

Crista Cowan:

As we head into the Christmas holiday, one of the things that I spend quite a bit of time thinking about is the idea of service. I was raised in a very service-oriented family, and so was my guest. Today you're going to hear a story from Jason Terry about a legacy of service in his family, and it starts with his grandfather and, interestingly enough, his grandfather's service in World War II and his time in a prisoner of war camp. That may not seem very Christmassy, but this idea of service in those conditions and then how that story gets passed down generation after generation and creates a legacy of service in this family is so inspiring to me. The other thing about this story that I really find fascinating is how this story was shared by Grandpa repeatedly throughout Jason's childhood and then, as Jason's family has taken that story and it has been turned into a book story and it has been turned into a book and that story continues to be passed on and will be preserved now because they wrote that story down. I think that's such an important part of legacy and creating family culture and I think it's really beautiful the way the Terry family has done this.

Crista Cowan:

So please enjoy my conversation with Jason Terry. So, jason, thank you so much for being here. I'm excited to hear a little bit more about just you and your family story. So why don't you start with telling us a little bit about about who you are and your family today?

Jason Terry:

You bet. So I'm Jason. Terry, grew up in Alpine, Utah, and spent most of my years in Alpine and American Fork High School. There were seven of us kids. I'm a twin. My mom, I don't know how she did it my oldest sister is only 14 months older than us.

Crista Cowan:

Wow.

Jason Terry:

So she had three babies 14 months and under and continued to have more. But just an idyllic childhood we had. You know, the favorite thing to do growing up was in the summers particularly, is get out of the house. We could go about a block and a half and we were in the foothills and that was our playground, and a half a block. The other direction was the Cemetery Hill, which only half of it is a cemetery, the rest is too steep, and that was our playground as well. We spent a lot of time on Cemetery Hill.

Crista Cowan:

Yeah, it sounds like kind of an idyllic childhood. And even now it's still a little bit rural there and I bet kids have a lot of room to roam and play and that's fantastic. And so you grew up number two or number three. Do you or your twin consider yourself?

Jason Terry:

older, so he's officially older than me by three minutes.

Crista Cowan:

I'm number three, so three of seven and tell me just about the home you grew up in.

Jason Terry:

One of the fondest memories I have is my dad was always with us when he could be and we played a lot of sports in our yard. You know football and baseball were probably the two biggest. I'm a soccer player and my dad didn't really understand soccer so we never played soccer, but he was always the quarterback and always the pitcher and all the friends in the neighborhood Our house was kind of the gathering spot.

Crista Cowan:

That's amazing. Yeah, and did you have family, other family nearby?

Jason Terry:

Yes, most of the cousins lived close by. So my dad's family. There were five kids, but growing up you know we're going to be talking about Grandpa Wendell we were at their house every Sunday night and all the cousins that were around would come and gather at Grandpa Terry's house and it was just playtime with the cousins and with Grandpa and aunts and uncles and it was again an idyllic situation and I just really enjoyed that time.

Crista Cowan:

I love that. There's a statistic that I think I've shared here on the podcast before that 56% of Americans cannot name all four of their grandparents, and when I first heard that, that was so foreign to me because I grew up like we lived with my grandparents for a little while when I was young, because my mother also had twins and we needed some help. And you know, my other grandmother had lived about an hour away and even though my grandfather had passed before I was born, she talked about him all the time and our cousins were like. I had that same kind of an experience, although mine was in Los Angeles, not Alpine, Utah.

Jason Terry:

Which is probably way more unusual than what you would have here.

Crista Cowan:

But to hear that so many people are disconnected just from that, one generation away. So it's always interesting to me to get different perspectives on how people are raised in the family environment that they're raised in, and so that idea that you would go to your grandparents' house every Sunday, that you had a relationship with your cousins and your aunts and uncles.

Crista Cowan:

I think that's amazing, and so tell me a little bit. Your Grandpa, Terry, has kind of an epic story, and was that something we'll have you tell it. But I want to know is that something you were raised knowing, or is it something that kind of came out over the course of your growing up, that more and more details were revealed to you?

Jason Terry:

Yeah, probably the latter, I mean, as I look back. I mean he died when I was 15. So it had to have been young, and I do remember hearing the story multiple times, and the first time was in elementary school that I can remember. So did I grow up with this story? Yes, I did. Was it something my dad told us all the time? No, and so I don't know, prior to my being born, what, how much that story was told other than to his children. I would guess, knowing my grandpa probably was told frequently before.

Crista Cowan:

But Was he a storyteller?

Jason Terry:

by nature yeah.

Crista Cowan:

Does he have other stories that he would tell? Do you have one or two you remember?

Jason Terry:

Yeah, so there are. We have audio recordings of him just telling stories and some of them aren't even his life, just like. One of them is Six Shooter Sal and I don't even remember the story, but we have a recording of him telling Six Shooter Sal and he was a salesman later in his life after he retired from the Air Force and he was sold. They were called doll lamps and they were these huge, like two feet tall porcelain dolls with a light coming out of their head.

Jason Terry:

Yeah, I mean they were really elegant like glacey and they would build them in their basement and he would sell them. And occasionally he would take us grandkids on some of his trips and I remember one at least and he just he'd tell stories like all kinds of stories we got from him. I don't remember any of the stories he told while we were on that trip, any of the stories he told while we were on that trip.

Crista Cowan:

I was really young, but yeah, he was a storyteller. Well, and there's something about just that the connection that story brings, so you don't even have to remember the details, just to know that you're raised in this environment of this transmission of story as a point of connection. I love that.

Jason Terry:

So tell us about your grandpa, start wherever you want to start with his story yeah, and you know a lot of this is is recollections from what I heard as a kid. Again, I heard the story probably five or six times. Um, I was trying to count, I don't remember how many, but um, but every time was just slightly different, um, which is as memories are right and as stories go, and, and you know, as I look back, it depended on who he was talking to as well. You know, when he came and talked to my elementary school, it's going to be a very different story than when he's talking to At the local armory. That's another one that I remember that we're all adults and military people for the most part, and so the story was a little different. So there's slight differences and nuances and I recognize that I'm going to remember the story the way I heard it as a young teen. So I'm sure it's not the way, it's not exact, but this is how I remember it. And I also will say Marsha, this oldest, his oldest daughter, decided a few years ago that she was going to write a children's book, a coffee table book, about his story, and so she wrote it up and I don't know why she chose me, but she chose me to kind of be the editor.

Jason Terry:

So her part of the story is what's most prevalent in my mind. And we went back and forth probably seven or eight iterations and when she finally got it to where, like okay, I feel pretty good about this, she let my sister read it, who lives in Alpine and knows Gerald Lund. Gerald Lund, she approached Gerald Lund and said, hey, there's a story, would you take a look at it and tell me what you think? And anyway, he grabbed the story and wrote a small book about my grandpa, terry. So some of my memories are from that book as well. So not not what I remember as a kid, but here's the story.

Jason Terry:

So, yes, and I, you know, as I look back at the story I can't believe how young he was. You know, world war two started. He was, I think, 17 when the war actually started and lived in Salt Lake at the time, went to East High School, south High School and met my grandma when he was 17 and she was 15. Wow, and it took a little time for her to kind of figure out. Okay, do you like this guy? Yeah, but different times and relationships happened a little earlier back then. So anyway, they get this relationship going.

Jason Terry:

He's a senior in high school about to graduate, and at this point the US gets involved in the war as well with Pearl Harbor and whatnot, and so their relationship really had to move quickly if anything was going to happen.

Jason Terry:

He decided I'm going to graduate and then I'm either going to enlist or be drafted, and because of that again, their relationship really had to move quickly. He ended up going to, I think, army basic training and while he was there decided I want to marry Bev Dodge at the time and sent her a letter I'd really like to get married and I'm going to have a little time between basic training and he decided to be an Army Air Corps pilot and they had accepted his application. So he had a little time between those to further this relationship and I jumped ahead a little bit. He went to Air Corps training and it was during that time where he did send a letter basically saying hey, we got to get married. She was 17 when they were married. They had a few days together and then he was off to his training. Sometime after that they learned that they were going to be stationed in Europe and their squadron, along with a bunch of others, were headed off to England.

Crista Cowan:

And so did your grandmother come home then, when he was sent to England. She came back to Salt Lake to live with her parents, and they had any children at that point.

Jason Terry:

So no, I mean really, they'd only been together for a few days. But she was pregnant.

Jason Terry:

And that was kind of found out a little bit later. Yeah, so anyway. So he's in England and hundreds of planes at this location, over 400 airmen Each of the B-17 bombers which he was a pilot of a B-17 bomber each one has a crew of 10, and they all have very specific assignments. But they become a family and really get to know each other and, through so much training, really learn to work together flawlessly, as they had to do.

Jason Terry:

They did their first run into Europe over Germany and France, came back celebrated and typically when you received an assignment, you didn't know about it until the morning of. So you know they were all fast asleep and someone came in and said, hey, get up, your next run's coming. And he talks about how he went and ate his powdered eggs and how terrible they were, and anyway they go to hear what their next run will be. And there's a bunch of high-ranking officers in the room with them that were going to go on the run with them, which typically means this is gonna be a fairly safe run. So they were a little more at ease as they listened to what they were going to be doing. They were going to be flying over over France and parts of Germany to drop bombs somewhere. And then they, they took off and, um, you know, it's not that far from England to France and Germany. So, uh, as they approached the border, he looked ahead and he recognized that there were these black puffs of smoke, so flak, which is basically bombs that the enemy will throw up, that explode at a certain height that they know that the pilots are going to be flying at. And it's interesting because in the day you couldn't evade, so they were flying at a certain level, the enemy knew they were at that level and they couldn't change levels. They had to stay at that level and hope they weren't hit.

Jason Terry:

So, as they're flying and entering into this flak, really quickly, into that flak area, his tail gunner said into that flak area. His tail gunner said you know, I've been hit, I've been hit and you know well how are you doing. Well, it's just a, you know, a piece of shrapnel in my, in my calf. I'm okay, great, and in the meantime my grandpa is is, is recognizing. We're right, you know we're, we're being tracked, like there was somebody that was tracking them with theseak bombs.

Jason Terry:

And so he started to kind of turn a little bit and as he was turning, one of his wings was hit. The left wing was hit hard enough that it broke the wing in half and both of the engines on that side fell off as well. He also talks about how some of the flak well, he doesn't know if it's a flack or if it's part of the wing that, as a blew off, went through his, his windshield and, and, uh, his, his, the left side of his face, was hit with something. You know I could feel some burning and and and pain.

Jason Terry:

But at this point he's got a plane that that doesn't have a left wing and so, yeah, so you drag on that left wing and the right wing and motors that are still running really put that plane into a left tailspin. And he is immediately thinking okay, what do I do? And their training went into effect, you know. Okay, I've got to get this plane in control. Pilot's always the last one out and his job is to do all he can to get everybody out. And so he's starting to tell everybody you know, we've got to escape Everybody, get out, find your hatches, go, go, go. In the meantime, he's holding this plane as steady as he could.

Crista Cowan:

And also, in the meantime, he's only like 20 or 21 years old. Yeah, he's 20. Like what is know.

Jason Terry:

I know, and this is what's amazing and, and you know, I have to think it's it's the training they received that really kept their minds where, where it needed to be. But also, um and this I didn't learn until I kind of read the book but the, the pilots, all kind of had this similar mentality, kind of a devil may care. I'm the boss and'm, you know, very, very smart, and that was my grandpa. So that helped a lot in these situations to just keep my cool. And in fact the story is told that his co-pilot, who was supposed to also stay up at the helm as well, immediately left to get out of the plane. So anyway, there are a few escape hatches in the plane. One of them is almost right underneath the pilots, just slightly behind them, on the left side of the plane, all the front people, the bombardier and navigator and the I can't remember the gunner up at the front and the two pilots. That was their escape hatch and it's a small door that's about two feet by two feet. So the door opened towards the front and it did that so that it wouldn't come unlatched during flight. Any wind resistance is going to keep that door shut, which is what you want, unless you're trying to get out. The door had a couple of hinges and these hinges had hinge pins with a wire attached to them. If you had to escape, you had to pull the wire and it would pull these hinge pins out and the door would open the opposite direction and fly away and you'd be able to get out just fine. Well, as my grandpa was trying to keep this plane steady, he hears all kinds of commotion happening down below and later learned that the hinge pins did not pull, so the wires, as they pulled them, broke and the door did not open. So now they're trying to figure out well, you know, can we push this plane now going 200 miles an hour? Can we push this door open? And they could not get it, they could not budget.

Jason Terry:

What he learned later is they figured out they had one person put themselves against the bulkhead of the plane, the inside hallway, uh wall of the plane while the other person pushed against the door. This person who was, uh, who was against the bulkhead, was pushing on their back with with his feet. So with, with the power of two people, you could get one person out. So that's what they figured out. And so they did this one by one, and after my grandpa figured okay, everybody's got to be out right now. I don't hear anything. Now it's my turn to try to get out. So he makes his way towards this door and finds one person there who quickly tells him here's what happened, here's what you got to do. Put your back on the bulkhead, push me out with your feet. So my grandpa quickly does that, and that's the point where he realizes now what do I do?

Crista Cowan:

I'm stuck here, nobody there to push him.

Jason Terry:

Right, and one of the fun things about this, this story, he always includes this, this part of the story. He'll backtrack and I have to say so. We have some recordings of him telling stories and I listened to it yesterday just to hear his voice again, and I haven't listened to it for a long, long time. But it's interesting because he will tell like partial stories. He'll start with this half story and then this half story and then I'll go into the story I'm telling and then he'll go back to these stories and tie them all together.

Jason Terry:

So, anyway, the story that he goes to is a primary class when he was about nine years old and his teacher was Sister Duckworth and there were a bunch of nine-year-old boys, crazy boys, in this class and at one point they were being a little rambunctious and I'm assuming the lesson was about prayer. But she loses it and she basically says all right, boys, shut up and listen At some point and I have it written down but at some point you're going to need to know what we're talking about and, in essence, the power of prayer is real and you're going to need to know how to pray and to listen for answers. But that's not enough. You then need to follow whatever you feel or hear relative to the prayer that you're offering. I said that way more eloquently than I'm sure she did to them and he did in his story.

Jason Terry:

But interesting that this is the story that comes to his mind in this moment, right On the plane, and this is why he said you know, when people are having these near death experiences, you hear, my whole life went before me in my, in my head. And he said I don't remember if my whole life went before me, but that event came to my mind at that time. So he said I, I said the, the longest, shortest prayer ever. And um. And he says I still do not know how I got out, but I know that I received some answer and I followed whatever it said. He said I don't know if the door actually did open the way it was supposed to or if somehow I was given extra power to get through that door, but I got through that door.

Jason Terry:

So he is now out and you know he's got the beautiful countryside below him. And then he looks out and realizes, oh, I'm falling a whole lot faster than I thought I was. I better hurry and pull my cord to open up my parachute. And so he does so. And his second thought is I opened my parachute way too early. And you know these are the days, these are huge white parachutes and very obvious and the reason In enemy territory Exactly Now.

Crista Cowan:

They're targets, yeah and very obvious.

Jason Terry:

And and the reason enemy territory, now they're targets, yeah, the reason you don't open early? Because, because you don't want to be seen. So anyway, he opens it early and and continues falling down and and as he's going down he sees a a little cottage in in the countryside and, uh, there there are people outside the cottage waving at him and he's thinking, by god, I've, I've landed in friendly territory and these people, they're going to help me out. So he said we learned a little bit, like if you tug on the strings you might be able to move your parachute just a little bit. So he's trying to maneuver his parachute closer to them and they're far enough away that he can't really see.

Jason Terry:

As he gets a little closer he realizes that these people are not people waving at him, these are German soldiers shooting at him. So then he tries to tug the other way and he can't get very far. And you know, you have a little training with parachute landings. But he had a terrible parachute landing. Basically he said I landed on my heels and my head, my back, and kind of seeing stars and days a little bit. And at this point, and he wasn't that far away from these, these soldiers and these soldiers approach him, and so they didn't even point their guns at me or anything.

Crista Cowan:

They just said come so and at this point is he alone, or is the rest of his crew kind of landed in the same vicinity, totally alone.

Jason Terry:

He has no idea where they are. He's got these soldiers that are asking him to come. He's got his flight suit on, but they talk about because it's so cold up in the air they would often wear their dress uniform underneath their flight suit. So they, you know, they ask him to remove his flight suit. And he's got this dress uniform on, and at that point one of these German officers who speaks perfect English, says are you late for the tea party? Something to that effect. And you know he's just way overdressed for the situation. And so they there's three or four of them they put them in the car and decide that they're going to take him to their interrogation center, and, but this is still, they're still in enemy territory, and so there's a lot of concerns of planes coming and bombing them. So a lot of the travel they did late, you know, from dusk to dawn. At some point they became tired and you know these German officers stopped to rest. A couple of them got out to lay down on the ground to actually sleep. The one in the car was in the driver's seat and was supposed to stay awake, and so I think it was Henry Scheingold, or Henry was the other person's, the other prisoner that was in with him, so this other member of the plane that they had found. They ended up in the same car together and so they are kind of planning you know, let's pretend like we're asleep, maybe this driver will fall asleep and we'll be able to get out. They finally hear this driver snoring a little bit and they Morse code to each other, you know G-O, and what they decided was Henry would go first, he would give him a few minutes head start and then my grandpa would get out, so they're able to open the door quietly. Henry gets out and and is free.

Jason Terry:

My grandpa is now left in this car. He remembers that there had been some hand grenades in in the front compartment of the car, the jockey box, and so he actually grabbed a hand grenade right before he got out Right, devil may care. So as he opens the door and steps one foot out, he grabs a hand grenade. As soon as he unwaits the seat it squeaks and immediately the driver wakes up and starts yelling and my grandpa's like I'm out of here. So he starts running and runs.

Jason Terry:

It's pitch black and he runs right into a hedgerow and he said it was like a brick wall, like it was so thick, knocked him down and he's like now what do I do? Like I'm not going to get recaptured. So he ends up running down down the lane along the hedgerow and the German officers is yelling at him and ultimately pulled out his gun and start shooting at my grandpa. Here's four shots and in one of these shots actually it hit him. He spun around and fell down on his face. And he starts kind of doing an inventory and realizes that he was just grazed on his, on one of his arms left arm, we'll say and and near his biceps, up near the top of the arm. It had gone through his flight jacket. He could find the holes and just recognize that was just, he was just grazed.

Jason Terry:

So he's on the ground and trying to figure out what do I do now? And and you know, thinks okay, well, it's pitch black, they can't see me. So maybe the german, german officer will run past me or will stop running because they can't see me. So that's what he's thinking. And this officer actually keeps running and ends up running right over the top of my grandpa. So one foot on his back and one foot on his head. So he's captured again and when he stepped on his head it actually knocked him out and he talks about the blessing that was because he just got beat up at that point. So the next thing my grandpa remembers, he wakes up tied to a tree, his arms are up in the air, he can barely touch his feet to the ground. He recognizes that it's morning. So he's been in this tree for a long time but he can't see. So he's's again just checking his body out, like okay, there's veins everywhere and um, but I can't see. And really concerned about that, you could tell one of his eyes was swollen, almost shut.

Jason Terry:

Over the next few days he's interrogated a few times and ends up in a german prisoner of war camp. This is august of of 1944. Uh, he said this camp had thousands of prisoners and over, you know, hundreds square acres of terrain. I mean, you know a lot of men here and I do remember he told escape stories growing up and I don't know. I always assumed they were escape stories from his own camp, but as I look back they might not have been, because some of them were really outrageous. You know he talked about a man who was given the task of painting lines on the road in camp. As he got to the gate of camp, they opened it up and he continued painting lines until he got around a bend and then they never saw him again. So little stories like this.

Jason Terry:

Anyway, a few months later, christmas comes back home. His wife, when he was first caught, had no idea how he was, if he was alive or not. They knew that he was missing and she came home one day, in fact the day that she learned she was pregnant. She came home and my grandpa's parents were sitting with her parents and and you know, bev, we've got something to tell you. And she's like no, no, wait, wait, I've got something to tell you guys first. So she shares her news, and then they, they share the news and your grandpa, your, your husband's missing in action. And and you know it's fascinating she's 17 at the time. So can you imagine a 17-year-old, married, pregnant and loses a husband all in the same year? Just yeah. Anyway, she ended up going back into her room and said a prayer and during that prayer she received a confirmation that your husband is okay. She always knew in her heart that he was okay. Anyway, a month or so later, they started to receive some correspondence. Prisoners of war were allowed two or three postcards a month.

Crista Cowan:

That seems odd, right, yeah.

Jason Terry:

And I've got the postcards as well. I've got images of the postcards and some of them are blackened out, and so they learned really quickly what you could and couldn't say. And she was able to write him as well. So there was some correspondence back and forth so he knew that she was pregnant. And Christmas he talks about really dreaming and thinking about this future with Bev and that's what consumed his thoughts that Christmas time.

Jason Terry:

Christmas Day, some of the German officers came to each of the barracks and said the Red Cross has given you some packages and the problem is there's not enough packages for every man. In fact, there's only enough packages for two per barracks. So 250 men in the barracks. There's two of them for for these 250 men. They decided that they would do a raffle and so they put all their names in a in a hat and selected these names and my grandpa was one of these. That that won the raffle and and was just flabbergasted and grabbed his little package and went to his room and there were 24 others in his room and started 23 others, 24 total and started opening this package and pulling the things out of this package and it wasn't that big but there was some chocolate, a little bit of sugar, a few other things, and then this journal, this wartime log. That truly was the treasure of that package for our family, sorry, anyway.

Jason Terry:

As he looked at everything in this package and saw all the other 23 men around him wishing it was them that got all of these amazing gifts, in his mind, he realized, you know, first of all I haven't had anything sweet for six months. So, hallelujah, I've got chocolate and sugar. And followed really quickly with how can I share this with these 23 men? Sorry, okay, sorry, okay, um, and decided you know, I have, I have what I need here to make some fudge. So he made a, a pan, out of a. It was a clem can. Uh, clem is milk, spelled backwards. So their milk came in these cans, clem cans, and they weren't that big. But he fashioned this little pan, very small, I don't know, maybe six inches by four inches pan, out of this can. That's what he cooked and made his fudge with. He vaguely remembered how to make fudge and, thankfully remembered enough what he could add that would make some kind of yummy treat. And all the men are there watching him and just smelling the smells and, again, just wishing that it was them that could have this.

Jason Terry:

As the fudge was completed and cooled, he cut that little fudge can into 24 pieces and you know the men still don't know what's coming. But he told each of them I'm going to give you a little piece of this fudge. And it wasn't that big I mean talk about the size of a fingernail, like there is not that much fudge. But he gave each, each man, a piece of this fudge and that, you know, these men were so grateful.

Jason Terry:

You know, just one little tiny piece of fudge made a big difference on that christmas day for a lot of people and he talked about, you know, some men just threw it in their mouth and chewed it up and swallowed it as quickly as they could and others savored it and, you know, sucked on it and he was left with a pan and his one little piece of fudge. And he talks about how he spent the next three days eating, just eating little tiny pieces of that fudge at a time. An interesting side note as he returned home and talked about this fudge story, he decided to make fudge the same way he had made it. He said it was the worst thing he'd ever eaten. So kind of tells you where these men were in depravity of good tasting food.

Crista Cowan:

So this is not a family recipe that's going to be passed down.

Jason Terry:

I have the recipe, but no, we have never used it. So just a fantastic legacy, really. Two lessons that he taught us all, all of us grandkids, as we heard the story, and his kids as well, you know. The first is the importance of serving, of looking outward, and it doesn't take a lot. You know, a little tiny corner of fudge the size of your fingernail made such a huge difference to these men. And the second one is, again, he always tied it back to prayer. The power of prayer is real and you will receive answers, but stress the importance of doing something with those answers. You can't just let them, let them sit. You've got to be actively pursuing whatever it is.

Crista Cowan:

You talk about his legacy of service and you see it through that whole story, right, it's as the pilot. He's the last one off the plane, which means everybody else goes first, as he's in the car with Henry, henry goes first, like, and he's the one who's left behind and trapped in that situation. And so this culmination of you know, making the fudge for these men and sharing that is really like a pattern of behavior that he's already developed in his life. And so, as you're growing up and hearing that story, like, how does that like? Does that affect you in that way? Is that something that like? Is your family a culture of service because of that legacy? Or did some people not catch on to that lesson Like, what does that look like?

Jason Terry:

That's a great question and I would say yes, you know, I look at my extended family, but also my siblings, and we grew up with this mentality always looking outward. Family, but also my siblings, and we grew up with this mentality always looking outward, and part of it is making sure you're in the right space, where you need to be going to take care of yourself first, obviously, but once you are there, looking outward is where any joy and peace comes, and that's a pattern that I felt in my own life I'll never forget as a youth I think I was 12 or 13, my dad was our leader at church and there was an older lady in her late 80s. She lived in one of the old, original houses of Alpine. I mean, it was an old house and I think it had its original paint on it and he decided we're going to go paint Pearl Street's house for her and we had a professional painter in our ward and so they got together and figured out how can we do this? What would the cost be? So we just figured out how to make it work and anyway we had her leave her house. She was gone for three days and we had to scrape it down. I mean it was peeling and it was a lot of work. I think we painted more of ourselves and her trees than the house but after three days we got the house painted and it was such a joy to me.

Jason Terry:

That was really my first big service experience and the favorite part of that story is as she was brought home by her daughter. They turned to the driveway and Pearl looked up at her house and she's like this is not my house. They turned to the driveway and Pearl looked up at her house and she's like this is not my house and was just so touched at the service that was rendered. You know, something that she couldn't do because she didn't have the funding or the ability, and we were able to do so. That's something my dad taught me. And there were so many other experiences where service first really has become my mantra and my. My peace and joy truly comes from serving others, and I would love to say I'm perfect and I'm not but um, but I always, I always feel the greatest peace and joy in my life when I'm looking outward and serving others. And you know you're pointing out that that it comes from my grandpa Um, yeah, um, so definitely that is has exuded from him to his kids and posterity.

Crista Cowan:

Sounds like it. Yeah, you lost your grandfather when you were a teenager. You also lost your father fairly young. Yeah, how old was he?

Jason Terry:

So he was 48.

Crista Cowan:

Okay, and how old were you at the time?

Jason Terry:

I was 24. Okay, yeah.

Crista Cowan:

And so you have this legacy that's been passed down and these things that are instilled in you. How do you maintain that in the loss of that relationship?

Jason Terry:

It's a good question and I think the easy answer is remember, which isn't easy, but, but there are events that happen. You know, I've got two other brothers and spending time with them. Little nuances, they have remind me of my dad. My dad was also. He served in the church, similar callings as me, which I think about him a lot as I try to determine what would he do and how would he relate or react in these situations. And how would he relate or react in these situations? He influenced a lot of people because of who he was, because of his ability to connect.

Crista Cowan:

So these stories help as well? Definitely, yeah. Stories, I think, are probably the way that humans have transmitted information and connection for all of humankind, and I think it's the way we keep our families connected as well and keep those memories alive. So, as you look forward to the future with your children, what is it that you hope for the future in passing on your grandfather's legacy, your father's legacy? What does that look like?

Jason Terry:

You know, I look at my grandpa's life. He had this incredible event that affected a lot of people and I look at my life and think I'm so boring. I got nothing. So and I, you know, I've always called myself Joe Average at everything, which maybe sets me apart a little bit. And you know, I don't know it's. I hope through you know, they've heard the story. They don't connect to it the way I do. I mentioned this little book that was written by Gerald Lund For one of our road trips. We listened to the book and I think they were interested, but it just doesn't resonate with them because they didn't know him and because the times were so different. So you know, how do I share that? You know, again, sharing the story helps, but I think sharing my story and how it relates to my dad and my grandpa is probably the best way to do that and I need to do better with that. I definitely I'm not. I'm not the storyteller. They are, they were something I can do better definitely.

Crista Cowan:

Well, you did beautifully today.

Jason Terry:

Thank you.

Crista Cowan:

So thank you. Thank you for sharing your grandfather with us, but also just that concept of that connective tissue of story I think is important. It's something that I talk about a lot here, and so if you're inspired to do better, I think we all are as well. So thank you.

Jason Terry:

Thank you, thanks for this time. It's been fantastic. Yeah, reminiscing can be living, it's important. Yeah, definitely.

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Crista Cowan | The Barefoot Genealogist

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